Overview

Quinoa rose to global stardom pitched as an unparalleled sustainable development opportunity that heralded a bright future for rural communities devastated by decades of rural-urban migration, civil war, and state neglect. The Quinoa Bust is based in a longitudinal ethnography centered around Puno, Peru, the main quinoa production area in the world's chief quinoa exporting country. This book traces the social, ecological, technological, and political work that went into transforming a humble Andean grain into a development miracle crop and also highlights that project's unintended consequences. The Quinoa Bust shows how even efforts based in the best of intentions—counteracting the homogenization of global food supply, empowering small-scale farmers, revaluing local food cultures, and adapting agricultural systems to climate change—can generate new kinds of oppression. At a time when so-called forgotten foods are increasingly positioned as sustainable development tools, The Quinoa Bust offers a cautionary tale of fleeting benefits and ambivalent results.

Full Product Details

Author:   Emma McDonell
Publisher:   University of California Press
Imprint:   University of California Press
Volume:   84
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9780520401716

ISBN 10:   0520401719
Pages:   328
Publication Date:   18 February 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

Contents Note on Names and Places  Quinoa Timeline  Introduction: Quinoa’s Promise  Part one Miracle Crop 1 • Reimagining the Future of a Neglected Crop  2 • Whitening a Comida de Indios: Culinary Bioprospecting and the Inca Superfood  Part two Boom 3 • The Quinoa Frontier: Making a Productive and Orderly Landscape  4 • Producing Good Quinoa: The Moral Politics of Quality Standards  Part three Bust 5 • Disarticulations: Uneven Risks and Fragile Relations in the Quinoa Bust 6 • Fragmented Knowledge and Intractable Residues in the Quinoa Supply Chain  7 • (Re)building Reputation: Origin-Based Labels and the Elusive Promise of Differentiation  Conclusion  Acknowledgments  Appendix: Quinoa Production, Export, and Price Charts  Notes  Bibliography  Index

Reviews

“A valuable resource that offers insights into the author’s collaborative efforts with farmers to collect data, connect with key individuals, and conduct surveys of farmer associations. This book is recommended for students of rural development, ethnoecology, and economic botany.” * Ethnobotany and Economic Botany *

Author Information

Emma McDonell is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and coauthor of Critical Approaches to Superfoods.

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