Palma Africana - Michael Taussig

In Palma Africana , Australian anthropologist Michael Taussig explores palm oil production in Colombia. As it invades everything from potato chips to nail polish, the author examines the ecological, political and social consequences of this exploitation.

Although the list of horrors caused by palm oil cultivation is long, our usual terminologies no longer allow us to account for the realities they describe. Through this anthropo-poetic stroll in the heart of the Colombian swamps, it is therefore the question of language that the author questions. Like William Burroughs, for whom words are as alive as animals and do not like to be kept on pages – Michael Taussig wants to cut them, and give them back their freedom.

Conceived from a lifetime of philosophical and ethnographic exploration, Palma Africana seeks to counteract the banality of world destruction and offers a penetrating vision of our human condition. Illustrated with photographs taken by the author and written with the experimental verve of the anthropologist, this book is Michael Taussig's Tristes Tropiques for the 21st century.