Negotiating Politics and Power: Perspectives on Environmental Justice from Jamaica’s Specialty Coffee Industry

This research paper examines the Jamaican specialty coffee industry through an environmental justice lens, analyzing how neoliberal restructuring, colonial legacies, and asymmetrical power structures affect smallholders' ability to adapt to climate change.

• Smallholders in Jamaica's specialty coffee industry operate within a disabling environment characterized by neoliberal restructuring, which manifests as limited support services, low participation in the value chain, expensive farm inputs, and low farm gate prices.
• There is a significant disparity and contestation between farmers and industry stakeholders regarding climate change adaptation responses. While smallholders face multiple stressors, industry leaders treat coffee-producing areas as spaces to reinforce privileges and extract profits.
• Asymmetrical power structures within the coffee-producing landscapes determine which voices are prioritized and which adaptation pathways are chosen, resulting in the creation of injustices, increased vulnerabilities, and the suppression of smallholder agency.

APA

Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (2025). Negotiating Politics and Power: Perspectives on Environmental Justice from Jamaica’s Specialty Coffee Industry. https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/negotiating-politics-and-power-perspectives-on-environmental-justice-from-jamaicas-specialty-coffee-industry/

Chicago

Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. Negotiating Politics and Power: Perspectives on Environmental Justice from Jamaica’s Specialty Coffee Industry. 2025. https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/negotiating-politics-and-power-perspectives-on-environmental-justice-from-jamaicas-specialty-coffee-industry/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research |title=Negotiating Politics and Power: Perspectives on Environmental Justice from Jamaica’s Specialty Coffee Industry |date=6 January 2025 |url=https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/negotiating-politics-and-power-perspectives-on-environmental-justice-from-jamaicas-specialty-coffee-industry/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{interamericaninstituteforglobalchangeresearch2025negotiating, author = {{Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}}, title = {{Negotiating Politics and Power: Perspectives on Environmental Justice from Jamaica’s Specialty Coffee Industry}}, institution = {Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}, year = {2025}, month = jan, url = {https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/negotiating-politics-and-power-perspectives-on-environmental-justice-from-jamaicas-specialty-coffee-industry/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }