Wild Rubber and the Western Frontier: Producing British Subjects and Colonial Borders in the Gold Coast and Asante, 1880-1914

Wednesday, November 14, 2018
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
McClellan 101
Keri Lambert, Yale University

Yale History PhD candidate, Keri Lambert, workshops a dissertation chapter, entitled “Wild Rubber and the Western Frontier: Producing British Subjects and Colonial Borders in the Gold Coast and Asante, 1880-1914.”

Keri’s dissertation investigates the social and environmental dimensions of industrialization, globalization, and nation making from 1880 to the present through the lenses of Ghana’s forests, rubber plantations, and tire factories. She argues that Ghanaian rubber farmers and workers, while producing a good they themselves would only circuitously consume, concurrently cultivated identities, livelihoods, and discerning opinions of governance, corporate power, and the uneven dividends of economic growth. By prioritizing the viewpoints of farmers and laborers, her dissertation challenges determinist narratives of global capitalism and commodity production in Africa and instead underscores the strategies and outlooks of rural and working-class visionaries who struggled to secure sovereignty for their communities even in the face of colonial subjugation and capricious world markets.

To attend and request a copy of the pre-circulated chapter manuscript, please email environmentalhumanities@yale.edu.