Impactos y agencias desde la globalización alimentaria: una etnografía del sector del fruto rojo en la provincia de Huelva

Abstract

This doctoral thesis aims to provide an approach to the socio-labour dynamics faced by those working in the intensive globalised production of red fruit or berries. The red fruit encompasses the production of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. Strawberry is the most traded product, but the diversification of the producing countries covering the four fruits is increasing. It is a crop of global socio-economic relevance, as strawberries are grown in 85 countries and marketed in 180, according to the latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). This global notion affects the actors involved in the different stages of the production and marketing chain, and we are interested in the essential workers who are in charge of harvesting and handling the fruit. Our case study is geographically delimited in the strawberry-growing villages in the province of Huelva, Andalusia, which are popularly known as such, as they were pioneers in the introduction of strawberry cultivation, which later diversified to the point of being able to talk about red fruit. ¶ ¶ The intention of this thesis is to transmit a broad idea of the processes that take place behind a food production that could be extrapolated to other products, as the parameters of the food market today are developed around the same business model. It is essential to outline the global perspective in order to analyse the Andalusian context and specifically the Huelva context as the result of a broad idiosyncrasy, which cannot be understood without migratory processes. Of course, the problem is not in the globalisation of food or in the mobility of people, but in the terms and conditions of both the movements and the working conditions assigned to these people.