In the Shadows of State and Capital: The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900-1995 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: In the Shadows of State and Capital: The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900-1995 Rachel Corr Steve Striffler, In the Shadows of State and Capital: The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900–1995. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002) Ecuador’s economic history is characterized by booms and busts of exports in cacao, the banana, and petroleum. In the Shadows of State and Capital traces the history of the United Fruit Company in “one of the most productive agricultural zones in the world” (11) on Ecuador’s southern coast, and the transition from enclave capitalism to contract capitalism. Striffler specifically examines the role of landless peasants in shaping this transition. Through organization, the use of state agencies, and persistence, peasants and former employees of United Fruit acquired land that belonged to the company. What ensued was a process by which contract farming, in the hands of local capitalists, replaced the multinational corporation and its enclave in Ecuador. In short, multinationals contracted large landowners who employed poorly paid, non-organized landless laborers. Such a system allows multinational corporations to maintain control over the production process but avoid the risks involved in direct employment. The focus of the study is the Hacienda Tenguel. United Fruit purchased Hacienda Tenguel in 1934, lost lands to peasants and ex-workers in the 1950s and 1960s, and joined other multinational corporations in controlling the production process through contracts with local capitalists in the mid 1970s. Throughout this transition from the multinational enclave to contract farming, Ecuadorian and international planners have viewed Tenguel as a microcosm of economic and political processes affecting the nation. Through a combination of research based on United Fruit archives and interviews with former employees, Striffler shows how the events on one hacienda were affected by global politics, national fears of communism, and conflicting interests in the state. A significant contribution of this study is that it shows not only how global capitalism affected local peasants, but also how local peasant activities helped shape global capitalism. The analysis goes beyond the paradigm of a strong/weak state in allowing the “penetration” of multinational corporations. Rather, Striffler shows that the state itself is fragmented and constituted by actors with conflicting interests. The strength of the work is the focus on the role of individual actors, in the process of land invasion, cooperative formation, legal recognition, and the subsequent loss of autonomy to the state and local capitalists. Striffler carefully analyzes the role of peasant organizations, labor unions, students, lawyers, a Catholic priest, Spanish activists, multinational corporations, hacendados, local capitalists, the police and the military, and the relationships between these different groups. He traces the changing politics of the Ecuadorian Institute of Agrarian Reform and Colonization (IERAC) over time, and the effects of these changes on peasant autonomy and access to resources. The roles of these local and regional actors are analyzed within the historical context of contemporary political culture. The book is divided into two parts. Part One, “The World of Plantations,” analyzes the history of the United Fruit enclave system in Ecuador. United Fruit purchased the Hacienda Tenguel in 1934 and maintained control over land, labor and production throughout the mid 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Chapter 3,”Birth of an Enclave,” is worth reading for its detailed description of life in Tenguel as a family community over which the corporation maintained paternalistic control. This chapter includes rich details based on interviews from those who remember life on the enclave. The author pays careful attention to the effects of the plantation on constructions of gender. Women were excluded from plantation work but encouraged to put their energy into the perceived women’s domains of community, school, and church activities. United Fruit viewed the nuclear family, with clearly separated gender roles, as a way to maintain a stable labor force. Therefore, United Fruit sought to control all community and social institutions, including the family. Male workers perpetuated the separate gender roles when they invaded the hacienda in 1962 and formed their own cooperative. Although women supported the struggle for land through rallies, organizing, and providing food for the workers, they were excluded from...