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Kumara and Coconuts: Colonial Ecologies and Pacific Plants

Fri, March 31, 10:30am to 12:00pm, The Drake Hotel, Michigan

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel will examine the ecological effects of colonialism on land use and traditional food resources in the Pacific, as well as ways that indigenous groups absorbed and claimed newly introduced plants, animals, and technologies. The production and trade of agricultural goods by indigenous Pacific communities after colonisation has received little attention from environmental historians, yet these practices often resulted in significant environmental and cultural transformations in particular locales. Māori market gardens, Tahitian copra and coconut oil production, and Cook Islands feasts each provide different perspectives on the continued centrality of agriculture in environmental transformations in the nineteenth and twentieth century Pacific.

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Individual Presentations

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