Faculty of Cultural Sciences on Workshop “Plant, People, Consumption, and Works”

The abrogation of slavery that colors the revolution in France and Haiti in 1800s had become the marking of world market in a great scale. In South Asia and Southeast Asia, trading is oriented in agricultural products like tobacco, indigo, sugar, coffee beans, and tea. The production system of the commodities have been developed as a plantation system that’s based on slavery in the circles of colonies ruled by Britain and Dutch.

Plantation cannot be easily simplified, whether it’s to earn a land, recruit workers that suit the local culture, or the political system and the ecological condition. At the same time, the transfer is also based on loan or duplication of governmental system, politic control, and the regime of the workers from the other side of the globe.

These contradict the term of social change and ecology, while status change of tropical products from luxurious products to consumption products in Europe has taken its toll on the pattern of consumption. Coming from this point, the Department of History, Faculty of Cultural Sciences of UGM partners with the Indonesian Institute of History (InSI), and The International Institute of Social History (IISG), Dutch, to hold a workshop entitled “Plant, People, Consumption, and Works: The Social History of Cash Crops in Asia 18 th-20th Century”.

In the workshop, there is the discussion about the way to build a comparison and relation in the shift of labor relationship that affected on the social system and the ecology. There will also be a discussion on the development of commodity chain and the shift of consumption pattern that happened, including the lifestyle. The workshop will also explore how the two colonials connect and introduce, produce, and preserve the commodities for world market in its relation with India and Indonesia, also between Asia, Europe, and America.

The workshop is held for three days, 13-15 August 2009, at the court room I, Faculty of Cultural Sciences of UGM. It involves the appearance of spokespersons from UGM, IISG, London University, LIPI, SOAS, Delhi University, and Public University of Jember.

(Public Relations of UGM/Ika)