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Fields of Obligation: Rooting Ethical Consumption in Kenyan Horticulture

Dolan, Catherine

Authors



Abstract

It was not so long ago that mangoes, papaya and snow peas evoked images of tropical climes and exotic peoples. Recently, however, the consumption of so-called luxury fruits and vegetables has elicited a different sort of imagery. Far from the lure of seductive landscapes, today’s consumer is confronted with haunting images of toxic fields, child slavery and the African poor. Such images are part of a new morality of consumption, where consumers, NGOs, trade unions and global supermarkets aspire to ‘save’ the African worker from the downside of globalization. This article explores the ways in which Kenya’s highly valuable vegetable trade has become the field on which notions of justice, economic rights and African development are played out. Based on archival research and consumer interviews, it focusses specifically on how the ethical turn of UK consumers (and the retailers’ branding of this sensibility) is rooted in an older legacy, whereby 19th-century liberal considerations of duty, morality and progress inhabited the agenda of the late colonial state. The article suggests that, in both cases, African labor is an arena in which discourses of justice are played out, as a consuming public (re)constitute the African worker as an object of their duty and obligation.

Citation

Dolan, C. (2005). Fields of Obligation: Rooting Ethical Consumption in Kenyan Horticulture. Journal of Consumer Culture, 5(3), 365-389. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540505056796

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jan 1, 2005
Deposit Date Jan 28, 2015
Journal Journal of Consumer Culture
Print ISSN 1469-5405
Electronic ISSN 1741-2900
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 5
Issue 3
Pages 365-389
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540505056796