Masking the Past, Legitimizing the Present : State-Making and Precariatization in the Agro-Industrial Landscape, Colombia
(2022) In Studies in the Social History of the Global South 47(2). p.86-111- Abstract
- History is written by the powerful. Representations of the past are framed within the structures of the dominant institutions today, and other pasts – those of the enslaved, the marginalised, the disenfranchised – are often suppressed. Drawing of Eric Wolf’s Europe and the People Without History, this chapter explores how the fertile lands of the Cauca Valley, Colombia, have been transformed into a sugarcane monoculture landscape, and how a dominant narrative of a successful industry has been established and maintained. Based on a review of written historical material, oral histories and ethnographic fieldwork, it explores how conflicts and contestations, connections and collaborations have shaped the developments of the region, and how... (More)
- History is written by the powerful. Representations of the past are framed within the structures of the dominant institutions today, and other pasts – those of the enslaved, the marginalised, the disenfranchised – are often suppressed. Drawing of Eric Wolf’s Europe and the People Without History, this chapter explores how the fertile lands of the Cauca Valley, Colombia, have been transformed into a sugarcane monoculture landscape, and how a dominant narrative of a successful industry has been established and maintained. Based on a review of written historical material, oral histories and ethnographic fieldwork, it explores how conflicts and contestations, connections and collaborations have shaped the developments of the region, and how global forms of production have been met, resisted and adapted to locally. Drawing attention to the role of discourses and landscape interventions, the chapter illustrates how political and economic elites through history have appropriated land and labour through discourses of ‘empty land’ and ‘scarcity of labour’, as well as through landscape interventions and infrastructural developments. Meanwhile, subaltern groups have contested the changing economic and political conditions by escaping enslavement, forming independent settlements, organising labour strikes, and occupying lands to settle in the margins of the agro-industrial landscape. Though these contestations offer an alternative historical narrative of the region, the chapter points to a steady precariatization of the rural population, in which discourses and landscape interventions mask past dispossessions and legitimise the current relations of production. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/425698ef-b518-4976-912a-065b7393940c
- author
- Hougaard, Inge-Merete LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022-12-15
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- published
- subject
- host publication
- Global Power and Local Struggles in Developing Countries : Contemporary Perspectives On: Europe and the People without History, by Eric R. Wolf at 40 - Contemporary Perspectives On: Europe and the People without History, by Eric R. Wolf at 40
- series title
- Studies in the Social History of the Global South
- volume
- 47
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 25 pages
- publisher
- Brill
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85158942480
- ISBN
- 978-90-04-52548-1
- 978-90-04-52792-8
- DOI
- 10.1163/9789004527928_005
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 425698ef-b518-4976-912a-065b7393940c
- date added to LUP
- 2023-01-02 12:48:03
- date last changed
- 2024-04-19 20:05:46
@inbook{425698ef-b518-4976-912a-065b7393940c,
abstract = {{History is written by the powerful. Representations of the past are framed within the structures of the dominant institutions today, and other pasts – those of the enslaved, the marginalised, the disenfranchised – are often suppressed. Drawing of Eric Wolf’s Europe and the People Without History, this chapter explores how the fertile lands of the Cauca Valley, Colombia, have been transformed into a sugarcane monoculture landscape, and how a dominant narrative of a successful industry has been established and maintained. Based on a review of written historical material, oral histories and ethnographic fieldwork, it explores how conflicts and contestations, connections and collaborations have shaped the developments of the region, and how global forms of production have been met, resisted and adapted to locally. Drawing attention to the role of discourses and landscape interventions, the chapter illustrates how political and economic elites through history have appropriated land and labour through discourses of ‘empty land’ and ‘scarcity of labour’, as well as through landscape interventions and infrastructural developments. Meanwhile, subaltern groups have contested the changing economic and political conditions by escaping enslavement, forming independent settlements, organising labour strikes, and occupying lands to settle in the margins of the agro-industrial landscape. Though these contestations offer an alternative historical narrative of the region, the chapter points to a steady precariatization of the rural population, in which discourses and landscape interventions mask past dispossessions and legitimise the current relations of production.}},
author = {{Hougaard, Inge-Merete}},
booktitle = {{Global Power and Local Struggles in Developing Countries : Contemporary Perspectives On: Europe and the People without History, by Eric R. Wolf at 40}},
isbn = {{978-90-04-52548-1}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{12}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{86--111}},
publisher = {{Brill}},
series = {{Studies in the Social History of the Global South}},
title = {{Masking the Past, Legitimizing the Present : State-Making and Precariatization in the Agro-Industrial Landscape, Colombia}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004527928_005}},
doi = {{10.1163/9789004527928_005}},
volume = {{47}},
year = {{2022}},
}