Global Plantations In The Modern World

Taking a multidisciplinary and global approach, this edited book examines the dynamic role of plantations as productive, socio-political and ecological forms throughout imperial and post-colonial worlds spanning multiple and broad temporalities. Showcasing an expansive range of case studies across different geographies, the collection sheds light on the heterogeneity of plantations and offers insights into the afterlives, spectres and remnants of systems that have been analysed as schemes of production, extraction and authority. Focusing on the expansion of plantation systems throughout various political-economic and ecological projects, and across the modern (and post-modern) period, allows the authors to move beyond analyses that often deal with individual empires through human-centered lenses. The contributors explore resistance to the mechanisms of extraction and control that plantations and their afterlives demanded, shedding light on their excesses, contradictions, failures and deviations. Offering a comprehensive treatment of global plantations, this book provides valuable reading for researchers with an interest in the socio-political and environmental effects of colonialism and imperialism in their various guises. Chapters 1, 8 and 11 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Originally published in 1984, this was the first study to define and rationalise the character and functions of the plantation in the contemporary world. The author, Edgar Graham, was uniquely placed to do this having had long experience of Unilever's plantations in West Africa, Zaire, Malaysia and the Pacific. Writing as a pragmatist, from observed fact, his starting point was the fact that the 'modern plantation' bears very little resemblance to that of the past, on which most hostile accounts are still based. Two changes altered the very nature of the issue: First, the 20th Century plantation existed within an economic framework controlled by independent governments. Secondly, the rapid development in technology has revolutionised most aspects of plantation production. The result, it is argued, is that the modern plantation offers host governments the option of using this as the most efficient way of utilising available factors of production to provide a maximum social return. Exemplified by case studies, this study presents a powerful argument for the continue use of the plantation system when properly applied to a variety of tropical crops.

The looming depletion of non-renewable resources has increased the global land grab in the past decade. So far however, the question of how and when people can influence economic outcomes has received little attention in the study of social movements. Based on in-depth ethnographic field research since 2003 in the industrial forestry expansion frontiers in Brazil and elsewhere in the global South, this book presents a novel theory to explain how the interaction between resistance, companies and the state determines investment outcomes. The promotion of contentious agency by organizing and politicizing, campaigning, protesting, networking and engaging in state and corporate-remediated politics whilst maintaining autonomy is central to explaining how impacted people influence resource flows, and block or slow projects they deem harmful to their livelihoods and the environment. The conflicts between globalizing paper and pulp corporations and the landless peasants, indigenous communities and other parties with alternative projects for the planet’s future are studied to illustrate how a great transformation can be built upon progressive counter-movements. This systematic comparison of several cases illustrates the broader principles and problems endemic to the global political economy. Contentious Agency and Natural Resource Politics will be of strong interest to students and scholars of international relations, international political economy, environmental studies, environmental politics, sociology and social movement studies.

Over a period of several centuries, Europeans developed an intricate system of plantation agriculture overseas that was quite different from the agricultural system used at home. Though the plantation complex centered on the American tropics, its influence was much wider. Much more than an economic order for the Americas, the plantation complex had an important place in world history. These essays concentrate on the intercontinental impact.

The Iberian world played a key role in the global trade of enslaved people from the 15th century onwards. Scholars of Iberian forms of slavery face challenges accessing the subjectivity of the enslaved, given the scarcity of autobiographical sources. This book offers a compelling example of innovative methodologies that draw on alternative archives and documents, such as inquisitorial and trial records, to examine enslaved individuals' and collective subjectivities under Iberian political dominion. It explores themes such as race, gender, labour, social mobility and emancipation, religion, and politics, shedding light on the lived experiences of those enslaved in the Iberian world from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. Contributors are: Magdalena Candioti, Robson Pedroso Costa, Rômulo da Silva Ehalt, James Fujitani, Michel Kabalan, Silvia Lara, Marta Macedo, Hebe Mattos, Michelle McKinley, Sophia Blea Nuñez, Fernanda Pinheiro, João José Reis, Patricia Faria de Souza, Lisa Surwillo, Miguel Valerio and Lisa Voigt.

"This book brings together political economy and vital materialism to set out an original conceptualization and genealogy of urban violence"--

Written for scholars and students alike, Plantation Kingdom is an accessible and fascinating study.

Frederick Guy's The Global Environment of Business offers a multi-dimensional analysis of the environment in which international business operates. International: How do multi-national corporations, nation states, regional trade blocs, markets, and global institutions interact to shape the international economic system? Who wins and who loses when the economy internationalizes? Is internationalization leading to a global world, or a regional one? How will efforts to curtail and adapt to climate change affect international business? Technological and historical: How has the business environment been shaped by production systems, new methods of business organization, information and communication technology, transport, and the process of technological change itself? Comparative: How do institutional differences affect national specialization and economic performance? How do the business systems of Europe differ from that of the United States, or those of East Asia from those of Latin America? Why do location and face-to-face contact matter in an age of high-speed communication and cheap long-distance transportation? Why have some countries grown so fast while others remain poor? The Global Environment of Business draws on extensive research by economists, political scientists, sociologists, geographers, and business historians. There is more theory and academic debate here than in most books on the subject, but it is presented and explained clearly, and illustrated with lots of examples.