Paper 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

Paper 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.