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"This book takes a behind-the-scenes look at the world of Third Wave coffee to uncover what makes a great coffee. Traders stress the material conditions of terroir and botany, but just as important are the social, moral, and political values that farmers, roasters, and consumers attach to the beans. Third Wave roasters earnestly pursue a craft, searching for new flavors, while smallholding Maya farmers in Guatemala see coffee as part of a cycle of agricultural regeneration, as well as a source of extra income. This book connects the quest for quality among Third Wave tastemakers in the United States to the lives and internet-fueled aspirations of Maya producers, showing how profits are made by artfully combining coffee's material and symbolic qualities."

An anthropologist uncovers how ";great coffee"; depends not just on taste, but also on a complex system of values worked out among farmers, roasters, and consumers. What justifies the steep prices commanded by small-batch, high-end Third Wave coffees? Making Better Coffee explores this question, looking at highland coffee farmers in Guatemala and their relationship to the trends that dictate what makes ";great coffee."; Traders stress material conditions of terroir and botany, but just as important are the social, moral, and political values that farmers, roasters, and consumers attach to the beans. In the late nineteenth century, Maya farmers were forced to work on the large plantations that colonized their ancestral lands. The international coffee market shifted in the 1990s, creating demand for high-altitude varietals-plants suited to the mountains where the Maya had been displaced. Edward F. Fisher connects the quest for quality among U.S. tastemakers to the lives and desires of Maya producers, showing how profits are made by artfully combining coffee's material and symbolic attributes. The result is a complex story of terroir and taste, quality and craft, justice and necessity, worth and value

What could middle-class German supermarket shoppers buying eggs and impoverished coffee farmers in Guatemala possibly have in common? Both groups use the market in pursuit of the "good life." But what exactly is the good life? How do we define wellbeing beyond material standards of living? While we all may want to live the good life, we differ widely on just what that entails. In The Good Life, Edward Fischer examines wellbeing in very different cultural contexts to uncover shared notions of the good life and how best to achieve it. With fascinating on-the-ground narratives of Germans' choices regarding the purchase of eggs and cars, and Guatemalans' trade in coffee and cocaine, Fischer presents a richly layered understanding of how aspiration, opportunity, dignity, and purpose comprise the good life.

In recent years the concept and study of "civil society" has received a lot of attention from political scientists, economists, and sociologists, but less so from anthropologists. A ground-breaking ethnographic approach to civil society as it is formed in indigenous communities in Latin America, this volume explores the multiple potentialities of civil society's growth and critically assesses the potential for sustained change. Much recent literature has focused on the remarkable gains made by civil society and the chapters in this volume reinforce this trend while also showing the complexi

In recent years the concept and study of "civil society" has received a lot of attention from political scientists, economists, and sociologists, but less so from anthropologists. A ground-breaking ethnographic approach to civil society as it is formed in indigenous communities in Latin America, this volume explores the multiple potentialities of civil society's growth and critically assesses the potential for sustained change. Much recent literature has focused on the remarkable gains made by civil society and the chapters in this volume reinforce this trend while also showing the complexi

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- PART I: Contexts of Study -- 1: Maya Culture and Identity Politics -- 2: Tecpán and Patzún -- PART II: Global Processes and Pan-Maya Identity Politics -- 3: Guatemalan Political Economies and the World System -- 4: The Rise of Pan-Maya Activism -- 5: Constructing a Pan-Maya Identity in a PostmodernWorld -- PART III: Maya Identity as Lived Experience in Tecpán and Patzún -- 6: Souls, Socialization, and the Kaqchikel Self -- 7: Hearth, Kin, and Communities -- 8: Local Forms of Ethnic Resistance -- 9: Economic Change and Cultural Continuity -- PART IV: Conclusion -- 10: Convergent Strategies and Cultural Logics -- Notes -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index.

AbstractBased on a study of the burgeoning high-end ('Third Wave') coffee market in the USA and on research conducted with Maya farmers in Guatemala, this article examines how economic gains are extracted by translating values across symbolic and material worlds. Drawing on anthropological understandings of value and the analytic tools of convention theory, I show how roasters, baristas and marketers have developed a new lexicon of quality for coffee, one tied to narratives of provenance and exclusivity that creates much of the value added in the Third Wave market. This disadvantages smallholding coffee farmers who are heavily invested in land and the material means of production but who lack the social and cultural capital needed to extract surplus symbolic value from their crops. In this unintentional way, the quest for artisanal quality in the coffee market perpetuates classic dependency patterns of global capital accumulation across these value worlds.