Breadfruit is a tropical fruit tree with a fascinating global history, both dark and heroic. This presentation, based on the recently published book, Breadfruit: Three Global Journeys of a Bountiful Tree, details the botanical, cultural, and political history of breadfruit’s dispersal throughout Oceania by ancestors of today’s Pacific Islanders and transplantation to the Caribbean by British colonialists to support their slavery-dependent plantations.
Today, breadfruit’s legacy is being reckoned with in these regions while it is being simultaneously ‘discovered’ both as ‘superfood’ by people focused on plant-based nutrition and as a tool for sustainable development by organizations fighting climate change and world hunger.
The book is based upon more than five years of historical and field-based research and ties together themes of tropical horticulture, Indigenous knowledge, colonial food and economic systems, and contemporary efforts toward nutrition and sustainability. Bringing together extensive research and vivid travelogues, including lessons learned directly from local agriculturists, chefs, scientists, and holders of traditional knowledge, this book provides an immersive narrative of breadfruit’s past, present, and future, along with a small but memorable South Carolina connection.
About the Presenter:
Russell Fielding is an associate professor in the HTC Honors College and the Spadoni College of Education and Social Sciences at Coastal Carolina University. He is a geographer who studies sustainable food systems in the world’s coastal and island settings. Fielding is the author of The Wake of the Whale: Hunter Societies in the Caribbean and North Atlantic (2018).