Periodic Reporting for period 5 - COLOUR (THE COLOUR OF LABOUR: THE RACIALIZED LIVES OF MIGRANTS)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-09-01 do 2023-04-30
The project examined how positionality in plantation and plantation-like systems generate racialized identifications which are at once contingent, hierarchical and naturalized (i.e. attributed to inherent qualities rather than to social processes). With a central reference to plantation economies and a focus on post-emancipation societies, we combined anthropology, history, the history of science and technology, sociology, and migration and mobility studies in order to explore the political, ideological, scientific, technological, cultural and experiential dimensions of racialization processes in plantation-like economies based on imported, indentured, contracted, contingent and mobile migrant work across political boundaries.
Empirical cases included: (I) post-abolition colonial British Guiana; (II) Hawaiian sugar plantations, 19th and early 20th century, and the multiple sources of incoming labour from Asia and Europe; (III) New England cotton mills at the turn of the 20th century and their hierarchized groups of migrants; (IV) the trans-imperial nexuses of S. Tomé’s cocoa and coffee economies and the southern Angolan colonial settlements; (V) the reconfigurations of plantation hierarchies in contemporary Mauritius; (VI) the contingency of labour and life in contemporary Italian agribusiness; (VII) mobilities; (VIII) racializations in science.
We outlined three innovation fronts: (i) developing theory by connecting conceptual work on race, racism, racialization, embodiment and memory with the lived experience of migrant labourers across political boundaries and imperial classifications; (ii) connecting issues of pressing social relevance like racism to wider, deeply rooted structures of domination via substantive, broad-scope, multi-sited anthropological and historical research on unconventional empirical and temporal settings of plantation and plantation-like economies; (iii) shifting from conventional comparisons of nation-based empires to studying intersections between competing empires and states.
Empirical cases included: (I) post-abolition colonial British Guiana; (II) Hawaiian sugar plantations, 19th and early 20th century, and the multiple sources of incoming labour from Asia and Europe; (III) New England cotton mills at the turn of the 20th century and their hierarchized groups of migrants; (IV) the trans-imperial nexuses of S. Tomé’s cocoa and coffee economies and the southern Angolan colonial settlements; (V) the reconfigurations of plantation hierarchies in contemporary Mauritius; (VI) the contingency of labour and life in contemporary Italian agribusiness; (VII) mobilities; (VIII) racializations in science.
We outlined three innovation fronts: (i) developing theory by connecting conceptual work on race, racism, racialization, embodiment and memory with the lived experience of migrant labourers across political boundaries and imperial classifications; (ii) connecting issues of pressing social relevance like racism to wider, deeply rooted structures of domination via substantive, broad-scope, multi-sited anthropological and historical research on unconventional empirical and temporal settings of plantation and plantation-like economies; (iii) shifting from conventional comparisons of nation-based empires to studying intersections between competing empires and states.
Trajectories of migration and racialization across empires and political units were documented while engaging in conceptual work and collaborating with social partners, through the following activities: (i) literature review of digital and physical sources in Lisbon, London, Toronto, Washington D.C. Georgetown, Honolulu, Dartmouth, New Bedford, Port Louis, Rome, drawing on a shared corpus of readings; (ii) archival research in the UK (London, Kew, Greenwich, Cambridge, Edinburg, Glasgow), Portugal (Lisbon, Porto, Funchal, Ponta Delgada), S Tome, Angola (Lunbango, Namibe, Humpata), Italy (Rome, Foggia), Germany (Berlin), the US (Massachusetts, Maryland, Hawaii), Guyana (Georgetown) and Malaysia; (iii) fieldwork in contemporary-oriented tracks (Mauritius, Italy) and interviews in historical tracks (Hawaii/California; New England; Guyana/Toronto, Suriname); (iv) conferences, seminar series, symposia, panels, invited lectures and summer courses; (v) intense collaboration across research tracks; (vi) co-organization of actions addressed to wider audiences.
Important findings were achieved in each research track:
I: Madeirans were recruited to British Guiana plantations in the 1830s-50s through unclear legal frameworks and in circumstances of extreme social inequalities, crop failures, famines and debt. Once on Guiana plantations, Madeiran labourers experienced dire conditions and high mortality. They emerge in the sources as a distinct racial group, siding with Africans, North and South Indians. Some survived and carved a social niche in commerce, in tension with emancipated African-descendants, while benefiting in credit and other facilites from British settlers and bankers. Towards the late 19th century, a second wave of business-oriented Madeirans expanded the local community, which remained a distinct group in the racialized dynamics of Guiana (White, Black, Indian, Portuguese, Chinese and Amerindian). In the 1960s, many of the Portuguese-Guyanese migrated to the Toronto area.
II: The sponsored, mostly legal migration of Madeirans and Azoreans to Hawaii (as kingdom or U.S. annexed territory, resulted from a combination of racialist immigration policies promoted by planters and governments in Hawaii and the availability of Portuguese islanders to migrate as families, endure plantation work and move on to other socio-economic. They remained a distinct group as a result of the local dynamics of racialized differentiation.
III: The Azorean labor force in New England mills was subject to the dynamics of racialization of migrants and responded in multiple ways.
