COLCAT · The Making and Unmaking of a Colonial Cattle Frontier. Capitalism, Science and Empire in Madagascar, 1870s-1970s
Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2023-01-01 → 2024-12-31
- EU contribution
- €191,760
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The Making and Unmaking of a Colonial Cattle Frontier. Capitalism, Science and Empire in Madagascar, 1870s-1970s
Due to the expansion of global capitalism, colonial rule and veterinary science, cattle production and trade, as well as pastoralist societies and cattle environments, in 19th and 20th century Africa were subject to important changes. These have not been sufficiently researched. My project wanted to change this by analysing the transformations processes in the livestock sector in Africa through the case of Madagascar, a French colony from 1895 to 1960 with a huge cattle population that became the theatre of a whole series of transformative cattle policies that historians have not yet accounted for. By doing so, and by using the concept of “cattle frontiers”, my project pursued 4 major research objectives: 1. To bring pastoral economies and commodities into the discussion about commodity frontiers and the expansion of global capitalism, particularly in Africa. This discussion had thus far mainly focused on cash crops and minerals, excluding livestock; 2. To tease out the tensions between global capitalism and French colonialism, and between metropole and colony, by showing where rationales and actions diverged and converged; 3. To assess the social, economic and ecological conditions and effects of the cattle frontier in Madagascar; 4. To explore the role of new knowledge, scientific practices and technologies at the cattle frontier.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Using the lens of the cattle frontier in Madagascar in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this project explores the transformation of livestock production, pastoralist societies, imperial economies and animal landscapes in colonial and postcolonial Africa. It builds on the concept of commodity frontiers, moving sites of capitalist commodity production and extraction, to disentangle the complex interplay between global capitalism, science and empire in the making and unmaking of the cattle frontier in Madagascar. COLCAT examines why and how European (mostly French) and Malagasy administrators, entrepreneurs and veterinary experts, in often conflictual interaction with indigenous pastoralists, tried to transform pre-existing cattle economies on the island and to turn cattle into profitable commodities. It argues that the making of a capitalist and imperial cattle frontier implied a broad range of interventions, from the improvement of local breeds and new methods of cattle disease management to the sedentarisation of cattle pastoralists and the establishment of meat factories and new cattle trading networks. COLCAT analyses the rationales and dynamics of these interventions, including the manifold conflicts, negotiation processes and (intended and unintended) social, economic and ecological consequences. It thereby pays particular attention to the role of science and expert knowledge. While COLCAT’s main focus is on the profound transformations of the colonial era (1895-1960), it embeds them in a longue-durée perspective, spanning late Merina rule in the precolonial period (1870s-90s) to the postcolonial era (1960s-70s). This will facilitate teasing out the tensions between capitalist, imperial and (post)colonial expansion and development goals. Overall, COLCAT will make a substantial contribution to the history of global capitalism, the history of (French) colonialism in Africa, environmental history and the history of science and knowledge.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITEIT GENT · GentCoordinatorBelgium
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101061290
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5fdd632ca&appId=PPGMS
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5fde79a62&appId=PPGMS
Data: CORDIS, © European Union