The Banana Tree at the Gate: A History of Marginal Peoples and Global Markets in Borneo

Description

The “Hikayat Banjar,” a native court chronicle from Borneo, characterizes the irresistibility of natural resource wealth to outsiders as “the banana tree at the gate.” Michael R. Dove employs this phrase as a root metaphor to frame the history of resource relations between the indigenous peoples of Borneo and the world system. In analyzing production and trade in forest products, pepper, and especially natural rubber, Dove shows that the involvement of Borneo’s native peoples in commodity production for global markets is ancient and highly successful and that processes of globalization began millennia ago. Dove’s analysis replaces the image of the isolated tropical forest community that needs to be helped into the global system with the reality of communities that have been so successful and competitive that they have had to fight political elites to keep from being forced out. Contents Preface Acknowledgments Part I. Introduction Chapter 1. The Study of Smallholder Commodity Producers Part II. The Challenges of the Colonial Trade in the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries Chapter 2. A Native Court’s Warning about Involvement in Commodity Production Chapter 3. The Antecedent to Cultivating Exotic Rubber Part III. Coping with the Contradictions of Capitalism in the Early Twentieth Century Chapter 4. The Construction of Rubber Knowledge in Southeast Asia Chapter 5. Depression-Era Responses to Smallholder Rubber Development by Tribesmen and Governments Part IV. The Indigenous Resolution of the Subsistence/Market Tension Chapter 6. The Dual Economy of Cultivating Rubber and Rice Chapter 7. Living Rubber, Dead Land, and Persisting Systems Part V. The Conundrum of Resource Wealth versus Political Power Chapter 8. Material Wealth and Political Powerlessness Chapter 9. Plantations and Representations in Indonesia Part VI. Conclusion Chapter 10. Smallholders and Globalization Notes References General Index Index of Plant Names