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Species of toxic capitalism

Sandra Calkins (University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany)

This paper traces the toxic circulations connected to two species that have travelled and reorganized the globe – bananas and cosmopolities sordidus, also known as the banana weevil. First, what we know in global trade as “the” banana is the clone of a single plant – the Cavendish banana. Even in small farming settings like in Uganda where different varieties are cultivated, banana cultivation tends towards monoculture and a high use of agrochemicals. In turn, the banana weevil is a small bug originating in South-East Asia that hides in banana rootstocks. It is considered a devastating invasive species that has spread to all banana growing regions in the world. In Uganda, the main focus of this paper, the weevil arrived with colonial planting materials and since has spread and devasted plantations across the country. Farmers fight it through conventional management strategies and pesticides, many of which contain substances that have been long banned in Europe and North America and which are known to leave traces in bodies, air, soil and water sources. Such toxic accumulations in the landscape are rarely addressed as scientists, farmer organizations and government officials highlight the inevitability of agrochemical pest control for the growth of the banana sector. Attending to the entangled histories of “capitalist species”, such as bananas and cosmopolites sordidus, highlights the toxic legacies of colonial extractivism and forgrounds paradoxes that question the inevitability of continuous toxic accumulation for the sake of growth.

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