Entangled Histories and the Environment?

This study's goal is to outline how environmental factors can be systematically included into the perspective of entangled histories. So far, the question how access to natural resources, energy, land-use systems and agricultural practices have influenced unequal relationships of power have largely remained confined to the field of environmental history but do not belong to the established perspective on histories of empire and colonialism. The essay combines the two conceptual perspectives of "environment-in-entanglement" and "practices of comparing" in order to broaden the approach to how (post-)colonial entanglements are researched historically. Two case studies show how these two analytical frameworks can be put into practice. The first offers a new reading of the first contact situation between Columbus and the indigenous population on the Island of Hispaniola. The second dissects the idea of the "pre-adaptedness" of African bodies to tropical climates, which became one of the most pervasive justifications for slavery in the Caribbean.


Table of Contents

1. Preface and Introduction - or: Normalizing Environmental
History in the Anthropocene ................................................. 1

2. Arriving: Unfamiliar and Incomparable Environments
on Hispaniola? ...................................................................... 15

3. Extracting: Comparing European and African Bodies
in Tropical Climates .............................................................. 35

4. Conclusion: The Environment in Entanglement,
and Practices of Comparing .................................................. 61

5. Works Cited .......................................................................... 65