Coconut Colonialism: Workers and the Globalization of Samoa

Samoa was a hub of Oceanian cultural and economic exchange, but missionaries and traders arrived in the 19th century, leading to German and American division. Holger Droessler's book, Coconut Colonialism, explores the Samoan response through the lives of its workers, who challenged German and American visions of a global economy and regained independence through cooperative farming and ethnographic shows.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 28 January 2022
Publisher: Harvard University Press

Halfway between Hawaii and Australia, the Samoan islands have long been a hub of Oceanian cultural and economic exchange. Accustomed to exercising agency in trade and diplomacy, Samoans found themselves entangled in a new form of globalization after missionaries and traders arrived in the mid-nineteenth century. As the great powers of Europe and America competed to bring Samoa into their orbits, Germany and the United States eventually agreed to divide the islands for their burgeoning colonial holdings.

In Coconut Colonialism, Holger Droessler examines the Samoan response through the lives of its workers. Ordinary Samoans, some on large plantations, others on their small holdings, picked and processed coconuts and cocoa, tapped rubber trees, and built roads and ports that brought cash crops to Europe and North America. At the same time, Samoans redefined their own way of being in the world, what Droessler terms "Oceanian globality," to challenge German and American visions of a global economy that, in fact, served only the needs of Western capitalism. Through cooperative farming, Samoans contested the exploitative wage-labor system introduced by colonial powers. The islanders also participated in ethnographic shows around the world, turning them into diplomatic missions and making friends with fellow colonized peoples. Samoans thus found ways to press their own agendas and regain a degree of independence. Based on research in multiple languages and countries, Coconut Colonialism offers new insights into the global history of labor and empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Weight: 628g
Dimension: 166 x 244 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780674263338