Tales of the Post-Plantation: Unlikely Protagonists of Modern Philippine Banana History | A Book Talk
Everyone is invited to the the book launch of “Tales of the Post-Plantation: Unlikely Protagonists of Modern Philippine Banana History,” recipient of the 42nd National Book Awards John C. Kaw Prize for Best Book on History. The event will take place on 26 November 2024, from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 nn (Philippine Standard Time) at the Pilar Herrera Hall, Palma Hall of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, UP Diliman. The lecture is free and open to the public, on a first-come, first-served basis. Participants are encouraged to pre-register
Rationale
The event serves as the official Philippine launch of “Tales of the Post-Plantation: Unlikely Protagonists of Modern Philippine Banana History,” which was recently awarded the John C. Kaw Prize for Best Book on History at the 42nd National Book Awards.
About the Book
Since the late 1960s, the hinterland of the southern Philippine city of Davao has been the epicenter of commercial production and export of Cavendish bananas in Asia. Against a backdrop of elite interest pushing a paradigm of banana-plantation modernity, Robin Theirs opts to tell this story through the tales of more unlikely protagonists: small-scale farmers, a fungus, and the banana itself. Drawing on original fieldwork and transdisciplinary empirical and theoretical literature, he pushes us to imagine plantations as more-than-human assemblages, both underpinning and subverting the imaginaries of capitalist discipline and anthropocentric control. Destabilizing the epistemic and ontological foundations of the modern plantation, this book is first and foremost an invitation: could we imagine a post-plantation?
The book is published by the Ateneo De Manila University Press.
Speaker
Robin Thiers holds a PhD in Political Sciences from the University of Ghent (Belgium), where he worked at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies. He obtained an MSc in Globalisation and Development from SOAS University of London (UK) and an MSC in Comparative and International Politics from the University of Leuven (Belgium).
Discussants
Patricio N. Abinales is Professor in the School of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i-Manoa. From the Philippine island of Mindanao, he first completed a BA in history at the University of the Philppines-Diliman before obtaining a PhD in Government and Asian Studies at Cornell University in 1997. He is the Southeast Asia editor of Critical Asian Studies and editorial board-member of a number of other eminent Asian studies and social science journals.
Karl Friedrick Poblador is an Assistant Professor at UP History Department. He holds a Ph.D. in History at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He regularly writes articles, presents papers and engages in research on the history of Philippine economic institutions, particularly transportation.
Queries and Organizer Info
For queries, please email: [email protected]
The Program on Alternative Development (AltDev) of UP CIDS is co-organizing this event together with the Third World Studies Center, UP College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, and the Ateneo De Manila University Press.
AltDev is one of the 16 Research Programs of the Center of Integrative and Development Studies (CIDS), the policy research unit of the University of the Philippines. Learn more about AltDev and download their free policy papers.