The research project "Grapes of Wrath? Global labour mobility in the wild berry industry affecting rural development in Sweden and Thailand" has been funded by Formas for a period of three years.

This will enable an extension of the work project leader Charlotta Hedberg has already conducted on this topic.

Summary of the project:

Social and economic sustainability in rural Sweden does no longer apply only to Swedish conditions. Rural areas take part in global networks that connect the world, affecting multiple places simultaneously. Thai berry pickers working in Sweden is a good example of this relationship. They represent seasonal labour mobility in the wild berry global commodity chain, which has effects on both rural Sweden and rural Thailand. This project aims to investigate the social and economic sustainability in rural areas that occurs through seasonal labour mobility within global commodity chains. This is performed by analyzing local development effects of the wild berry industry in rural Sweden and rural Thailand. In Thailand, it is investigated how rural households and their livelihoods, educational levels and gender roles are affected. In Sweden, local attitudes and local, small-scale production is investigated. Moreover, the project investigates how berry picking will affect regions due to future climate change. The project will be performed through "multi-sited ethnographies", where field studies based on observations and interviews with local inhabitants are performed in rural areas in Sweden and Thailand. The project gives weight to communication of results with policy makers and the public society.