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project findings | PROJECT OUTLINE |

Chewing Gum: transnational histories of consumption and production

The ‘boom’ in chicle production, to meet demands for chewing gum from the United States, began during the first two decades of the twentieth century, and reached its peak in the early 1940s. It served as a marker for the transformation of the landscape and ecology of the east and south of the Yucatan peninsular in Mexico, paving the way for new land uses on the tropical frontier. It led to harvesting and production practices which are of contemporary importance, especially for the two protected tropical forest areas (global Biosphere Reserves).

This research sought to understand the processes through which livelihoods dependent on the extraction of a primary product (chicle) were forced to accommodate to major shifts in the world consumer market. It also examined the viability of chicle production today, as a sustainable forest product.

This project ran from March 2003 to September 2005


image illustrating findings

view this project's findings summary [pdf]


Project team
Michael Redclift
GrahamWoodgate
Oscar Forero

Contact
Professor Michael R. Redclift
Department of Geography
King’s College London
Strand
London
WC2R 2LS

+44 (0)20 7848 1755

michael.r.redclift@icci.ac.uk


Publications include:

book cover frontiers

 

Frontiers: Histories of Civil Society and Nature
M. Redclift, (Cambridge MA.: MIT Press, 2006)

In Frontiers, Michael Redclift examines the relationship between nature and society in frontier areas--contested zones in which rival versions of civil society vie with one another, often over the definition and management of nature itself.

For further information visit the book’s page with MIT Press

 

image of book cover

Chewing Gum: The Fortunes of Taste
M. Redclift, (New York: Routledge, 2004).

In Chewing Gum, Michael Redclift deftly chronicles the growing popularity of gum in the U.S. alongside a fascinating history of peasant revolution led by charismatic Indians in the jungles of southern Mexico.

For further information visit the book’s page with Routledge

 

Forero O. and Redclift M. The Role of the Mexican State in the Development of Chicle Extraction in Yucatan and the Continuing Importance of Coyotaje, Journal of Latin American Studies, 31 (1) 2006.

Redclift M. Chewing Gum: Mass Consumption and the ‘Shadowlands’ of the Yucatan, in Brewer J. and Trentmann F. (eds.), Consuming Cultures, Global Perspectives: Historical Trajectories, Transnational Exchanges (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2006), chapter seven.

Forero O. and Redclift M. The Role of the Mexican State in the Development of Chicle Extraction in Yucatan and the Continuing Importance of Coyotaje, Journal of Latin American Studies, 31 (1) 2006.

Redclift M. Chewing Gum: Mass Consumption and the ‘Shadowlands’ of the Yucatan, in Brewer J. and Trentmann F.(eds.), Consuming Cultures, Global Perspectives: Historical Trajectories, Transnational Exchanges (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2006), chapter seven.


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Project outline

The following is the text of the project's original proposal


SUMMARY

The research seeks to understand the processes through which livelihoods dependent on the extraction of a primary product (chewing gum/chicle) were forced to accommodate to major shifts in the world consumer market. It also examines the viability of chicle production today, as a sustainable forest product. The 'boom' in chicle production, to meet North American consumer demand, began during the first two decades of the twentieth century, and reached its peak in the early 1940s. It served to transform the landscape and ecology of the east and south of the Yucatan peninsular of Mexico, and paved the way for new land uses on the tropical frontier. It led to harvesting and production practices which are of contemporary importance, especially for protected tropical forest areas, in which forest products represent a growing market activity.

