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In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua
With In the Shadow of the Palms, Sophie Chao examines the multispecies entanglements of oil palm plantations in West Papua, Indonesia, showing how Indigenous Marind communities understand and navigate the social, political, and environmental demands of the oil palm plant. As Chao notes, it is no secret that the palm oil sector has destructive environmental impacts: it greatly contributes to tropical deforestation and is a major driver of global warming. Situating the plant and the transformations it has brought within the context of West Papua’s volatile history of colonization, ethnic domination, and capitalist incursion, Chao traces how Marind attribute environmental destruction not just to humans, technologies, and capitalism but also to the volition and actions of the oil palm plant itself. By approaching cash crops as both drivers of destruction and subjects of human exploitation, Chao rethinks capitalist violence as a multispecies act. In the process, Chao centers how Marind fashion their own changing worlds and foreground Indigenous creativity and decolonial approaches to anthropology.
Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient
1139541151
In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua
With In the Shadow of the Palms, Sophie Chao examines the multispecies entanglements of oil palm plantations in West Papua, Indonesia, showing how Indigenous Marind communities understand and navigate the social, political, and environmental demands of the oil palm plant. As Chao notes, it is no secret that the palm oil sector has destructive environmental impacts: it greatly contributes to tropical deforestation and is a major driver of global warming. Situating the plant and the transformations it has brought within the context of West Papua’s volatile history of colonization, ethnic domination, and capitalist incursion, Chao traces how Marind attribute environmental destruction not just to humans, technologies, and capitalism but also to the volition and actions of the oil palm plant itself. By approaching cash crops as both drivers of destruction and subjects of human exploitation, Chao rethinks capitalist violence as a multispecies act. In the process, Chao centers how Marind fashion their own changing worlds and foreground Indigenous creativity and decolonial approaches to anthropology.
Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient
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In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua
With In the Shadow of the Palms, Sophie Chao examines the multispecies entanglements of oil palm plantations in West Papua, Indonesia, showing how Indigenous Marind communities understand and navigate the social, political, and environmental demands of the oil palm plant. As Chao notes, it is no secret that the palm oil sector has destructive environmental impacts: it greatly contributes to tropical deforestation and is a major driver of global warming. Situating the plant and the transformations it has brought within the context of West Papua’s volatile history of colonization, ethnic domination, and capitalist incursion, Chao traces how Marind attribute environmental destruction not just to humans, technologies, and capitalism but also to the volition and actions of the oil palm plant itself. By approaching cash crops as both drivers of destruction and subjects of human exploitation, Chao rethinks capitalist violence as a multispecies act. In the process, Chao centers how Marind fashion their own changing worlds and foreground Indigenous creativity and decolonial approaches to anthropology.
Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient
Sophie Chao is Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellow and Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sydney and the editor and coeditor of several books, including Conflict or Consent? The Oil Palm Sector at a Crossroads and Oil Palm Expansion in Southeast Asia: Trends and Implications for Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples.
Table of Contents
Prologue ix Introduction 1 1. Pressure Points 33 2. Living Maps 51 Interlude: Lost in the Plantation—The Dream of Yustinus Mahuze 75 3. Skin and Wetness 77 4. The Plastic Cassowary 95 Interlude: Metamorphosis—The Dream of Yosefus Samkakai 115 5. Sago Encounters 117 6. Oil Palm Counterpoint 143 Interlude: The Empty Sago Grove—The Dream of Agustinus Gebze 165 7. Time Has Come to Stop 167 8. Eaten by Oil Palm 183 Interlude: Black Waters of the Bian—The Dream of Elena Basik-Basik 201 Conclusions 203 Epilogue: Endings—The Author's Dream 219 Acknowledgments 221 Notes 227 References 269 Index 311
What People are Saying About This
Dispossession and the Environment: Rhetoric and Inequality in Papua New Guinea - Paige West
“Raising fundamental questions about ethnographic practice, theory, and activism, Sophie Chao offers a truly new examination of human-plant relations that pushes us forward in how we imagine, understand, and narrate these forms of relation. This excellent and beautifully written book, which is at points both heart-wrenching and joy producing, makes a field-changing contribution to anthropology, human-animal studies, political ecology, environmental humanities, and postcolonial studies.”
Feral Atlas: The More-than-Human Anthropocene - Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
“The stories Sophie Chao tells in this amazing book are mesmerizing, and her interpretation of them is clear and powerful. She makes a major contribution to the intersection of multispecies and posthumanist scholarship and critical BIPOC studies in ways that could shape imaginations both in and beyond the academy. Brilliant, insightful, and meticulous, In the Shadow of the Palms will be an influential and important book.”
