ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Plantations reconfigured: from empire’s monocrop to contemporary pop-up polytunnels

• In Event: Science and Empire in the Anthropocene: Towards an Environmental Shift 1- Imperial roots of Plantationocene and Anthropocene

English Abstract

In this paper I will explore the potential and limitations of approaching contemporary agribusiness in southern Iberia with the analytical lens of plantation studies. Drawing from my research under the project “The Color of Labour – the racialized lives of migrants”, in which I explored how plantation economies in the aftermath of abolition and emancipation kept racializing humans via indentured labor, I will address contemporary configurations of agribusiness as they emerge in extreme conditions in southern Iberia via pop-up plastic greenhouses, obscure financial capital sources, and highly mobile precarious migrant labor.  The analysis will account for different aspects, including: the materiality of the plantationocene; the co-production of people and environments, previously explored as plant-anthropo-genesis and environment-anthropo-genesis; the persistence of empire and subjugation; the reconfigurations of labor, class, race and extractivism in the transitions of the Anthropocene.

Author

• Cristiana Bastos, Universidade de Lisboa