City of Flowers

An Ethnography of Social and Economic Change in Costa Rica's Central Valley

Susan E. Mannon

Issues of Globalization

City of Flowers is an ethnographic study of social and economic change in Costa Rica. Rather than investigate how macroeconomic forces bear down on workers and households, this book explores how individuals and households give meaning and shape to neoliberalism as it evolves over time. Drawing on twenty years of field work and 100 life histories of people living in one Costa Rican city, the book considers how individuals in four different class locations negotiate the economic changes going on around them. Author Susan E. Mannon argues that these responses are bound up in class, race, and gender aspirations and anxieties.

City of Flowers

An Ethnography of Social and Economic Change in Costa Rica's Central Valley

Susan E. Mannon

Issues of Globalization

Description

City of Flowers is an ethnographic study of social and economic change in Costa Rica. Rather than investigate how macroeconomic forces bear down on workers and households, this book explores how individuals and households give meaning and shape to neoliberalism as it evolves over time. Drawing on twenty years of field work and 100 life histories of people living in one Costa Rican city, the book considers how individuals in four different class locations negotiate the economic changes going on around them. Author Susan E. Mannon argues that these responses are bound up in class, race, and gender aspirations and anxieties.

City of Flowers is a volume in the ISSUES OF GLOBALIZATION: CASE STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY series, which examines the experiences of individual communities in our contemporary world. Each volume offers a brief and engaging exploration of a particular issue arising from globalization and its cultural, political, and economic effects on certain peoples or groups.

City of Flowers

An Ethnography of Social and Economic Change in Costa Rica's Central Valley

Susan E. Mannon

Issues of Globalization

Preface

Chapter 1: A Book of One's Own
A Brief History of Neoliberalism
Globalization and the Ethnographic Imagination
Economic Change as Biography
An Introduction to the Study

Chapter 2: A Nation Born and Transformed
A Coffee Culture Constructed
Birth of the Second Republic
Economic Crisis and Transformation
An Ethnography Begins

Chapter 3: Mobility in the New Millennium
Luis' Story
Heredia's New Professionals
The Making of a Gated Community
Violeta's Rebellion
The Pitfalls of Progress

Chapter 4: Love and Money in the Middle Class
Rosalina's Story
Heredia's Storied Middle Class
Our Lady of Neighborly Love
Margarita's Problem
Lessons from the Corner Store

Chapter 5: Fragile Families and Feminized Work
Mario's Story
Heredia's Changing Working Class
The Ties that Break and Bind
Carlos' Mistake
Downward Mobility in the New Economy

Chapter 6: Shadow Workers and Social Exclusion
Esperanza's Story
Heredia's New Urban Marginals
Precarious Living and Livelihood
Pedro's Request
The Racial Politics of Social Exclusion

Chapter 7: The Ethnographic Imagination Revisited
Economic Change Retold
Patriotism, Protest and the Neoliberal Project
A Nation Reimagined
The Ignoble Ethnographer

Appendix: Characteristics of the Sample
Glossary
References
Index

City of Flowers

An Ethnography of Social and Economic Change in Costa Rica's Central Valley

Susan E. Mannon

Issues of Globalization

Author Information

Susan E. Mannon is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Her work has been published in Gender & Society and Human Organization.