Short stories on globalization?

[Dan]

I am putting together a unit for teaching a high school English class using the Beehive Collective's Mesoamerica Resiste poster (check it out on their website). I am looking for short stories (fiction and non-fiction) for a high school audience that address many of the themes the poster touches on. These include resistance to mining and dam projects, the loss of biodiversity, the roots of drug war, neocolonialism, and the role of multinational institutions like the WTO.

I know that's a lot to bite off, but spread over a period of time and with the graphics as a reference I think it is doable. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[GaiaP]

Sepulveda is the first name that comes to my mind, but his novel is longer than 100 pages... don't know whether you can use it
The Old Man Who Read Love Stories
I read this book when I was in my teens and I still love it

[Feliks]

Not a short story but a very fluent novel from one of America's best authors: The Coup by John Updike.

If you carefully choose some chapters from this book you'd have the necessary illustration & context for your discourse.

[Tinea]

Hmm. Here are some ideas though I am not sure which or if any will really fit.

Nonfiction essays on globalization & resistance:
- The introduction to the Shock Doctrine is free online.
- The 1st chapter in Food Rebellions!: Forging Food Sovereignty to Solve the Global Food Crisis covers the mechanisms of globalization on agriculture and poor farmers from NAFTA to the 2008 food crisis. It's hard to find but very relevant and informative tho dense-- gets into the details of NAFTA that are illustrated broadly in the Beehive poster.
- Some chapters of the more accessible Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance, and Renewal may work instead.
- Here's a similar essay direct from La Via Campesina.
-Timothy Wise has many essays specific to NAFTA and other gloablization policies' impact on Latin America. Here's a good source of links for those. This "NAFTA at 20" series (scroll down) is also good.
- You Are G8, We Are 6 Billion: The Truth Behind the Genoa Protests intersperses story chapters of antiglobalizaton protest with informative chapters covering different issues (a bit outdated).
- The Truth of El Mozote (New Yorker article) as a taste of US Cold War proxy war atrocity; or the longer book The Massacre at El Mozote.

Then there's always this Chumbawamba song, Invasion.

[Dan]

Thanks folks, this is a big help!

[Feliks]

"...roots of the drug war"?...I recommend the classic (and mind-blowing) work of research,

Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade

If you want me to recommend salient chapters I can temporarily prise it loose from its position on my bookshelf.

[Dan]

Thanks, I have read some of McCoy's work and think it's great but probably a frustration-level text for high schoolers, although it would be great to keep a copy on hand...

[Feliks]

Agreed. You're right. I would select just one chapter though, and cite it for anyone interested.