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California Studies in Food and Culture #47
The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Tea Plantations in India (Volume 47)
Nestled in the Himalayan foothills of Northeast India, Darjeeling is synonymous with some of the finest and most expensive tea in the world. It is also home to a violent movement for regional autonomy that, like the tea industry, dates back to the days of colonial rule.
In this nuanced ethnography, Sarah Besky narrates the lives of tea workers in Darjeeling. She explores how notions of fairness, value, and justice shifted with the rise of fair-trade practices and postcolonial separatist politics in the region. This is the first book to explore how fair-trade operates in the context of large-scale plantations.
Readers in a variety of disciplines―anthropology, sociology, geography, environmental studies, and food studies―will gain a critical perspective on how plantation life is changing as Darjeeling struggles to reinvent its signature commodity for twenty-first-century consumers. The Darjeeling Distinction challenges fair-trade policy and practice, exposing how trade initiatives often fail to consider the larger environmental, historical, and sociopolitical forces that shape the lives of the people they intended to support.
In this nuanced ethnography, Sarah Besky narrates the lives of tea workers in Darjeeling. She explores how notions of fairness, value, and justice shifted with the rise of fair-trade practices and postcolonial separatist politics in the region. This is the first book to explore how fair-trade operates in the context of large-scale plantations.
Readers in a variety of disciplines―anthropology, sociology, geography, environmental studies, and food studies―will gain a critical perspective on how plantation life is changing as Darjeeling struggles to reinvent its signature commodity for twenty-first-century consumers. The Darjeeling Distinction challenges fair-trade policy and practice, exposing how trade initiatives often fail to consider the larger environmental, historical, and sociopolitical forces that shape the lives of the people they intended to support.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
10 people are currently reading
184 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Besky
4 books5 followersDr Sarah Besky is the Charles Evans Hughes 1881 Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. From 2012-2015, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows. She received a PhD from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012.
Her areas of interest are: labor, environment, commodities, agriculture, plantations, ethical trade, gender, development, Himalayas, India, environmental justice and ethics.
Her areas of interest are: labor, environment, commodities, agriculture, plantations, ethical trade, gender, development, Himalayas, India, environmental justice and ethics.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 15, 2014
Sarah Besky does a great service to the tea community with this book. After years on the ground on tea estates in and around Darjeeling, Besky has written a book that is at once academically valuable, and eye-opening for the average consumer.
In this book Sarah sheds light on the labor practices in post-colonial tea plantations in Darjeeling, as well as three systems that claim to bring justice to disenfranchised workers: Geographical Indication, the Fair Trade movement, and the Gorkhaland movement.
What sets this work apart is Besky's use of flowing prose and vivid first hand descriptions to describe realities that otherwise might have been set down in the faceless statistics of a droll academic paper. She is no slouch in the research department either, presenting a deep and nuanced history of the Nepali/Darjeeling/Gorkha people for the first time that I am aware of in the English language.
As someone who has worked in the industry I was surprised by the perspective that Besky brought on a few issues. GI, for instance, from the North American import side, was only ever seen as a marketing ploy. To see it projected as an attempt towards "justice" was interesting.
Besky has done a wonderful job in exposing the uncomfortable realities of plantation life to consumers of Darjeeling tea round the world. I hope that this bears fruit in meaningful change for laborers who produce some of the world's finest tea.
You can read more from me at my website: http://joshuarigsby.com
In this book Sarah sheds light on the labor practices in post-colonial tea plantations in Darjeeling, as well as three systems that claim to bring justice to disenfranchised workers: Geographical Indication, the Fair Trade movement, and the Gorkhaland movement.
What sets this work apart is Besky's use of flowing prose and vivid first hand descriptions to describe realities that otherwise might have been set down in the faceless statistics of a droll academic paper. She is no slouch in the research department either, presenting a deep and nuanced history of the Nepali/Darjeeling/Gorkha people for the first time that I am aware of in the English language.
As someone who has worked in the industry I was surprised by the perspective that Besky brought on a few issues. GI, for instance, from the North American import side, was only ever seen as a marketing ploy. To see it projected as an attempt towards "justice" was interesting.
Besky has done a wonderful job in exposing the uncomfortable realities of plantation life to consumers of Darjeeling tea round the world. I hope that this bears fruit in meaningful change for laborers who produce some of the world's finest tea.
You can read more from me at my website: http://joshuarigsby.com
September 18, 2020
The book is really interesting as it talks about tea but from the workers' point of view. I'm a real fan of tea (Darjeeling included!) and this book truly changed my vision. I still love tea but with a better understanding of what is going behind the scene.
June 29, 2019
I read it in one of the university classes taught by the author herself. I didn't remember much about the book except it was my first introduction into the geographical indication and she shows the difference between darjeeling tea and the tea from the next mountain nearby was minimal but due to its GI tag it was able to fetch a much higher price. It was interesting read. Only that I did not want to read it carefully because it was a class read hahaha.