IV: S Tomé: There is a close relation between the racialized labour management practices of Brazilian coffee plantations and those of São Tomé since the 1850s, as enslaved and indentured workers from Angola experienced similar working conditions on both sides of the Atlantic. These practices were adapted to the production of cocoa since the 1880s and exported to Belgium Congo and German Cameroons. Plantation life, however, was not just about monocrop, and enslaved laborers explored some counterplantation productions (e.g. Cannabis). Angola: The connected study of Madeiran settlements in Angola and migrations to Hawaii in the 1880s suggests that both groups were recruited from the same pool and that the sponsored settlement of Huila was also a government's response to out-migration to Hawaii and British Guiana. Once in Angola, the positionality of Madeirans in the racialized system became sui generis, contrasting both to indigenous African groups and to upper class Pernambucan plantation owners settled in the lowlands of Moçamedes.
V: The persistence of racialized categories in contemporary Mauritius echoes colonial sediments and is reflected in the modern industry of domestic service for retirement housing and the hospitality sector.
VI: Contemporary structures of labour recruitment suggest a plantation/post plantation nexus in current agribusiness, although this may not be depicted as "plantation" proper.
VII: The angle of "mobilities" allows for an expanded understanding of labor; naval logs and whaling-related sources provide an interesting complement to the plantation-oriented focus.
VIII: Advancements in genetics changed the scientific understanding of “race” and “populations," yet, on many fronts, the plantation history of racial categories enters biomedical research, the clinic and public health knowledge.
We promoted partnerships with a variety of academic and non-academic interlocutors in most field sites, plus joint conferences in New England, Mauritius, and Madeira. We organised the advanced summer courses "Along and Against the Archival Grain" and "Plantation Europe." We published over 50 articles and chapters, 3 edited volumes, and 3 journal issues. More remain in preparation. We produced three documentaries, two videoclips and a board game.
Important findings were achieved in each research track:
I: Madeirans were recruited to British Guiana plantations in the 1830s-50s through unclear legal frameworks and in circumstances of extreme social inequalities, crop failures, famines and debt. Once on Guiana plantations, Madeiran labourers experienced dire conditions and high mortality. They emerge in the sources as a distinct racial group, siding with Africans, North and South Indians. Some survived and carved a social niche in commerce, in tension with emancipated African-descendants, while benefiting in credit and other facilites from British settlers and bankers. Towards the late 19th century, a second wave of business-oriented Madeirans expanded the local community, which remained a distinct group in the racialized dynamics of Guiana (White, Black, Indian, Portuguese, Chinese and Amerindian). In the 1960s, many of the Portuguese-Guyanese migrated to the Toronto area.
II: The sponsored, mostly legal migration of Madeirans and Azoreans to Hawaii (as kingdom or U.S. annexed territory, resulted from a combination of racialist immigration policies promoted by planters and governments in Hawaii and the availability of Portuguese islanders to migrate as families, endure plantation work and move on to other socio-economic. They remained a distinct group as a result of the local dynamics of racialized differentiation.
III: The Azorean labor force in New England mills was subject to the dynamics of racialization of migrants and responded in multiple ways.
IV: S Tomé: There is a close relation between the racialized labour management practices of Brazilian coffee plantations and those of São Tomé since the 1850s, as enslaved and indentured workers from Angola experienced similar working conditions on both sides of the Atlantic. These practices were adapted to the production of cocoa since the 1880s and exported to Belgium Congo and German Cameroons. Plantation life, however, was not just about monocrop, and enslaved laborers explored some counterplantation productions (e.g. Cannabis). Angola: The connected study of Madeiran settlements in Angola and migrations to Hawaii in the 1880s suggests that both groups were recruited from the same pool and that the sponsored settlement of Huila was also a government's response to out-migration to Hawaii and British Guiana. Once in Angola, the positionality of Madeirans in the racialized system became sui generis, contrasting both to indigenous African groups and to upper class Pernambucan plantation owners settled in the lowlands of Moçamedes.
V: The persistence of racialized categories in contemporary Mauritius echoes colonial sediments and is reflected in the modern industry of domestic service for retirement housing and the hospitality sector.
VI: Contemporary structures of labour recruitment suggest a plantation/post plantation nexus in current agribusiness, although this may not be depicted as "plantation" proper.
VII: The angle of "mobilities" allows for an expanded understanding of labor; naval logs and whaling-related sources provide an interesting complement to the plantation-oriented focus.
VIII: Advancements in genetics changed the scientific understanding of “race” and “populations," yet, on many fronts, the plantation history of racial categories enters biomedical research, the clinic and public health knowledge.
We promoted partnerships with a variety of academic and non-academic interlocutors in most field sites, plus joint conferences in New England, Mauritius, and Madeira. We organised the advanced summer courses "Along and Against the Archival Grain" and "Plantation Europe." We published over 50 articles and chapters, 3 edited volumes, and 3 journal issues. More remain in preparation. We produced three documentaries, two videoclips and a board game.
Research progressed beyond the state-of-the-art in the themes of cross-imperial migrations; intersections of empires; labour recruitment in post-abolition plantations; mobile labour; plantation/post-plantation nexuses and the angles of domestic service, sex work, and spatial containment of labourers; inscriptions of race in biomedical research and public health knowledge; the plantation-race nexus; the plantation-factory continuum; plant-people nexuses and plant-anthropo-genesis.