Emancipation Day in Georgetown

Friday was August 1st which is also known as Emancipation Day in the Caribbean*. This was the day, in 1834, that the Slavery Abolition Act ended slavery in the British Empire, although a four year "apprenticeship" was put in its place whereby the freed slaves were still bound to their "masters". In St. Vincent August 1st is a public holiday and from what I have read it is actually used to commemorate the slavery, through contemplative speeches and public events.

We spent Friday in Georgetown, supposedly the nation's second largest town, although a town that strikes us as being way past its prime. It was once prosperous as the center of the island's sugar industry. But today sugar is a thing of the past, and so it seems, is Georgetown. Driving through you are likely to remember the wore-down and abandoned houses rather than the ones with a fresh lick of paint. Yet, this "has-been" town is still home to some people who believe in a better future - through Fairtrade. And that is why this town may be where we nest for the next year.


We had come to Georgetown in high spirits. The trip had been suggested in my meeting with WINFA on Tuesday. They thought it could be a good location for the research as there is lots bananas grown in the area and much of it by Fairtrade farmers. They even knew of a lady, herself a banana farmer, who was looking to rent out a self contained apartment (with a washing machine!). What was more, there would be an "activity" in Georgetown on Friday (no mention of Emancipation Day) hosted by the Grand Sable** Fairtrade unit. I had asked if I could bring Silje and Ella and the answer was a definitive "yes". It would be that kind of family event, with sports and a BBQ. But it would also give me a chance to meet some faces in the banana industry. Mr. Arthur Bobb (head of the WINFA Fairtrade unit) offered to give us I ride up there and I accepted gratefully.

I don't know quite how I had imagined Georgetown, but I hadn't been aware of the deterioration that would meet us. Don't get me wrong, it is not a ghost town, but there is something strange about places like these which slip quietly into history - at least I suppose when you, like me, are used to seeing "progress" everyhwere. The apartment was fine - actually better than what we would have expected to find. It was a bit sparsely furnished, perhaps, but spacious enough and self-contained as promised. Our main worry is that it may get a bit stuffy, located as it is on the ground floor. Actually, the landlady rents out an apartment above as well , and this one has balconies on both sides, but unfortunately for us it is occupied by an American peace corpse volunteer until March. We'll have to make do with this one and a few fans can make a huge difference.

Not that Friday was very hot. It may actually have been the coolest day since we came to the island, much due to a rare cloud cover and the heavy weather which was brewing as we were inside looking at the apartment. Not long after stepping outside again we had to seek refuge in Bobb's car as the wind picked up and the rain started pouring. We drove through Georgetown on the empty main street (the only street), the ocean a stone's throw to our right. In between the houses we could see waves crash in on the volcanic black beach. A few nondescript shops remained open, beer advertisements decorating their doors. The odd pack of stray dogs slinked between goats and fowl.

At one point we passed the playing field which was also to be the site of "the activity". Cricket players had sought refuge under concrete stands and a BBQ kitchen tent was battling against the wind. A banner carrying the Fairtrade logo was twisted up and unreadable. There would be no point in stopping there if this weather kept up, said Bobb a bit gloomily. He was concerned about the bananas, too. "This weather could be enough to do real damage", he muttered. While we were waiting to see if the skies would clear up, Bobb gave us a tour of some fruit groves, belonging to Montaque, a processing plant and subsidiary of WINFA. Apparently there were guavas, wax apples, star fruit (locally known as five fingers), cashews and passion fruit just to name the few I remember, but the weather did not permit a close inspection of the trees. A watchman hid from the rain in a tool shed but greeted Bobb respectfully.

The wind did die down and we returned to the playing field and "the activity". Yet, Bobb was still hesitant. He figured few people would bother to show up now. And the cricket match had been called off, leaving us with no entertainment. Still we stayed for a while as a few people hung around and the ktichen was dishing up some good-looking chow. What followed was about as stark a contrast to my experience with fieldwork in Sri Lanka as could be. Silje and I were quite simply ignored by most people there. No smiles. No questions. No curious glances. We felt lost and a little worried as we ate our food alone, unsuccessfull at engaging anyone in conversation. Ella was the only one able to draw some response.*** Bobb was still there but absorbed in discussion with old friends and colleagues and I didn't want to cling to him. Occasionally he came my way and introduced me to someone, like the head of Grand Sable Fairtrade group, or Simeon Greene who has held a number of important positions within the banana industry, or Senator Saboto Caesar of the ruling ULP party. These people would say a few encouraging words and wish me good luck, but that was it really. We were left to ourselves again.

Back in our comfortable flat in Villa a few hours later we were left to digest the experience and make some sense of it. In Sri Lanka people would have been all over us with questions and friendly chatter. In a way I am glad not to get all the attention, something I was never very comfortable with in South Asia. But had we been given a cold sholder? Was it hostility or shyness that had isolated us, or perhaps people were just a bit pissed off about the weather ruining the day? I don't know, but the question, while intriguing us, also had us enough concerned to start looking for alternative field sites. Mespo (Mesopotamia) came to mind and we headed there today (Monday) to snook around and get a feel of the place. More about that tomorrow!


