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- Convenors:
-
Boyd Ruamcharoen
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Hina Walajahi (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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- Chair:
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Liliana Gil
(Ohio State University)
- Discussant:
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Boyd Ruamcharoen
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
Our panel moves towards “tropical materialities”—matters that inflect, and are inflected by, the “tropical”—to elicit renewed inquiry into our inherited interpretations of the “tropics,” asking how we might “tropicalize” STS by transforming global and universal narratives from the tropics.
Long Abstract:
The tropics, Hi'ilei Julia Hobart writes, are “a racial imaginary as much as a physical place” that at once lies outside the “modern West” and harbors its origins (2022:4). Foundational postcolonial scholarship (e.g. Stepan 2001, Arnold 2005) has thus far treated the tropics as a geographical zone of alterity—of racialized desire, imperial conquest, abundant extraction—on the fringes of temperate metropoles. Deep ambivalence often marks portrayals of the tropics, which mix natural abundance and unbridled leisure, on the one hand, with strange illnesses and untold dangers, on the other. Here, however, we invite papers that move towards “tropical materialities” as a strategy to disrupt, disaggregate, and disorient epistemologies and ontologies of place, matter, and flesh naturalized by imperialist imaginaries.
Through tropical materialities, we attune to the tactile, sensuous, and physical matters that inflect, and are inflected by, the “tropical” in order to elicit renewed inquiry into our inherited interpretations of what, where, and when the “tropics” are. How do the specificity of tropical matters and attendant modes of mobility suggest alternative geographies, temporalities, and intimacies? How does it elucidate flows and arrests of knowledge, matter, and bodies that might not be clear otherwise? We propose, in turn, to use materially-oriented tropicalities to reconfigure global, universal, and planetary narratives, such as climate change and capitalism. In light of the call for Southern theory (Connell 2007), what might we gain by theorizing from the tropics and by “tropicalizing” science and technology studies?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Michelle Ha
Short abstract:
In this paper, I follow 19th-early 20th c. Mexican agave transplantation to Florida, Hawai’i, Tanzania, and Taiwan--“tropical” locations rarely studied together, teasing out their spatial logic as opportune sites according to the prevailing racial science regarding climate, horticulture, and labor.
Long abstract:
In 1905, around a thousand Koreans were trafficked into indentured servitude on Mexican agave fiber (henequén) plantations. Studies of Korean henequén workers as well as henequén as a commodity both assume these human and plant stories are exceptional: the long histories of Indigenous displacement and subjugation and other racialized populations also implicated in the Mexican plantation economy are rarely considered; meanwhile, following the henequén traffic uncovers a global “fiber fever” throughout the long nineteenth century, during which henequén was one of several generally fungible fibers—including jute from India and abacá from the Philippines—cultivated on tropical plantations under different imperial regimes.
In this paper, I chart the transnational movement of henequén to surface an alternative lens of tropical plantation modernity. Following the enterprising investors who took Mexican agaves to other “tropical” locations such as Florida, Hawai’i, Tanzania, and Taiwan allows us to connect places that are rarely studied together and tease out their unifying logic: as opportune sites according to the prevailing racial science regarding climate, horticulture, and labor, further buttressed by the availability of market opportunities according to the planters’ and prospectors’ positionalities vis-à-vis the formal state or imperial apparatus. Presenting this narrative of fiber commodities and the global plantation in turn raises questions about the materiality of plant fibers themselves—how the disappearance of these industrial use fibers in day-to-day life outside of specialized industries, and the dominance of synthetic alternatives and blends, affects our ability to “see” fibers in the archives and connect them in historical perspective.
Chanelle Adams (University of Lausanne)
Short abstract:
Both introduced and "endemic", the Ravintsara tree in Madagascar challenges taxonomic and colonial narratives of botanical life on tropical islands.
Long abstract:
In Madagascar, Ravintsara (Cinnamomum camphora, 1-8 cineole) presents a paradox regarding its botanical classification and origin. Despite often being labeled as "endemic," this tree is actually introduced to the island. Its distinct chemotype – which means it appears morphologically the same but produces eucalyptol rather than camphor – gives it medicinal properties valued during the Covid-19 pandemic and in the global essential oil export market.
This study examines Ravintsara's identity in Madagascar through interviews and archival research. It challenges traditional taxonomic boundaries, highlighting the complexities of chemotypes and their classification. Furthermore, it questions colonial-era narratives of Madagascar's species endemism, emphasizing the interaction between ideas of tropical islands and plant materiality.
