Conference: The Nature of Commodity Frontiers

The Nature of Commodity Frontiers conference aims to contribute analyses at the intersections of ecology, race, gender, Indigeneity, and more-than-human life in the historical analysis of commodity frontiers. Our focus is the transformation of the global countryside, in all its diversity and unevenness across time and space. In line with this bottom-up approach, we shift the perspective away from the urban and industrial core regions of the world towards the countryside and agrarian change, and give a central place to ecological limits, local initiatives, resilience, and conflicts as drivers of change. The complete program is available at this link. 

Thursday, April 24, 2025
CGIS Knafel, Room K262, Bowie-Vernon Room, 1737 Cambridge St.
10:00am-12:00pm Opening Panel: The Nature of Commodity Frontiers 
1:30pm-3:30pm Reproducing Frontiers: Gendered and Racialized Regimes 

Robinson Hall, 35 Quincy St, Room 125
4:00pm-6:00pm Keynote Conversation: Commodity Frontiers, Indigenous Studies, and Settler Colonialism 

Friday, April 25th, 2025
CGIS South, Room S020, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge St.
10:00am-11:30am Monoculture Frontiers: Declining Biodiversity and Labor Transformations
1:00pm-3:00pm Multispecies Frontiers
3:30pm-5:00pm Colonial Frontiers and Resistance Panel

Saturday, April 26th, 2025
CGIS South, Room S020, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge St.
10:00am-12:00pm Roundtable Discussion: The Nature of Commodity Frontiers: Future Directions
What is missing? Where are we going?

Convened by the leadership of the Commodity Frontier Initiative (CFI)
Sven Beckert, Ulbe Bosma, Mindi Schneider, and Eric Vanhaute 
Sponsored by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; the Weatherhead Research Cluster on Global History, and Brown University.