Why did nearly a century of efforts to develop the oil palm sector in Dahomey/Benin not make its producers wealthy? To answer this question, Rooted in Exploitation traces the history of oil palm development from the late nineteenth century through colonial rule, independence, and the negotiation of structural adjustment programmes in the 1990s. The book argues that oil palm development, under both colonial and postcolonial rule, depended on exploitation, defi ned as the appropriation of labour and goods at below-market prices. The forms and intensity of exploitation changed across successive political and economic contexts. Precisely because exploitation was continually reconfi gured, it provides an analytical tool for identifying breaks and continuities in this long history of development.

Drawing on extensive new archival research, the book brings together social, agricultural, environmental, economic and global history to offer an integrat ed and multi-actor account of development. By following a single commodity over more than a century, Rooted in Exploitation asks who benefi ted from development, who bore its costs, and how changing political and economic regimes transformed the terms of exploitation.