* Although (I believe) all the former British Caribbean colonies commemorate this day, some do it on the first Monday in August, as did SVG use to.
** Just south of Georgetown proper.
*** Vincentians are crazy for babies and even seemingly indifferent and rather frightening looking young men will smile and wave to Ella (who laughs cheerfully back at them).


BTW: While browsing for pictures of Georgetown (which there aren't many of) I came across this website with loads of great pictures from St. Vincent. I borrowed the above picture of Georgetown from it while the top picture was taken from this site, which also has some great shots.

Three years down the road

Alas, the anthropologist blogs again! And why...? Perhaps because the anthropologist would rather share experiences with living people than with notebooks and fieldnote databases? Because writing field notes is exhausting work demanding accuracy and attention to detail rather than dwelling on vague impressions? Yeah, something like that. In the three years that have passed after leaving Sri Lanka the thought of blogging has hardly crossed my mind. Yet here I am, doing it again, on the fourth day after arriving for a new fieldwork, this time in the tiny eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent.

A short recap (or an update/introduction to those who don't know me all that well):

• August 2005: Returned to Trondheim, Norway from M.Sc. fieldwork in Sri Lanka
  
• June 2006: Turned in and defended the thesis ("Making a Home Away from Home - On Up-country Tamil Identity and Social Complexity at a Sri lankan University")
  
• 2006-2007: Held part-time teaching position at NTNU
• July 2007: Bought an appartment with Silje
• October 2007: Ella Leona was born
• November 2007: Took up position as PhD Research Fellow at NTNU
• March 2008: Married Silje
  
• July 2008: Arrived in St. Vincent along with Silje and Ella to do fieldwork for my doctoral thesis

A word or two about why we chose to go to St. Vincent and what I intend to do here may also be in order. It was on returning to Norway that I first really noticed and caught an interest in Fairtrade and the social and environmental labeling of products more generally. Looking into the research done on producers included in such schemes I found anthropologists and long-term, exploratory reseach to be largely lacking. Impact studies tend to be carried out by economists or sociologists, using mathematical models, samples, interviews and surveys. Few people bother to stick around in one place long enough to be able to challenge the appearances presented to them.

Fairtrade is getting to be a big thing - no longer easily dismissed as niche markets. The estimated total retail value of Fairtrade certified products almost tripled from € 832 million in 2004 to € 2,381 million in 2007. The annual growth in sales has been around 40 % for the past five years (FLO-I). This explosive growth occurs while the WTO and champions of neoliberalism are continuing to push for what they see as fair trade, that is free trade. In the Caribbean context this is felt severely by the marginal banana farmers who are losing preferential access to European markets as the WTO demands an end to such practices. The WTO has ruled that the tariffs leveled by the EU on non ACP banana-producing countries is unfair, which means that the American based multinationals Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte, who already control most trade in bananas and who get their bananas from the larger and more effective Latin-American banana plantations will grab even larger market shares. The household based Caribbean banana farms can never compete with these supersized plantations. Much as a result of the Banana wars (the term used to refer to the long-lasting disagreement between the EU on the one side and Latin American producers of dollar bananas and the US on the other. For recent developments, see e.g. here) Vincentian farmers started seeking Fairtrade certification, seeing it as the only way to stay in business. Today the entire banana industry of the island is switching to Fairtrade in order to stay afloat.

I am here to see how this is working out. But rather than doing an impact study on Fairtrade per sé, I am interested in Fairtrade as one example of standardisation of agricultural practices. Another example, of course, is organic farming, not practiced here now (but perhaps sometime in the future). There are other standards as well, such as GlobalGAP, and then there are EU regulations. There are in fact heaps of people who directly or indirectly want a say in how bananas (and other agricultural products) are produced and my task is to attain some idea on how all these demands are felt and dealt with by the farmers themselves. That is the short version, anyway.

Before wiping the dust off this blog I re-read the last post I wrote in Sri Lanka. So much has happened since then, in my life and in the lives of the students I learned to know there, and I have still not been able to go back for a visit. In fact, I planned to do parts of this research on Fairtrade tea estates in the Sri Lankan up-country, but came to realize that the main reasons I had for doing that were not professional but personal. And with Sri Lanka slipping back into war, taking Ella and Silje there began to seem like a poor idea. I decided to rewrite my project and do the entire thing in the Caribbean. It was a decision saturated with guilt just for being in the position to choose in the first place. It was another tentacle of the Kilopus letting go, and it is with some reluctance I am preparing to wrap myself to this island in stead. Yet, here we are, and updates on our progress will follow. Stay tuned!