Pacification through Pineapple: The Role of the Del Monte Plantation in American Colonialism and Land Rights Issues in Bukidnon, Philippines

This study examines the role of the Del Monte plantation as a tool of colonialism and its impact on issues of land and property in Bukidnon, Philippines. Primary data was collected through ethnographic interviews with former employees of the DM corporation as well as indigenous inhabitants of the province. Through interviews and secondary sources, this work argues that the Del Monte plantation was a tool of the American colonial state in the Philippines to pacify the “wild” native inhabitants of the island through: employment opportunities to create docile agricultural workers, sanitation and educational incentives; and encouraging migration of Christian peasants from the north and central regions of the country to populate the sparsely-inhabited Mindanao. The study also found that American “agribusiness” companies set a precedent for arbitrary and top-down land acquisitions that has impacted land rights and indigenous peoples’ issues up to the present. Using an anthropological lens, the study also looks at the different spatial and social understandings of land and property ownership between the corporation and the indigenous peoples of Bukidnon. The conclusion focuses on plantations as enduring tools of colonialism through the whole scale use of fertile land for the production and export of monoculture crops.

Author

• Acosta, Inigo Chotirawe

Language

• en

Keyword

• Land Use Philippines
• Del Monte Corporation Philippines
• American Colonialism Philippines
• Plantations History
• Indigenous People Mindanao
• Bukidnon

Date created

• 2020

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Anthropology

Degree

• M.A.

Advisor

• Kuipers, Joel C

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/s4655h281