Commodifying Cattle. The Transformation of Livestock Economies and Knowledge Regimes in the French Colonial Empire, 1890-1960
Final Report Abstract
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and all the restrictions and hardships it entailed, I was unable to write the monograph that was originally intended for my research project Commodifying Cattle (2019-2022). As a mitigation strategy to cope with enduring travel restrictions, and after a due costs-benefits analysis, I decided to limit the geographical scope of my project to French Equatorial Africa and Madagascar, thus abandoning case studies on French West Africa and Indochina. This notwithstanding, during the three years of my project, I moved forward its agenda in various ways, most notably by: Identifying, collecting and partly analysing a large amount of sources and secondary literature for the intended case studies (in key archives and libraries); Rethinking the conceptual framework of my research, adopting the concept of ‘commodity frontiers’; Re-conceptualizing and elaborating case studies; Disseminating results and agenda-setting (through publications, workshop panels, presentations) within the fields of global commodity history, African history and medical history; Writing and obtaining follow-up research projects (most notably an ERC Starting Grant) that will allow me to pursue, within a new framework, important parts of the research agenda of Commodifying Cattle.
Publications
-
Between colonial medicine and global health: protein malnutrition and UNICEF milk in the Belgian Congo. Medical History, 65(4), 384-402.
Coghe, Samuël
-
Livestock Frontiers. Commodity Frontiers, (3), i-viii.
Schneider, Mindi & Coghe, Samuël
-
A New Pastoral Frontier: Colonial Development, Environmental Knowledge, and the Introduction of Trypanotolerant Cattle in French Equatorial Africa, 1945–1960. Environmental History, 27(4), 692-721.
Coghe, Samuël
