Shea Butter Republic: State Power, Global Markets, and the Making of an Indigenous Commodity
Type
Book
Authors
ISBN 10
0415944619
ISBN 13
9780415944618
Category
Political & Economic Theory
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Publication Year
2004
Publisher
Pages
320
Description
Shea butter (butyrospermin parkii) has been produced and sold by rural West African women and circulated on the world market as a raw material for more than a century. Shea butter has been used for cooking, making soap and candles, leatherworking, dying, as a medical and beauty aid, and most significantly, as a substitute for cocoa butter in chocolate production. Now sold in exclusive shops as a high-priced cosmetic and medicinal product, it caters to the desire of cosmopolitan customers worldwide for luxury and exotic self-indulgence. This ethnographic study traces shea from a pre- to post-industrial commodity to provide a deeper understanding of emerging trends in tropical commoditization, consumption, global economic restructuring and rural livelihoods. Also inlcludes seven maps. - from Amzon
Number of Copies
1
