Article ID: CBB245206254

Agricultural expertise, race, and economic development: Small producer ideology and settler colonialism in the Territory of Hawaiʻi, 1900–1917 (2020)

unapi

Wang, Jessica (Author)


History and Technology
Volume: 36
Issue: 3-4
Pages: 310-336


Publication Date: 2020
Edition Details: Special Issue: Development Interventions: Science, Technology, and Technical Assistance
Language: English

This essay explores the technical practices of economic development in early twentieth-century Hawaiʻi, where agrarianism, race, and competing colonialisms shaped agricultural experts’ perceptions of the islands’ future. Technical activities in the form of horticultural experiments aimed at introducing new crops, research on soil and fertilizers, work on plant diseases and insect pests, shipping experiments and marketing efforts, analytical testing services, and outreach to farming communities constituted the key means by which the United States Department of Agriculture’s Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station pushed for fundamental economic and social transformations in the Territory of Hawaii. A populist anti-imperialist ideology drove the experiment station’s agenda, in an explicitly stated project of Americanization that sought to break Hawaiian dependence on sugar and plantation agriculture, expand small farming, and remake the islands’ racial order through white settlement from the mainland. Ultimately, the USDA’s brand of settler colonialism failed to supplant the existing plantation economy.

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Associated with

Article Gisela Mateos; Edna Suárez-Díaz (2020) Development interventions: science, technology and technical assistance. History and Technology (pp. 293-309). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB245206254/

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Authors & Contributors
Christmas, Sakura Marcelle
Phillip F. Beach
Costanza Bonelli
Serels, Steven
Maravall, Laura
Specht, Joshua Albert
Concepts
Agriculture
Imperialism
Settler colonialism
Economic development
Race
Public health
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
Places
Hawaii (U.S.)
United States
Africa
Tropics
Eritrea
Djibouti
Institutions
Northern Pacific Railroad Company
Tennessee Valley Authority
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