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CONTEXT

Chewing gum was a product of popular consumption in the United States by the early 1900s. Its early history was associated with the efforts of entrepreneurs, such as Thomas Adams, William White and William Wrigley, who developed new ways of processing, advertising, marketing and processing the gum base they imported from Mexico, chicle. This gum base was derived from the resin of the sapodilla tree, found in the forests of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and Central America. By 1941 consumers in the United States alone accounted for sales in excess of $6.5 million (US). During and after World War Two chewing gum reached global markets, as part of American GIs' rations. Gum became part of the standard ration issued to combat troops, and proved immensely popular among the three million stationed in the United Kingdom and later, elsewhere in Europe and overseas. Within a few years sales increased enormously: to five times those in the pre-War United States. This, and the difficulties in sourcing gum during wartime, provided strong incentives for the production of synthetic substitutes for natural gums, based on hydrocarbons, which was given a further boost in 1950 by the Korean War. The U.S. military had learned how valuable gum chewing could be during combat. It freshened and cleansed the mouth when toothbrushes and paste were unavailable, it quenched thirst when water was scarce, and relaxed soldiers, and helped to keep them alert, during manoeuvres.

Chewing gum had already achieved popular 'iconic' status in the United States, becoming associated with movies, sports like baseball (especially through the issue of gum cards), and popular music. Chewing gum illustrates the way in which 'nature' is actively produced as both material artefact and discursive construct, and interesting parallels exist with other products such as tobacco, bananas and chocolate. In the United Kingdom chewing gum was a desirable product, especially during wartime and post War sweet rationing. At the same time it was a key element in the growing Americanisation of British culture. Today over five hundred companies produce chewing gum in ninety three countries. The largest of these companies, William Wrigley's, has thirteen factories and sells its product in over one hundred countries, representing retail sales of over $2 billion (US).

The impact of this enormous surge in consumption was felt particularly acutely in the area that provided most commercial chicle: the Yucatan peninsular of Mexico. Here, the early production had been associated, like many extractive forest products, with transient labour, working under onerous conditions, and in a completely unregulated fashion. The principal zone of production was a stronghold of rebel Maya chieftains, veterans of the Caste War between whites and Mayan followers of the 'Talking Cross'. Their leader until 1931 was the notorious 'General' May, who had developed close relations with American gum manufacturers, such as Wrigley's. However, the containment, and suppression, of the rebel Maya, and the enlarged role of the Mexican state, especially under President Cardenas in the 1940s, brought the harvesting of chicle within the compass of organised cooperatives, and increasing measures of state regulation. In 1942 nearly four million kilos of chicle from Yucatan was sold to four large American-owned companies: Beechnut, Wrigley's, American Chicle Co. and Clark Bros. The commercial, and strategic, importance of these sources, at their height, can be gauged from the fact that, in June 1943 representatives of chicle cooperatives travelled to the United States to ". discuss and defend the price of chicle, one of the most appreciated wartime materials in the United States".

During the 1940s and 1950s the Mexican Government sought to control both the production and the export of gum, through the Agricultural Ministry and the Banco de Comercio Exterior. Chicleros were encouraged to organise themselves into marketing cooperatives and greater controls were exercised over their production by Federal Governments determined to 'settle' the forest frontier of Quintana Roo and, by the 1960s, to pave the way for mass tourism on the coast south of Cancun. Most of the trees from which the resin was tapped, grew on land held by ejidos (communities) or on Federal lands, making them, effectively, a common property resource. Access to the forests, which was once governed by tradition and personal influence, became officially regulated. Production of chicle was increasingly managed through establishing production quotas and targets, and using more competitive tendering. By the 1970s a forest industry that was potentially sustainable ecologically, and capable of providing livelihoods for poor families without causing wide-scale forest destruction, was secondary to the demands of global tourism. Thirty years later the neglect of local forest economies is more remarkable. As The Economist has recently stated "several hundred millions of the world's poorest people live in an around forests. Giving these people an incentive to preserve forests by allowing sustainable levels of harvesting is a better way to save these forests than erecting tall fences around them" (July 6, 2002 page 10).

This history has been largely ignored in the formal academic literature on Mexico and Central America and, indeed, by policy-makers, indeed, the only contemporary account of chicleros in the 1930s and 1940s was written by an interested lawyer and journalist, recently re-published by the Mexican Education Ministry in the state. Otherwise assessment of chicle as a sustainable forest product has been restricted to the last two decades, and largely undertaken in ignorance of its important history in the region. The absence of research into an international commodity of vital importance to the United States, as well as to Mexico, is in stark contrast with the celebrated literature on henequen (sisal) in Yucatan. Clouded in political contradictions, and in cultural prejudices, the story of chicle in Mexico is in marked contrast to that of chewing gum in the popular culture of the United States.