August 24, 2017
a dedicated anthropologist investigates a range of assumptions made about a group of people. She finds that, contrary to any popular narratives, the tea pickers and their have a rich and nuanced understanding of their situation, an understanding that trumps any and all of the popular narratives of justice
January 23, 2026
Darjeeling is the most expensive tea in the world, most well marketed and iconic – how is it that the workers remain so poor? A cup of Darjeeling costs more than a plucker’s daily wage, but not known because it’s always linked to luxury.
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July 14, 2017
Too much cliche jargon - it clouds the analysis.
August 25, 2020
In Darjeeling Distinction, Sarah Besky presents a rich ethnographic account of what 'justice' means for Darjeeling tea plantations in northeastern India. She carefully unpacks how various projects have sought to romanticize the postcolonial capitalist plantation as a venue for ethical consumption in the twenty-first century. Throughout the book, her writing vividly conjures up the complex scenes she is describing, without leaning on exoticism, cynicism or a soapbox.
Besky investigates how three projects have promised to bring justice to Darjeeling plantations: a) fair trade; b) Geographical Indication, or terroir; and c) the Gorkhaland separatist movement. These three projects all see Darjeeling through the filter of a "Third World agrarian imaginary." Here, she is building on Julie Guthman's book Agrarian Dreams, which explores the agrarian imaginary in U.S. organic agriculture. Fair trade, terroir and Gorkhaland all vow to redeem the Darjeeling plantation by restoring it to an imaginary, nostalgic past.
Ultimately, Besky argues that none of these three strategies to re-brand the plantation align with workers' own ideas of justice. She contends that if fair trade institutions wish to generate positive change in most tea plantation workers' lives, they need to be frank about what a plantation is, its uncomfortable history, and what justice means to workers.
Her main theoretical argument is that workers understand justice on the the Darjeeling plantation based on a "tripartite moral economy." This involves reciprocal relationships between planters, labourers, and non-humans (tea bushes and the landscape at large). For example, planters are expected to ensure workers' houses are properly maintained, and workers see themselves as responsible for caring for the tea bushes. As Besky acknowledges (p. 179), the idea of the moral economy doesn't sit well with those who like to imagine workers as inherently revolutionary. But as she puts it:
"Tea workers are stuck with tea bushes, colonialism, and paternalism . . . The concept of a tripartite moral economy takes workers' senses of care seriously and puts them in a historical frame. It permits us to think with, rather than against, the colonial and postcolonial forms that make up the tea plantation landscape. Thinking with and about the plantation moral economy, then, helps us diagnose what is not only meaningful to workers but also what their work means." (p. 85).
Although the book is geared toward academic audiences, it's accessible for non-academics interested in tea, a carefully-researched history of northeastern India and Nepal, and a critical analysis of ethical consumption.
Besky investigates how three projects have promised to bring justice to Darjeeling plantations: a) fair trade; b) Geographical Indication, or terroir; and c) the Gorkhaland separatist movement. These three projects all see Darjeeling through the filter of a "Third World agrarian imaginary." Here, she is building on Julie Guthman's book Agrarian Dreams, which explores the agrarian imaginary in U.S. organic agriculture. Fair trade, terroir and Gorkhaland all vow to redeem the Darjeeling plantation by restoring it to an imaginary, nostalgic past.
Ultimately, Besky argues that none of these three strategies to re-brand the plantation align with workers' own ideas of justice. She contends that if fair trade institutions wish to generate positive change in most tea plantation workers' lives, they need to be frank about what a plantation is, its uncomfortable history, and what justice means to workers.
Her main theoretical argument is that workers understand justice on the the Darjeeling plantation based on a "tripartite moral economy." This involves reciprocal relationships between planters, labourers, and non-humans (tea bushes and the landscape at large). For example, planters are expected to ensure workers' houses are properly maintained, and workers see themselves as responsible for caring for the tea bushes. As Besky acknowledges (p. 179), the idea of the moral economy doesn't sit well with those who like to imagine workers as inherently revolutionary. But as she puts it:
"Tea workers are stuck with tea bushes, colonialism, and paternalism . . . The concept of a tripartite moral economy takes workers' senses of care seriously and puts them in a historical frame. It permits us to think with, rather than against, the colonial and postcolonial forms that make up the tea plantation landscape. Thinking with and about the plantation moral economy, then, helps us diagnose what is not only meaningful to workers but also what their work means." (p. 85).
Although the book is geared toward academic audiences, it's accessible for non-academics interested in tea, a carefully-researched history of northeastern India and Nepal, and a critical analysis of ethical consumption.
April 7, 2015
Author explores the Darjeeling tea growing area social relationships. Discusses how Darjeeling tea is grown, the history of plantation and life's of tea growers.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews