Vol. 3 No. 2 (2026): Global More-than-Human Histories of Palms
Enclosure, Extraction and Unequal Care

Palms of Progress: A Longer View of Pahang’s Oil Palms

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  • Alice Rudge
Alice Rudge
SOAS, University of London
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3197/whppp.63876246815933

Published 2026-09-16

Keywords

  • palms,
  • enclosures,
  • scale,
  • land development,
  • malaysia

How to Cite

Rudge, Alice. 2026. “Palms of Progress: A Longer View of Pahang’s Oil Palms”. Plant Perspectives 3 (2):328-45. https://doi.org/10.3197/whppp.63876246815933.

Copyright (c) 2026 Alice Rudge

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper explores the figure of the oil palm in Pahang, Malaysia, asking what the oil palm becomes if theorised from the social and environmental context of this particular state. Pahang is the largest state in Peninsular Malaysia. It has more hectares of land planted with oil palm than any other state in the Peninsula. The oil palm’s roots in Pahang entangle in a complex manner with rubber, gold, tin, colonial systems of land tenure and taxation, political, religious and independence struggles, military occupation, and postcolonial development regimes. How, then, has the palm not only shaped the landscapes of Pahang, but been shaped by the unique contours of this place? How might tracing a more-than-human political and environmental history of oil palm from Pahang prompt a new understanding of this scale-defying global commodity – one that reveals the contingencies, contradictions and fragilities that have historically contributed to its making?

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