Nature, Labour, and the Making of Ecological Peripheries

Bibliographic Data

ID7426304
AuthorsCorey Ro (0000-0002-1051-2865, University of Birmingham, corresponding author), COREY ROSS
Year2020
Volume65
Issue3
Pages467-479
Publication date2020-10-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Review of Social History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-8590 • E-ISSN: 1469-512X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020859020000565
OpenAlexW3094183049
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited31

This article briefly considers how the integration of the biophysical world into our analyses of the past can enhance our understanding of the socio-economic inequalities of the modern world. Taking Ulbe Bosma's The Making of Periphery as its central reference point, it argues that the process of “peripheralization” – generally treated as an economic or social phenomenon – can also be usefully approached as an interaction between human and non-human forces. It uses the example of Southeast Asian rubber production to show how the different arrangements of people, plants, soil and water on European estates and indigenous smallholdings gave the latter distinct ecological advantages that boosted their oft-cited economic competitiveness, and that consequently forced plantations to extract even more value from cheap labour. In this sense, the environmental history of Southeast Asian rubber offers further evidence for Bosma's core theses about the heterogeneity of peripheralization processes and the importance of demography and labour relations in shaping them

Biology · Economic geography · Epistemology · Geography · Indigenous · Inequality · Phenomenon · Political science · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Ecology · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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