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Contribution short abstract

This contribution examines the role of the Kentia Palm in the creation of polarised socio-political identities on Lord Howe Island. This contribution invites discussion and reflection on the usefulness of historical-ethnography in engaging with trees, and their temporalities, anthropologically.

Contribution long abstract

This contribution engages with the roundtable’s focus on agentic trees in a world of polarisation by examining the essential role of the Kentia Palm tree in the historic and ongoing creation of polarised socio-political identities on Lord Howe Island. The Kentia Palm is an endemic species to Lord Howe Island that became central to the Island’s small economy when it became ‘the world’s most popular indoor palm’ in the late 19th century. Drawing on historical-ethnographic research and fieldwork on Lord Howe Island, I explore how the Kentia Palms have been central agentic beings in the construction of kin relations, socio-political identities and belonging on Lord Howe. In doing so, I engage with how we might understand the relationship between Lord Howe Islanders and the palm trees as an alliance – one that has conferred certain entitlements to Islanders while creating polarisations with ‘non-Islanders’ and the government. This contribution also asks whether the Kentia Palm’s endemicity and rarity are key affordances that have informed its agentic ability in shaping socio-political life.

This contribution also invites discussion about approaches to historical-ethnography beyond anthropocentrism and its usefulness in understanding tree-human relations. In thinking about how we can account for tree temporalities, I advocate for the usefulness of historical-ethnographic approaches and consider how we might understand and access non-human 'archives'. Illustrating this, I trace the important rarity of the Kentia Palm back in deep-time to consider its evolutionary beginnings, its colonial histories, and its speculative futures in the face of changing economies and climates.