Christopher Krupa’s book A Feast of Flowers presents a detailed analysis of the development of the flower industry in the Cayambe region of the Ecuadorian highlands from the late 1980s to the early twenty-first century. It does so primarily on the basis of extraordinary ethnographic work involving interviews, participatory research, and constant reflection on his own performance as a researcher. This approach is complemented by a historical and economic analysis of the development of flower plantations, their relationship with international financial capital, and the industry’s impact on the local population. Krupa’s study reveals how the logic of global capitalism intersects with the evolution of local societies and their hierarchies of race and class, creating a form of capitalism where profit-making and the reengineering of human subjectivity are inextricably intertwined. All of this makes us wonder how anthropological studies can enrich the analysis made from the perspective of business history.

A few years ago, Per Hansen and Daniel Wadhwani (“Can Business History and Business Anthropology Learn from Each Other?” Journal of Business Anthropology, 3, no. 1 [2014]: 51–59) argued that changes in approaches to business history studies, such as the “cultural turn,” created a bridge between this area of study and anthropological approaches. Analyses of narratives and the uses (or abuses) of history by companies are an example of this. The authors note that the dialogue between business history and anthropology can provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the study of business and organizational culture within companies. Similarly, Geoffrey Jones (“Business History and Business Anthropology,” Journal of Business Anthropology, 3, no. 1 [2014]: 60–64) noted that the increasing use of oral sources in business history brings this discipline closer to the methods of anthropology. Likewise, we can see that anthropologists are increasingly using archives and other documentary sources to complement their research, as demonstrated by Krupa’s text.

A Feast of Flowers presents several contributions that can resume the dialogue between anthropologists and business historians from both methodological and conceptual perspectives. Following the outline developed by Hansen and Wadhwani, it can be noted that one of the contributions of Krupa’s book is the integration of a mainly ethnographic methodology with a historical one in considering the evolution of the nature of investments. The book is the product of long-term ethnographic work combined with an analysis of the region’s agrarian structures, external debt, the policies of multilateral organizations, and the impact of external loans. Despite the heavy use of academic jargon, Krupa manages to analyze a specific historical process and attempt to theorize, from a global perspective, how capitalism and local enterprise developed at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one.

The second contribution of the book, from the perspective of a dialogue between business history and anthropology, is Krupa’s longitudinal analysis of the flower industry in Ecuador. Krupa demonstrates that the birth of the flower industry was not due to the development of comparative advantage but rather to the flow of credit from multilateral organizations aimed at developing a new export product. The first entrepreneurs in the sector entered the business not to sell flowers but to gain access to cheap credit. They came from urban sectors connected to local banks. It was speculative, nonproductive capitalism. Since their loans and expenses were denominated in Ecuadorian currency but their sales were in US dollars, most of their profits stemmed from the devaluation of the local currency. This form of primitive capital accumulation, as the author refers to it, developed alongside a discursive framework in which flower business entrepreneurs perceived themselves as redeemers of Indigenous peasants by offering them modern employment opportunities. However, the financial crisis between 1999 and 2000, followed by the dollarization of the Ecuadorian economy, compelled entrepreneurs to adopt policies aimed at increasing productivity and labor efficiency. Among the measures adopted was the hiring of human resources departments to “discipline” and “civilize” Indigenous workers.

The third contribution of A Feast of Flowers to the intersection of business history and anthropological studies is its rigorous analysis of the “uses of history” to show how corporate narratives relate to management technologies that reinforce Ecuadorian discourses of racial discrimination.

Businesspeople and managers of flower plantations in Cayambe have constructed a discourse that divides the region into “before” and “after” their arrival in the region. The “before” is associated with the legacy of the old hacienda system. In this narrative, the Indigenous population suffered from disease, destruction of the family unit, and illiteracy due to mistreatment by the hacienda owners. In contrast, flower producers have introduced wage labor and created value chains, etc. In their discourse, flower business entrepreneurs present their mission not merely as the pursuit of profit but above all as a way of building a homeland (“hacer patria”).

The “after” discourse is one of “salvation.” However, it portrays Indigenous workers as a passive population on whom social engineering processes can be carried out without concern. Consequently, Krupa analyzes the management techniques introduced by the owners through consulting hired by flower plantation managers, aiming to transform the workplace into what the author has called (using the interviewees’ own words) a “finca de personas” (“farm of people”) (p. 278).

In this regard, Krupa analyzes the management techniques introduced by human resources teams through specialized consultants, primarily industrial psychologists. These techniques aim to classify and control workers’ personal spaces to increase productivity. These forms of social control also perpetuate racial stereotypes among Indigenous workers. The intention was to transform flower plantations into what Krupa, on the basis of the accounts of his interviewees, refers to as a “farm of people,” or “finca de personas” (p. 278).

This analysis of the narrative is based not only on interviews with owners, managers, and consultants but also on interviews with workers and field observations. This holistic approach is important in business history, which often relies solely on oral histories based on interviews with businesspeople.

Despite the overuse of academic jargon and regardless of one’s agreement with some of A Feast of Flowers’s conclusions, Krupa’s analysis provides a stimulating framework for exploring the intersections of business history and anthropology. Additionally, it is an interesting effort to redefine theoretical concepts and analytical frameworks from the global south.