Presentation short abstract

Based on 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines how the superfood commercialisation of the aguaje palm fruit (Mauritia flexuosa) is being promulgated through the language of sustainable development and planetary health to promote a “one-world world” (Law 2015).

Presentation long abstract

In the Peruvian Amazon, the aguaje palm fruit (Mauritia flexuosa) is being heralded as the next big superfood. Behind the scenes of several commercialisation efforts, we find multinational corporations, conservation organisations, as well as state institutions (local and foreign aid) working together to try to bring aguaje to the international market. Since the aguaje palms grow in peatland swamps, the logic goes that the commercialisation of aguaje will incentivize rural harvesters to climb instead of cutting down the aguaje palms, customers will have an exciting new product to try, and the carbon-rich swamplands remain undisturbed and the forest remains intact—a win-win scenario for all. Based on 24 months of ethnographic research, this paper examines how the language of sustainable development and planetary health have been harnessed to promote a “one-world world” (Law 2015). The paper presents on the case study of the state government of Loreto’s Proyecto Aguaje scheme, which promised to “reactivate” the post-Covid-19 economy in one of Peru’s poorest regions, and in a country that suffered from some of the highest Covid-19 mortality rates. Given the moral overtures of superfood commercialisation—for harvesters, consumers, and the planet—there is little room for nuance or alternative stories, even as harvesters are targeted as problematic actors and their livelihoods radically reshaped.