Benoît Henriet

Postdoctoral Researcher
Address: 
Boulevard du Jardin botanique 43
1000 Bruxelles
Belgium
E-mail: 
Work Package(s): 
Research themes: 
British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - )
History of body and embodiment
Indigenous Studies, Race and Racism, Environmental History,
World History
Visual Studies
Colonialism
History of Masculinities
African History
Research project: 

Oil Palm Cultivation in Belgian Congo, 1910-1945. Law, Land and Labour

This project intends to identify and analyse the transformations imposed upon local communities by colonial production of palm oil in Belgian Congo, from 1910 to 1945. It will specifically focus on the concession granted by colonial authorities to the British company Lever Brothers around the town of Lusanga, covering approximately 280,000 hectares of land. This doctorate will be based around three main themes: law, land and labour. First, it will start by investigating the elaboration of legislation regarding land acquisition and worker’s management in the colonial palm oil industry. Secondly, it will try to shed light on the effective application of those new sets of rules on the Congolese soil, and their consequences regarding both land tenure and environmental management. The third part of the research will focus on the indigenous experience of colonial rule and cash crop production, in terms of acculturation, adaptation and possible resistance. By combining various approaches, B. Henriet hopes to give a better rendition of a bottom-up perspective on colonial law and its various impacts. Regarding law, an investigation on the genealogy of property rights and working contracts in Central Africa is essential in order to understand how the legislator imagined the proper ruling of newly colonised territories. Considering land, a research focused on the consequences of Western presence and legislation on land tenure, management and their environmental impact is necessary to measure the gap between the ideals carried by lawmakers and their effective application on the field. As for labour, an inquiry dedicated to the social experience of the Congolese involved in cash crop agriculture aimed at exportation will allow the research to get a glimpse of the human experience behind the abstraction of the law.

Picture: ©Cegesoma, image nr°169622 :lawyers in the courthouse of Ghent, 1941[Maes]

The Interuniversity Attraction Pole P7/22 "Justice & Populations: The Belgian Experience in International Perspective, 1795-2015" (BeJust 2.0) is part of the Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme Phase VII (2012-2017), financed by the Belgian Science Policy Office of the Belgian State.

The IAP VII/22 Justice & Populations www.bejust.be is the outcome of a collaboration between the Cegesoma, the IAP coordination team (CHDJ-UCL) and the Royal Military Academy. Design: tangografix. Powered by Drupal