Palm Oil Diaspora
Afro-Brazilian Landscapes and Economies on Bahia's Dendê Coast

An environmental history and political ecology of palm oil in colonial Brazil, the African diaspora, and the Atlantic World.

Case Watkins (Author)

9781108746236, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 September 2023

367 pages
27 x 18 x 2.4 cm, 0.61 kg

'This is an extraordinary and timely study of both the history and contemporary circumstances concerning the African oil palm in Brazil … The book is clearly written, very well structured …' Merle L. Bowen, Agricultural History

Behind the social and environmental destruction of modern palm oil production lies a long and complex history of landscapes, cultures, and economies linking Africa and its diaspora in the Atlantic World. Case Watkins traces palm oil from its prehistoric emergence in western Africa to biodiverse groves and cultures in Northeast Brazil, and finally the plantation monocultures plundering contemporary rainforest communities. Drawing on ethnography, landscape interpretation, archives, travelers' accounts, and geospatial analysis, Watkins examines human-environmental relations too often overlooked in histories and geographies of the African diaspora, and uncovers a range of formative contributions of people and ecologies of African descent to the societies and environments of the (post)colonial Americas. Bridging literatures on Black geographies, Afro-Brazilian and Atlantic studies, political ecology, and decolonial theory and praxis, this study connects diverse concepts and disciplines to analyze and appreciate the power, complexity, and potentials of Bahia's Afro-Brazilian palm oil economy.

1. Assembling an Afro-Brazilian economy
2. African and Atlantic Worlds
3. Creolization
4. An Afro-Brazilian landscape
5. South Atlantic exchange
6. Landscapes, religions, transitions
7. Complexity
Epilogue: decolonizing dendê.

Subject Areas: The environment [RN], Economic history [KCZ], History of the Americas [HBJK]