Most of my early professional work was ethnographic, having received doctoral training in anthropology. I later began crafting stories with materials, sounds and light to express what is beyond language. I still work in relationship with people but mostly, nowadays, with plants and soils whose lessons are far worthier of our attention.

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The Oil Palm Kernel and the Tinned Can

The Oil Palm Kernel and the Tinned Can

Makalé Cullen
Writing

Makalé Faber-Cullen ends our issue with a beautiful reflection on what connects the oil palm tree, the tin can, and colonialism.  

...As historian Martin Lynn explains inCommerce and Economic Change in West Africa, palm oil was used in the manufacture of Europe’s (and Britain’s) soap and candles, in textile trades, and as a lubricant for railroads and industrial machinery (Lynn 2002:3, 46).

But its most interesting use, in my view, was as an ingredient in tinning—the process of thinly coating sheets of iron or steel with tin to prevent rusting. This process accelerated one of the most transformative food access innovations: tin cans.

Preserving foodstuffs in tin meant reliable nourishment well beyond a harvest, thereby addressing a constant challenge faced by our species...

Please read my article in the art and applied sociology journal, LIMN. 

Issue No. 4 analyzes food infrastructures and addresses scale in food production, provision and consumption. 

...where, she said, the Maltese, with death-defying insouciance quite beyond comprehension, drove neither on the left nor on the right, but always on the shady side of the road...
Biggins & The Historic New Orleans Collection

Biggins & The Historic New Orleans Collection

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