Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: April 2, 2021 at 12:21:48 PM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Africa]: Maddox on Styles, 'Roses from Kenya: > Labor, Environment, and the Global Trade in Cut Flowers' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Megan A. Styles. Roses from Kenya: Labor, Environment, and the > Global Trade in Cut Flowers. Culture, Place, and Nature Series. > Seattle University of Washington Press, 2019. Illustrations, map, > charts. 256 pp. $30.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-295-74650-0; $95.00 > (cloth), ISBN 978-0-295-74651-7. > > Reviewed by Gregory H. Maddox (Texas Southern University) > Published on H-Africa (April, 2021) > Commissioned by David D. Hurlbut > > Megan Styles has written an anthropology of place based on the export > cut-flower industry in Naivasha, Kenya. In her analysis, place stands > for the center of a web that connects mostly foreign-owned factory > farms producing flowers to grace the tables of Europeans; the > descendants of the Maa-speaking communities displaced first by white > settlers and then by the farms; the workers who have come from all > over Kenya to labor in them; the Kenyan professionals and skilled > workers who make up the middle class in this enterprise and have > their own connections of politics and patronage linking them to both > workers and broader Kenyan circles; and the whites, both ex-patriot > and Kenyan, who own and control the industry. While she locates this > nexus within the geographic and environmental confines of Naivasha, > hers is not a history of a landscape but a study of the social, > political, and economic interactions that have for a time created > Naivasha as a "nerve center" in local, national, and global networks. > > Styles frames her work around the anthropology of place as a social > construction. She highlights the export cut-flower industry that grew > up in Naivasha as a nexus of potential that drew capital and workers > from Kenya and the world. Styles situates the development of the > industry in the neoliberal moment that began in the 1980s in Africa. > Chapter 1 seeks to physically situate the place that came to house > this nexus. Ironically, this chapter represents perhaps the weakest > part of her argument. In a work centered around the concept of place, > the landscape of Naivasha remains ascribed, not described. Rather > than being integrated as an actor, as in the best environmental > scholarship, the landscape in this chapter remains a captive of the > human forces acting on it, from Maa-speaking pastoralists to white > settlers to flower entrepreneurs to the communal politics of > postcolonial Kenya. The 2007 postelection violence that shook Kenya > took place during her fieldwork. Famously, some its most deadly > outbreaks took place among the workers' settlements around Naivasha. > Styles' analysis of the conflicts is circumspect. > > From there, Styles moves to firmer ground when she locates four > distinct groups or institutions drawn to and linked with the nexus of > flowers in Naivasha. She analyzes in turn what has drawn workers, > middle-class Kenyan professionals, the state and its functionaries, > and white farm managers, both Kenyan and expatriate, to Naivasha. For > workers, the lure of flowers is the opportunity to gain access to > resources through wage employment. Styles illustrates the way many > workers remained linked to a home place where any resources accessed > go to build ties in home communities and provide education for > children. She shows how solidarity as workers vies with communal ties > and patronage networks to make life survivable while also placing > limits on aspirations. She also situates Black Kenyan members of the > middle class inside patronage networks, which are sometimes overtly > political but at others linked internationally to professional, NGO, > corporate, and governmental networks. For both workers and the Kenyan > middle class, life remains "slippery" in Naivasha. > > Styles then analyzes the "government" as a separate actor and > conflates within that section an analysis of the Kenyan state, > corporate interests, and public pressure, primarily in Europe, to > ensure that products sold in Europe were produced "ethically." She > situates state and corporate action as transitioning from a > "rollback," or destructive phase of neoliberalism that sought to > dismantle economic controls seen as hindering capitalist > productivity, to a "rollout," or creative phase that sees corporate > interests partner with the state to achieve goals such as ensuring > enough water in Naivasha to continue to produce flowers and mandating > at least minimal standards for working conditions, the latter goal > often phrased as ensuring that all producers, large and small, face > the same conditions. Styles finally turns to the networks of whites, > both Kenyan and expatriate, that work in the farms. She notes the > existence of occasional animosity between the two groups, as both > seek in different ways to find or maintain a sense of belonging in > postcolonial Kenya. For expatriates, this effort means defining > themselves as playing a role in the development of Kenya as a modern > economy. For white Kenyan citizens, it means claiming a particular > tie to the land, especially in Naivasha as formerly part of the White > Highlands, that in many ways they privilege as stronger and deeper > than even those of the African communities displaced for white > settlement at the beginning of the twentieth century. > > Styles has produced an insightful work filled with evocative > analysis. She shows the links stretching from the homes of the > workers across Kenya to supermarkets in urban centers in Europe, from > the halls of power in Nairobi to the stock exchanges in Amsterdam, to > the shores of the lake. Styles shows how these links create a place, > at least for a while. The final insight of the work lies in the > transitory nature of the nexus she describes. Commercial flower > farming in Kenya and Naivasha developed relatively recently and has > already seen changes in the source of its capital as more comes from > the developing economies of Asian, and is perhaps being challenged by > geothermal energy as the most important way to exploit the recourses > of the area. The very nexus she analyzes may be as slippery as its > denizens describe their place in it. > > Citation: Gregory H. Maddox. Review of Styles, Megan A., _Roses from > Kenya: Labor, Environment, and the Global Trade in Cut Flowers_. > H-Africa, H-Net Reviews. April, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55904 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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