By problematizing the concept of "tropical materialities," this research contributes to our understanding of how botanical science, cultural narratives, and medical practices intersect in Madagascar's botanical landscape.
Sarah Webb (University of Melbourne)
Short abstract:
Drawing together ethnography with accounts from field scientists, administrators, surveyors, spelunkers, speleologists, and other visitors, the paper examines how tropical imaginaries of exploration blur distinctions between colonialism, science, and tourism.
Long abstract:
Tuturingen, as it is called in Tagbanua, is a ‘wondrous’, ‘mystic’ subterranean river on the west coast of Palawan Island, long reputed as the Philippines’ final frontier. “The frontier is there, to be sure”, wrote Palawan historian Nilo Ocampo, “well represented in printed material and, therefore, a historical fact”. But he cautioned the frontier be pursued with this caveat: frontier it was for the Spaniards and Americans and Filipino migrant-settlers but it was home for Tagbanua and others (1996:24). This paper focuses on travels to the karst landscape (named for its likeness to St. Paul’s cathedral by British naval officer William Bate) and the travels of this underground river beyond (especially via descriptions of visitors to Palawan, including Dean Worcester, whose infamous photography style featured in National Geographic and was used by Worcester to argue against Philippine independence). Drawing together ethnography with accounts from field scientists, colonial administrators, coastal surveyors, spelunkers, speleologists, and other visitors, the paper examines how tropical imaginaries of exploration blur distinctions between colonialism, science, and tourism. The paper does so by paying particular attention to material descriptions of darkness, swiftlets, bats, crocodiles, hidden entrances, lost ways, cold flows, traders, and ‘natives’ that not only provide insight into how the imperative to explore is established but simultaneously provide a portrait of a cave inhabited.
montserrat perez castro (Dartmouth College)
Short abstract:
In this paper I explore the affective and political potentiality of palm oil as a tropical commodity that disorients dominant epistemologies of capitalism from inside of the supply chain. I discuss how knowing "the market" and "the plantation" produce ambivalent affects with political potential
Long abstract:
In this paper I explore the affective and political potentiality of palm oil as a tropical commodity that disorients dominant epistemologies of capitalism from inside of the supply chain. Drawing from feminist and postcolonial STS scholars and anthropologies of capitalism, I analyze the `tropical materialities' of palm oil from the perspectives and practices of sustainability workers in the palm oil supply chain in Mexico. Based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, I discuss two moments of knowledge production where palm oil becomes disorienting: 1) knowing “the market". I discuss the accounting and report practices for constructing "industry data '' and how the materialities of palm oil, as well as its material semiotic dimensions as a tropical and south-to-south commodity produces confusion and contradiction about the feasibility of sustainable palm oil. 2) knowing "the plantation". I describe field visits from agronomists, and corporate workers to the plantations with smallholders as moments that either reinforce or question the legitimization of the project of corporate intervention in agricultural production. I argue that these moments of knowledge production inside the supply chain produce ambivalent affects about sustainable palm oil as a project with market potential yet haunted by the excess of capitalism.
Yee Win Neo (King's College London-National University of Singapore)
Short abstract:
The workers that build, operate, and conduct research about data centres in Singapore often come from neighbouring countries, all of which are well-versed in the materialities of the tropical. How do tropical specificities intersect with the innovations in internet infrastructures?
Long abstract:
The problem of heat in data centres have gained increasing media and public scrutiny in recent years. As a tropical country, Singapore’s climate presents a natural barrier to the use of free cooling, thus resulting in the data centres’ higher energy consumptions. In response to the environmental impact of data centres, the Singapore government imposed a moratorium from 2019 to 2022, and upon its lifting, requires new data centres to be greener. Much of the ‘green turn’ across data centres involves the use of liquid cooling, which has been touted as more energy efficient than the air cooling methods traditionally used in the industry. However, the need for tropical standards remain debated. With ‘universal’ standards set by global organisations such as ASHRAE and OCP, what is the value of ‘local’ or ‘regional’ standards for an ’objective’ measurement of temperature?
Based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork with data centre liquid cooling experts based in Singapore, I try to understand how they perceive and learn about ‘universality’. Data centres are very much transnational entities – the workers that build, operate, and conduct research about data centres in Singapore often come from neighbouring countries such as Malaysia, India, and China, all of which are well-versed in the materialities of the tropical. How do tropical specificities intersect with the innovations in internet infrastructures, which knowledge is predominantly based in the fields of engineering? I hope that preliminary answers to these questions can contribute to the discussion of tropical materialities in STS.