Sick explores contemporary issues of gender, empowerment, access to resources, and Fair Trade as she examines how Costa Rican coffee-producing households cope with the complexities of a globalizing world economy. Using a commodity approach, she integrates household, regional, and global processes. Farmers of the Golden Bean challenges previous assumptions about the nature of economic change and the sustainability of household producers in the global economy.

"Succinct and intriguing. The strengths and contributions of this brief work are many.”— Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

"Offers a formidable blend of quantitative and qualitative evidence, the kind of complementary analysis too often neglected in contemporary ethnography.”— American Anthropologist

Deborah Sick received her Ph.D. from McGill University. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Ottawa.