The Nutmeg's Curse: Amitav Ghosh Ep. 59

When we speak of biodiversity loss, the climate crisis, and food injustice, we have to go to the root: colonialism. From the perspective and "voice" of the nutmeg, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis by acclaimed author Amitav Ghosh does just that. Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka and is now based in Brooklyn. He’s the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. His most recent book, The Nutmeg’s Curse, opens with the Dutch Empire’s brutal war in the Banda Islands—a small archipelago that’s part of what is now Indonesia—to establish a monopoly on the nutmeg trade. From there, he takes us halfway around the world and back again, weaving together stories of colonial violence, human resilience, and non-human agency.

SHOW NOTES:

2:32 | Why European navigators sailed off in search of spices in the 17th century

4:00 | Dutch colonialism and the 1621 Banda Massacre

9:46 | Nutmeg production as the earliest instance of industrial agriculture and racial capitalism (and why it matters)

11:19 | Racialized workforces in agriculture around the world

14:20 | The pleasures of gardening, including growing your own spices

15:15 | How spices came to be devalued (and associated with “onanism”!)

17:40 | On the mysteries of the vanilla plant

20:40 | Environmentalism’s dark history (and present) of ethnic cleansing

22:20 | The role of militarism in transforming food systems and contributing to the climate crisis

23:30 | The Pentagon and other military institutions as the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world, and yet they are excluded from climate negotiations

25:42 | Amitav’s call for a “vitalist politics”

DIG DEEPER:

Follow Amitav Ghosh on Twitter: @GhoshAmitav

Visit his blog: http://amitavghosh.com/blog/

Buy the book: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo125517349.html

​​For more on this episode, expanded show notes, and full transcript, visit: https://realfoodmedia.org/portfolio/the-nutmegs-curse/

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