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KEY QUESTIONS

  • To what extent are the experiences of chicleros, and their organisations in the 1950s and 1960s, of relevance to chicleros involved in environment and development policy today?
  • Can we codify the contribution of chicle to ecological knowledge, especially of tropical forests?
  • Have new consumer markets for natural chewing gum provided an opportunity for chicle as a sustainable forest product within the context of sustainable consumption?

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APPROACH

The research will examine the histories of individual chicleros, commercial intermediaries, U.S companies and the Mexican state, during the 'boom' years of the 1940s, and the sudden contraction of the market in the 1950s. It will inform, and be informed by, theoretical discussion into the management of common property resources and the role of consumption in the political struggles to control these resources. The research also bears on current thinking about levels of personal consumption and international political economy, as consumption is increasingly linked to cultural choices, such as those dictating energy alternatives. Consumer markets are also linked, in complex ways with environmental and other policies. The areas from which raw materials are sourced have been described as 'badlands', "the marginal spaces in and through which broader processes of socio-spatial order are worked out". Indeed, it is argued that "already rendered distant, shadowy spaces by the value of the commodity chains, these commodity supply zones are pushed further out of sight by the emergence of a post-scarcity discourse that celebrates material abundance".

The research will also examine the effects of these changes on the key locations, such as Peto and Felipe Carrillo Puerto, which served as the hub of the chicle trade. Using extended structured and semi-structured interviews with surviving workers and employers, together with local archival materials from local municipio and state records, it will investigate the extent to which chicle production met sustainable criteria. It will also examine the role of the state, and para-statal bodies, in regulating the industry, and in contributing to its evolution.

A further series of interviews with gum manufacturers in Mexico and the United States will help build up a picture of the current role of autochthonous forest 'societies' as suppliers of gum base, and their contribution to more sustainable forest management.

This is a live issue for environmental management in many countries with extensive tropical forests. The project therefore makes the following contribution:

  1. It provides a history of an important activity linked to trends in global consumption
  2. It will throw light on the management and operation of common property/open access resources, at a critical juncture in their development
  3. The example of chicle within a specific historical conjuncture can also provide lessons for the management of other collectively managed resources today, such as cenotes (underground limestone wells), mangroves and forested areas.

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PROJECT OUTREACH

A local institution exists in the zone, the Museum of the Caste War, which will play a distinctive part as a focus for the research. This popular museum has considerable local legitimacy and experience, has Maya speaking staff, and has expressed interest in collaborating with the project in helping to organise workshops (talleres) with local people.

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OUTCOMES

The research envisages phased workshops with local people, corresponding to successive age-cohorts: 1930s (80 years plus); 1940s (70 years plus) and 1950s and 1960s (60 years plus). These workshops, organised through the local Museum of the Caste War in Tihuosuco, will examine the life histories of individuals, and their livelihoods during the periods of 'boom' and 'bust' in the zone. They will also seek to establish ecological and land use changes, through using local cadastral records and village documentary materials. The research will also have cultural value for local organisations, since the ongoing process of Mayan revitalisation has led to several important magazines in Spanish and Maya, which will carry the project's results.

The current interest in sustainable uses of forest resources, and the renewed market for 'natural' gum, fomented via the World Wide Web, make this an opportune time for exploring the contemporary relevance of international links over a ubiquitous product. Apart from the innovatory work with the local Museum of the Caste War, the project will also mount an exhibition in the Museum of its principal findings, which will bring together material culture, oral history and local environmental knowledge of the forest. At the conclusion of the project an international seminar will be held in London, bringing together the principal conclusions from the project within the wider context of sustainable forest management.

 

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