In the Shadows of the Tropics
Subtitle: Climate, Race and Biopower in Nineteenth Century Ceylon (Re-Materialising Cultural Geography)
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing; Ashgate
Published: November 30, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 212
ISBN-13: 9780754672265
Subjects: Ethnic studies; Human geography; c 1800 to c 1900; Science; Business / Economics / Finance; Science/Mathematics; Industries - General; Earth Sciences - Geography; 19th century; Coffee industry; History; Race; Sri Lanka
Description: "This volume investigates the transformation of Ceylon during the mid-nineteenth century into one of the most important coffee growing regions of the world and the consequent ecological disaster which erased coffee from the island." "Using this case study by way of illustration, this book reveals the spatial unevenness and fragmentation of modernity through a focus on modern governmentality and biopower. It argues that the practices of colonial power, and the differences that race and tropical climates were thought to make, were central to the working out of modern governmental rationalities." "Contributing an important rural focus to current work on studies of governmentality in geography, In the Shadows of the Tropics offers a welcome non-state dimension, with its emphasis on the role of the expanding plantation economy and the power of individual capitalists in the management of the lives and deaths of labourers, the destabilization of subsistence farming and the aggressive re-territorialization of populations from India to Ceylon. In this context, the usefulness of Foucault's notions of biopower, discipline and governmentality are examined."--BOOK JACKET.