Imperialism and labour: palm industry in the territories of Black communities in the border areas of Colombia and Ecuador (Tumaco-San Lorenzo)

The palm oil industry is a complex business and has operated on a global scale for two centuries. It involves local, national and transnational capital, articulates political elites around the world, and mobilizes international nets of scientific investigation and technical knowledge. Since its beginning, this agribusiness has been characterized by the overexploitation of people and the destruction of environment. The world-system theory and its further developments have focused on understanding the historical configuration of the hierarchical structure of capitalism, especially by analysing the role those peripheral countries play in this system. Yet although the unequal exchange concept introduced us to a theoretical perspective of the relation between core and periphery within the system, its analysis does not truly allow us to see what exactly is being exchanged, and most of the times it does not offer empirical data to understand what kinds of elements take part in these exchanges. Using the example of palm oil plantations, I attempt to provide an analytical and empirical framework to understand how imperialism works through unequal exchange. This article explores how the labour relation inside but also outside the palm plantations operates, and tracks the socio-bio-ecological elements involved in the production of palm oil as a commodity. My argument is that together with direct work accomplished by labour-power in plantations, indirect, personal, collective and communitarian work constitutes a whole universe of social production that is further appropriated by the palm oil production cycle and inserted into the capital accumulation process.