The tree that responds: taming the rubber tree

Abstract The starting point of this article is the assertion, common among tappers (or seringueiros) in plantations in the interior of São Paulo, that it is necessary to tame rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) at the beginning of each harvest. They use this phrase to indicate the need to accustom the trees, from the first cuts, to establish an optimal flow of latex. The process of taming the tree is also discussed here based on historical ethnographic materials regarding relationships established with rubber trees in the last decades of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both in the Amazon and in the nascent plantations in Southeast Asia. British naturalists from different colonies came to dispute who “discovered” the fact that the rubber tree possesses a mechanism that they called the “wound response”. Based on this diversity of references to the modes of relationship with the peculiar characteristics of the rubber tree, I seek to elucidate, by viewing the genesis articulated between technical and vital rhythms, what it means to affirm that a tree responds or is tamed.

搜集汇总

背景与挑战

背景概述

该数据集聚焦橡胶树割胶过程中的驯化现象，包含历史民族志材料和实验数据，主要研究人-植物关系和技术实践，属于人类学领域。数据集包含7个文件，主要为图片和表格数据。