In the global market, shade-grown coffee is often advertised using particular imagery, which is meant to remind us of “conserved natural forests” or places with vast natural resources, rather than agricultural systems where both humans and non-humans play an important role in processes of commodity production. The result has been the construction of a coffee imaginary that paints shade-grown coffee plantations as lush gardens with tropical birds, jaguars, and foraging tapirs. Although an attractive and marketable vision of the coffee landscape, this imaginary is an inaccurate representation of the social reality of these spaces. At the core of this coffee imaginary is a conservation narrative2 that places responsibility of environmental degradation and species extinctions on exploitation by humans, and growing human populations . As a result, humans are excluded from places and the use of natural resources commonly used for social reproduction and the sustenance of human livelihoods. This conservation narrative incorporates some aspects of the “protected-area” discourse of conservation, emphasizing the maintenance of critical ecosystem functions and structures . Although this conservation narrative is based on strong scientific evidence, it is often presented under a framework of “crisis” , which potentially dehumanizes places and intensifies the human-nature dichotomy through the exclusion of the human experience . The impact of this conservation narrative on human communities has been explored in the context of exclusionary practices around protected areas, such as national parks, coral reefs, and fisheries . However, despite the prevalence of this conservation narrative in organic shade-grown coffee plantations, container growing raspberries no studies have explored its impact on plantation workers, and whether the embodiment of such narrative through potentially exclusionary practices further marginalizes vulnerable peoples.

This is particularly relevant for three reasons: first, seasonal workers in labor-intensive systems are one of the most vulnerable and marginalized actors within the coffee production chain . Research suggests that about 30% of the coffee currently consumed worldwide comes from large plantation systems , where seasonal workers face food and labor inequalities . Second, although literature on organic agriculture suggests that organic markets and price premiums from certifications can potentially support livelihoods in rural areas, farm workers continue to suffer inequalities and forced labor . In fact, the priorities of such ecolabeling initiatives focus primarily on certification criteria and privilege ecological goals while paying scarce attention to social processes and labor issues , and fail to question inequalities experienced by farm workers . And third, although shade grown coffee has been a critical system for conservation efforts and in some cases, supports peasant households , it is possible that the conservation narrative in organic shade-grown coffee plantations helps construct a coffee imaginary that misrepresents the human experience. This chapter examines the tensions that arise when conservation narratives meet the everyday-lived-experience of migrant farm workers in organic shade-grown coffee plantations in Soconusco, Mexico. I draw attention to the ways in which conservation narratives embodied in organic shade-grown coffee plantations have material and symbolic effects on farm workers’ everyday lived-experience, and argue that they contribute to farm workers’ vulnerability and marginalization. The relevance of this work lies in exposing the social intricacies of coffee production and biodiversity conservation within this labor intensive system as I demystify coffee production as a fair and just imaginary. First, I address the labor aspect of coffee plantations in the Soconusco region. Second, I discuss conservation narratives in the context of organic shade-grown coffee plantations, and the ways in which conservation narratives are embodied in organic shade-grown coffee plantations.

Finally, I discuss the implications of these conservation narratives on the everyday-lived-experience of migrant farm workers.In order to understand conservation narratives in coffee plantations and how they are perceived and contested by farm workers, I carried out ethnographic research in an organic shade-grown coffee plantation in the Soconusco region. The extension of this plantation is approximately 300ha and can be categorized as a mix between traditional and commercial polyculture, with hired wage labor, both permanent and temporary. The epistemological basis of my research is rooted in the interpretivist tradition of anthropology using a phenomenological approach, which emphasizes the importance of symbols and experiences as well as individual opinions, values and categories to understand societies . This methodological approach allowed me to capture meaningful experiences of farm workers, as well as to understand how farm workers perceive themselves in the plantation. During the harvest season between October 2015-January 2016, I picked coffee with 15 families of migrant farm workers. I also lived in their shacks and joined them in daily activities such as collecting edible wild plants, hunting, and preparing meals. My research consisted of participant observation and informal interviews that took place while picking coffee during the day, in the evenings over meals, and while performing other activities. Along with my interlocutors I experienced the physical struggles of picking coffee and, in return for their time, I contributed my portion of harvested coffee at the end of each day to their totals. The population of migrant farm workers with which I carried out my research were mestizo from Guatemala, although indigenous laborers also work in the plantation during the earliest part of the harvest season. I complemented my ethnographic research with interviews of three coffee plantation owners which allowed me to understand their engagement with conservation narratives, as well as their own struggles as coffee growers in a highly competitive market.

