From Sacred Brew to Global Commodity: Anthropology, Yerba Mate, and the Changing Geographies of Consumption

Description

Christine Folch, an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University, will give a talk on the cultural history of yerba mate titled "From Sacred Brew to Global Commodity: Anthropology, Yerba Mate, and the Changing Geographies of Consumption," hosted by the Program in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies.

Brewed from the dried leaves and tender shoots of an evergreen tree native to South America, yerba mate gives its drinkers the jolt of liquid effervescence many of us get from coffee or tea. By tracing yerba mate production and consumption as they change over time and place, from precolonial Indigenous beginnings to the present, Folch unravels the processes of commodification and their countervailing forces to show how accidents of botany intersect with political economic systems and personal taste. The stories behind the caffeinated infusions we prefer, she finds, are nothing less than the story of how the modern world is put together.