Dissertation Research: Construction of Power Relationships at the Local Level: Belizean Citrus Politics

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This dissertation research project supports a cultural anthropological study of workers and farmers in the citrus industry in Belize. The focus of the study is in how small firms and individual workers deal with the more powerful economic actors in the citrus industry to defend their interests. Methods will include surveys, intensive interviews, and participant observation. The research will shed light on the success or importance of development projects that attempt to democratize political and economic systems that have been organized in a repressively monopolistic manner. This research is important because Central America is a vitally important part of the hemisphere that is currently subject to severe unrest. Understanding of the causes of success and failure in local-level economic development projects, and of the causes of accommodation or unrest in local industries, can help guide policy in the future.