Wendy Wolford, ‘The Plantationcence: A Lusotropical Theory’

Wendy Wolford delivers a talk that draws on empirical research from the Lusotropics—Brazil and Mozambique. Wolford’s research addresses issues within and between the political economy of development, agrarian studies, social mobilization, land reform, and political ecologies of conservation. From the earliest hunter-gatherer communities to the formation of the modern nation state and the search for new frontiers, land has been central to the organization of society. If we center land in our understanding of social life, then the defining characteristic of the modern era is the way in which the logic of the plantation has sustained an elite, propelled colonial exploration, organized labor and shaped both the cultures we consume and the cultural norms we inhabit and perform.