Rubber in German colonial Africa: Plunder or Trade?

* Prof. dr. P. Geschiere, professor of anthropology at the University of Leiden: "Rubber and Cannibalism. The Germans, the Maka and the Rubberboom in South Cameroon (1900 - 1914)".
* Dr. F. Huijzendveld, lecturer at the Free University, Amsterdam: "Environment, Manihot and the market. The Rubberboom in German East-Africa (1890 - 1914)".

This seminar explores in a comparative way the confrontation between (German) rubber traders and plantation-producers on the one hand and the local population in two different regions of Africa on the other at the turn of the last century. It draws attention to the real or imagined contestations which this exploration for rubber produced between the various groups involved in that production and trade. Both speakers will locate the various dimensions of the rubberboom, which occurred around 1900, in a wider reflection on the German colonial experience in Africa. Related to this are ethnic stereotypes that resulted from this encounter, the role this specific market commodity played in the pre-World War I development of the nation-state, and the emergence of plantation production of rubber which deeply affected world-market prices and trading opportunities for African producers.