'Denaturalisation and Modernity: Drugs and Racial Capitalism' Anne Pollock [HYBRID]
| Dates: | 19 February 2026 |
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| Times: | 13:00 - 14:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Professor Anne Pollock staff page |
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In this CoDE lunchtime seminar, Professor Anne Pollock (King's College London) shares her research.
SUMMARY
From the earliest days of European colonialism in the Americas and transatlantic slavery, psychoactive drugs, racial inequality, and the global political economic order have had intertwined histories. This paper draws on collaborative research with historical sociologist Luisa Farah Schwartzman. Particularly attentive to sugarcane—used to produce cachaça and rum—as well as coca, cocaine, tobacco and opium, we argue that the intensive production of and transnational trade in increasingly potent psychoactive substances fuelled the historical rise of racial capitalism and has remained vital to the ongoing re/production of the unjust global order. The ascendance of drugs as commodities has been co-constitutional with the commodification of both the natural world and the labouring bodies that is at the heart of racial capitalism. At the same time, the circulation of commodified and globalized drugs into bodies helped produce and institutionalize struggles over “modern,” differentiated subject-making that were key to both capitalism and to constitution of today’s global political order. Building on Sylvia Wynter's work, we argue that race, drugs and Euro-colonial modernity are entangled through a process we call denaturalization. Denaturalization is the process by which Euro-colonial “modern” ideologies aimed at the control of the natural environment, at the autonomy of certain individuals from their “natures,” and at classifying some humans as more “natural” than others, become institutionalized, and come to shape the political and economic management of humans and their environments across the scales of individual consciousness and racial capitalism.
This seminar will not be recorded.
HOW TO JOIN US
You can attend this seminar in person at the University of Manchester or online via Teams Webinar. Please register for the joining link and to be notified of any changes/cancellations.
FINDING US AND ACCESSIBILITY
See links on this page to the University of Manchester Maps page (for information on getting to the university and finding the building) and AccessAble (for accessibility information). For any other accessibility questions please contact us.
Speaker
Professor Anne Pollock staff page
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Alistair Ulph Boardroom (2nd Floor)
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
