Periodising globalisation: Mauritian integration into the sugar commodity chain (1825-2005)

Neveling, Patrick (May 2012). Periodising globalisation: Mauritian integration into the sugar commodity chain (1825-2005) (Working Paper Series 18).

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Using the case study of Mauritius, and its integration into the international sugar commodity chain, this paper shows that the analysis of commodity chains can be fruitfully employed to respond to recent calls in the field of global/world history for a periodisation of globalisation. The entry of Mauritius into the British Empire brought about a particular kind of integration of the island into the capitalist world system. Central to this integration was the production of sugar under the West Indian Sugar Protocol, with this ultimately turning Mauritius from a free port into a plantation economy. This shaped the island's economic and political practice, and brought the formation of a range of institutions that sustained a high degree of inequality among Mauritians by finding ever newer ways of conciliating socio-economic mobility with exploitation. The paper discusses Mauritian history through the framework of bilateral and multilateral trading agreements that had a significant impact on the sugar industry, and kept the island economically dependent on this single crop. This only changed when the postcolonial state succeeded in diversifying the Mauritian economy during the 1970s and 1980s.

Item Type:

Working Paper

Division/Institute:

06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of History > Modern and Contemporary History

UniBE Contributor:

Neveling, Patrick

Subjects:

900 History

ISSN:

1756-0098

Series:

Working Paper Series

Language:

English

Submitter:

Dr John Patrick Walter Neveling

Date Deposited:

02 Feb 2015 11:02

Last Modified:

09 Jan 2024 12:11

Related URLs:

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/62671

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