Banana Divisions and Memory: An Approach to the Legacy of the Banana Cities of the United Fruit Company in Central America During the 20th Century

Authors

  • Luis Conejo Barboza

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15359/rh.78.5

Keywords:

Banana Cities, Enclave Economy, Transnational Corporations, Collective memory, United Fruit Company, Central America, History

Abstract

This article aims to analyze, from the history of the organizations, the relationship between memory and the banana cities built by the United Fruit Company in Central America during the 20th century. It is based on the ideas put forward by Charles Booth, Peter Clark, Agnes Delahaye, Stephen Procter and Michael Rowlinson regarding the use of the history of organizations and how from this perspective companies build a historical legacy for their employees and the general public. Using company printed sources, as well as written testimonies of former banana workers, the research tries to identify how banana cities were converted and built as places of memory. The banana city arises from the programs of the so-called “corporate welfare” of the beginning of the previous century, which sought, among other things, not only the loyalty of employees, but also that they feel well and at ease in the divisions where their Companies had settled outside US territory. The majority of articles, whose research has been the relationship between cities and memory, have been restricted to study them from conceptions derived from nationalism. This article demonstrates how companies also generate and construct memories through their different dependencies. In the same way, it can be seen how the whole corporate welfare policy of the United Fruit Company was mainly aimed at legitimizing and supporting its presence in the Central American region.

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Published

2018-10-02

How to Cite

Conejo Barboza, Luis. 2018. “Banana Divisions and Memory: An Approach to the Legacy of the Banana Cities of the United Fruit Company in Central America During the 20th Century”. Revista De Historia, no. 78 (October): 95-118. https://doi.org/10.15359/rh.78.5.

Issue

Section

Latin America (peer reviewed section)

How to Cite

Conejo Barboza, Luis. 2018. “Banana Divisions and Memory: An Approach to the Legacy of the Banana Cities of the United Fruit Company in Central America During the 20th Century”. Revista De Historia, no. 78 (October): 95-118. https://doi.org/10.15359/rh.78.5.

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