Our demand for cheap food also has a large impact on the producers in the South; they are working under severe pressure to keep the production costs low, resulting in crop-prices below minimum...Show moreOur demand for cheap food also has a large impact on the producers in the South; they are working under severe pressure to keep the production costs low, resulting in crop-prices below minimum level, child labour, and the use of chemicals. The Fairtrade Labelling Organization claims to improve the working conditions of those farmers. The main goal of this thesis is to show the impact of the certification on cacao producers and their families in Ecuador, and which role cooperatives have in the Fairtrade network. The corresponding hypothesis was that the cacao producers in Ecuador have more access to social services and education, due to the improvement of their livelihoods with the certificate, while the Fairtrade benefits are a complex process, and the role of cooperatives is crucial.Show less
The research presented in this thesis pertains to chocolate in Precolumbian Mesoamerica, and attempts to trace its use from the earliest known, up to the Colonial era. Chocolate beverages have...Show moreThe research presented in this thesis pertains to chocolate in Precolumbian Mesoamerica, and attempts to trace its use from the earliest known, up to the Colonial era. Chocolate beverages have proven to be inherent to Mesoamerican culture, much like the region’s large scale ceremonial architecture, and its ball games. Questions like: What were the first beverages like? and: How was the ‘chocolate culture’ embedded in Precolumbian Mesoamerica? are examined using a historical-ecological approach. Historical ecology studies the interrelationship between humans and nature, an analogue applied to culture and chocolate. This has translated to having historical sources and etymological interpretations employed to contextualize paleoethnobotanical data, in an effort to construct a chronological overview of the use of Precolumbian chocolate. In the quest for the evolutionary course of cacao cultivation, the premise that not evolutionary, but historical happenings are accountable for the changing dynamics in the interaction between human culture and all ecosystems, is applied. This entails that theoretically, the domestication and cultivation processes of cacao must be relatable to historical events of Precolumbian Mesoamerica. The aim to trace the use of chocolate, and with that the cultivation processes of its key ingredient, is scoped through the lens of theoretical postulates based on the aforementioned historical-ecological premise.Show less
