PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Ghanaian cocoa

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PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION • Ghanaian cocoa production increased from 95 pounds to 100, 000

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION • Ghanaian cocoa production increased from 95 pounds to 100, 000 tons between 1890 and 1920. • Senegalese peanut production increased from 5 tons in 1850 to 95, 000 tons in 1900. • Land under jute in colonial Bengal increased from 50, 000 acres to 3, 500, 000 acres between 1850 and 1910. • Philippines production of manila hemp increased from 18, 000 to 160, 000 tons between the 1850 s and 1920 s. • In Malaysia, peasant households planted 918, 000 acres of land with rubber trees between 1910 and 1922. • India’s exports of cotton increased from 76, 000 tons in the 1830 s to 310, 000 tons in the 1880 s. • Burma’s rice exports increased from 160, 000 tons to 2, 000 tons between 1855 and 1905.

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Rubber Tapping in Ceylon and Malaya, early twentieth century

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Rubber Tapping in Ceylon and Malaya, early twentieth century

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Peasants in Gold Coast (Ghana) breaking open cocoa-pods, ca. 1920

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Peasants in Gold Coast (Ghana) breaking open cocoa-pods, ca. 1920

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Sacks of peanuts loaded onto camels in Senegal, early twentieth century

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Sacks of peanuts loaded onto camels in Senegal, early twentieth century

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Sacks of cotton being loaded onto bullock carts in India, early

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Sacks of cotton being loaded onto bullock carts in India, early 20 th century

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Peanuts ready to be shipped to France, Dakar, Senegal, early twentieth

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Peanuts ready to be shipped to France, Dakar, Senegal, early twentieth century

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Entangled in global markets: Man carrying jute fibers, twenty-first century Bangladesh

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Entangled in global markets: Man carrying jute fibers, twenty-first century Bangladesh

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Imagine a peasant household in the colonized tropics, farming on ~5

PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION Imagine a peasant household in the colonized tropics, farming on ~5 acres of land using mostly household labor, and producing mostly food crops for household subsistence. What are the possible environmental or ecological ramifications of this peasant family devoting more land labor to commodity production?

ENVIRONMENT AND PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION First, to grow cash crops for sale to distant

ENVIRONMENT AND PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION First, to grow cash crops for sale to distant markets entails adapting rhythms of work and leisure, ecologies of soil and water, seasons of rain and sunshine, and periods of scarcity and abundance to the biological requirements of plants. Second, labor, and ecology to the speculations of capital.

COMMODITIES AND FAMINE Starving farmers in Orissa, India, 1866 -7, photo by W. W.

COMMODITIES AND FAMINE Starving farmers in Orissa, India, 1866 -7, photo by W. W. Hooper

DOCUMENTS • The Cotton Supply Association, Manchester, 1857 • “Jungles Today are Gold Mines

DOCUMENTS • The Cotton Supply Association, Manchester, 1857 • “Jungles Today are Gold Mines Tomorrow, ” Empire Marketing Board, 1926 • “Colonial Produce Markets, ” The Observer, London, May 18, 1862 • Correspondence of the Dundee, Scotland Calcuttabased jute manufacturing company Thomas Duff & Company, 1933 & 1936

THE COTTON SUPPLY ASSOCIATION (1) Objectives and motivations (2) Techniques (3) Empire and Capital

THE COTTON SUPPLY ASSOCIATION (1) Objectives and motivations (2) Techniques (3) Empire and Capital

THE EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD, 1926

THE EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD, 1926

EMPIRE AND PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION (1) Is there a historical transition from slave-produced commodities

EMPIRE AND PEASANT COMMODITY PRODUCTION (1) Is there a historical transition from slave-produced commodities to peasant-produced commodities? (2) Is peasant more production more “capitalist” than slave production? (3) What are imperial discourses of peasant commodity production?

LONDON & LIVERPOOL “COLONIAL PRODUCE MARKETS”

LONDON & LIVERPOOL “COLONIAL PRODUCE MARKETS”

LONDON & LIVERPOOL “COLONIAL PRODUCE MARKETS” The relationship between the physical commodity produced by

LONDON & LIVERPOOL “COLONIAL PRODUCE MARKETS” The relationship between the physical commodity produced by peasant labor and the abstract commodity expressed as price, quantity, and quality.

THE GLOBAL TELEGRAPH NETWORK

THE GLOBAL TELEGRAPH NETWORK

LONDON & LIVERPOOL “COLONIAL PRODUCE MARKETS” The telegraph enabled the abstract form of the

LONDON & LIVERPOOL “COLONIAL PRODUCE MARKETS” The telegraph enabled the abstract form of the commodity to circulate faster, more frequently, and independent of its physical form. Through the global telegraph system, merchants, financiers, and industrialists across the world transmitted information ceaselessly, as orders to buy and sell and information on availability and demand, weather conditions, crop forecasts, and worker strikes pinged back and forth across the world. Thus, the telegraph subjected peasant labor to the continuous speculations of capital, from before the plant was sown to after it was harvested.

THOMAS DUFF & COMPANY Speculation, manufacturing, and profits. What do the managers of Duff

THOMAS DUFF & COMPANY Speculation, manufacturing, and profits. What do the managers of Duff & Company think about when speculating on the future of jute prices?

CAPITAL AND ENVIRONMENT • What does it mean to subject agrarian ecologies to the

CAPITAL AND ENVIRONMENT • What does it mean to subject agrarian ecologies to the speculations of capital? • How does this relationship between capitalist speculation and environment play out beyond peasant societies and agrarian ecologies?