Farm owners are often blamed for the social conditions experienced in their farms, yet we should not assume that owners can automatically change this reality . Therefore, research about farm workers should also consider the experiences of the growers themselves. As suggested by Holmes “The fact that the perspectives of farm management are generally overlooked, inadvertently encourages the assumption that growers may be wealthy, selfish, or unconcerned” . This may reinforce a superficial understanding of the reality of farm workers, and therefore the fact that the complexity of their struggles and structural challenges are not often recognized. Due to my interest in analyzing how conservation narratives weave with the popular public perception of shade-grown coffee, I also visited coffee plantation lodges along the touristic Ruta del Café , where I collected written comments representing the public discourse surrounding shade grown coffee plantations. Plantations are highly specialized, large-scale agricultural operations, which are characterized by their intensive use of capital investments, as well as the exploitation of wage labor . Although plantations are primarily concerned with the production of agricultural products grown on land, in scale and method of operation plantations are more akin to a modern factory or industrialized agriculture than they are to a small-scale family farm . The plantation model of agriculture has affected the ecologies of place, including the interaction between humans, non-humans, and their environment, as it embodies both the control of nature and of people. The essence of plantations–with defined social stratification and a controlling character, full labor control, and the transmission of agricultural management instructions from top to bottom – continues to have a presence in agricultural production in Latin America. In its origins, plantation economies were entirely controlled by foreign capital, and labor would be primarily imported, but profits would be invested overseas. Knowledge and technology were also imported from abroad, often by sending the owner’s offspring to their country of origin to study, as part of the colonial emulation of the plantation economy . The primal organizational aspects of plantations slowly disappeared in most places in Latin America, blueberries in pots giving way to communal land and small holdings that followed land reforms and land grabs lead by displaced peasants. However, in some places plantations continue to shape the landscape and the lives of people that live in, of and around plantations. This is the case in the Soconusco region of Chiapas, Mexico. Coffee production in the Soconusco region– one of the most important coffee producing regions in Mexico– is particularly interesting, as it played a key historical role in incorporating the state into the global capitalist market . By the end of the XIX Century, factors such as the economic policies of the Mexican government , strong foreign capital and adequate ecological conditions, allowed the expansion of coffee plantations in the Soconusco region . In its expansion, the coffee plantation economy became not only a powerful mode of production, but also a way of life for both plantation owners and laborers , which remains an integral part of the cultural identity of Soconusco. The expansion of German plantations in this region was characterized by the adoption of a production system that did not fall too far from the hacienda system of the pre-revolutionary period . Coffee production in large volumes was done primarily by these large plantations, which had access to commercialization routes and the required capital investments . Today, the subsistence peasant economy coexists alongside the export-oriented economy of coffee plantations, generating a rich cultural, social and economic rural patchwork . Plantations in Soconusco maintain a social organization based on a centralized political structure and the employment of wage labor . At the center of this organization is the Patron, or owner of the plantation who often lives outside of the plantation; followed by an administrator; a sideman or mayordomo; a set of foremen or caporales in charge of crews of laborers; and the laborers themselves .

Although labor has been historically sourced from the highlands of Chiapas, most laborers today are currently seasonal migrants that come from Guatemala, primarily during the harvest season . The increasing migration of labor from Central and South America directly to the United States has generated a labor shortage in the region of Soconusco , which in turn has promoted alternative strategies of labor recruitment, including the provisioning of temporary visas and permits granted by the patrons of large operations, extended for up to five years of work . Such permits are only legally granted to individuals and not to entire families, meaning that only one or two family members are legally represented in the migratory destination . This situation only exacerbates the already vulnerable position of migrant laborers in coffee plantations, where living and working conditions are overwhelmingly unfair . Once migrating, the vulnerabilities that come with illegal status and high dependency from the contractors increase the stress experienced by farm workers . Additionally, the barriers to transnational mobility limits the ability of farm workers to claim better labor conditions and wages . Issues of migration, illegal status, and poor working conditions are accompanied by differences among farm workers in terms of their ethnicity, farming abilities, and their permanency in the farms, as has been shown for other agricultural systems that rely heavily on migrant labor . In coffee plantations, multiple ecological knowledges and imaginaries meet farm workers’ experience, which makes farm workers important actors for providing meaning to these spaces despite the fact they are often overlooked in the coffee production cycle. The harsh reality of laborers in coffee plantations contrasts with the coffee imaginary of shade-grown organic coffee and fails to show its reality, therefore obscuring the lives of people . Additionally, the social sustainability of organic agriculture can be widely questioned for the contradictions posed to laborers. On the one hand, organic agriculture provides a safer space to laborers in terms of limiting the exposure to pesticides , while on the other hand, it does not address structural inequalities, occupational injuries, and other health related concerns common in the community of farm laborers . In an ideal world, the benefits of organic shade-grown coffee should be perceived not only through the conservation of biodiversity, but also through improving social justice and human livelihoods. Yet, as Guthman argues, “the organic movement has fallen woefully short of addressing the social justice issues that are often assumed to be part and parcel of organic farming” .The Soconusco region is famous for its Ruta del Café, repeatedly advertised as a “magical destination on the coast of Chiapas”. Plantation-style lodges embedded in the tropical perennial forest overlook what is hard to not categorize as a dreamlike landscape for the avid nature lover: a mosaic of greens, the coffee within the dense natural forest, the sound of the river, and the singing of the birds.