Cultivating Rubber through Science, Indigeneity and Art

This project traces the socio-environmental trajectories of rubber, Lat. Hevea Brasiliensis. This cash crop, which is used in everything from tires to telegraph cables, fundamentally changed the world. The project combines archival and ethnographic research in order to answer the following research questions: What articulations of racial and environmental justice emerge from people’s different modes of relation to Hevea Brasiliensis from colonialism until present day? What socio-environmental considerations underpin colonial and postcolonial science? How are postcolonial power hierarchies, such as indigeneity, citizenship and class, re-negotiated through the cultivation of rubber by different social groups? Undertaking a qualitative analysis, this study explores the ways in which colonial officials, smallholders, biotechnology scientists, indigenous communities and artists in colonial and postcolonial contexts have cultivated Hevea Brasiliensis in different ways and with different socio-environmental implications. The project critically analyses how cultivating rubber through science, ancestral knowledge and aesthetics can enable the articulation of multiple forms of social and environmental justice from within monocrop plantations. Moreover, given the growing challenges posed by the interdependencies between climate variability and industrial agriculture, it also speaks to questions of environmental sustainability and social justice. Findings from this project will provide insights and recommendations for governmental and nongovernmental actors interested in aspects of environmental and social sustainability in the context of industrial agriculture. Also, findings will benefit scholars and the public through the dissemination of publications and pedagogical materials through free-of-charge online platforms. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.