Following the turkey tails: neoliberal globalization and the political ecology of health

Abstract

The objective of neoliberal globalization, as noted by various observers, is not the improvement of global health and wellbeing but the expansion of deregulated markets in international trade and investment, a characteristic affirmed and illustrated in this article through an examination of the global commoditization of turkey tails and the role of world trade institutions and policies in this process. The article, a contribution to the political ecology of health, assesses the deleterious factors that stem from trade in this fatty commodity as it flows from poultry farms in the U.S. into the indigenized diets and changing bodies of people in several developing nations in the Pacific, Ghana, and beyond.

Key words: Neoliberal trade, global food commodities, food culture, political ecology of health, Pacific islands.