Thomas Hendriks, "Rainforest Capitalism: Power and Masculinity in a Congolese Timber Concession" (Duke UP, 2021)

Jun 25, 2024

Anthropologist Thomas Hendriks discusses power dynamics, masculinity, and labor in Congolese logging camps. He explores the complexities of capitalist extraction, emotional experiences in the rainforest, and racialized and gendered power dynamics. The podcast sheds light on existential vulnerabilities, colonial memories, and the precarious side of power in the rainforest environment. It also delves into the dynamics of whiteness, masculinity, desire, and the challenges of leaving academia for anthropology.

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Intro

00:00 • 2min

Journey of an Anthropologist in the Congo Rainforest

02:13 • 15min

Exploring the Concept of Ecstasis in Congolese Timber Concessions

17:39 • 6min

Understanding Logging Dynamics in the Congo

23:36 • 18min

Strategies of Roadblocks and Negotiations in a Congolese Timber Concession

41:13 • 6min

Exploring Whiteness, Masculinity, and Desire in a Congolese Timber Concession

46:48 • 16min

Reflections on Leaving Academia and Pursuing Anthropology Differently

01:03:08 • 3min

In this episode we are joined by Thomas Hendriks, an anthropologist studying capitalism and resource extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hendriks' work is amongst the most innovative in the anthropological study of capitalism, drawing upon queer theory, feminist ethnography, and phenomenology to make sense of cutting down large trees in the tropical rainforest.

Congolese logging camps are places where mud, rain, fuel smugglers, and village roadblocks slow down multinational timber firms; where workers wage wars against trees while evading company surveillance deep in the forest; where labor compounds trigger disturbing colonial memories; and where blunt racism, logger machismo, and homoerotic desires reproduce violence. In Rainforest Capitalism: Power and Masculinity in a Congolese Timber Concession (Duke UP, 2021) Thomas Hendriks examines the rowdy world of industrial timber production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to theorize racialized and gendered power dynamics in capitalist extraction. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Congolese workers and European company managers as well as traders, farmers, smugglers, and barkeepers, Hendriks shows how logging is deeply tied to feelings of existential vulnerability in the face of larger forces, structures, and histories. These feelings, Hendriks contends, reveal a precarious side of power in an environment where companies, workers, and local residents frequently find themselves out of control. An ethnography of complicity, ecstasis, and paranoia, Rainforest Capitalism queers assumptions of corporate strength and opens up new ways to understand the complexities and contradictions of capitalist extraction.

Elliott M. Reichardt, MPhil, is a PhD Candidate in Socio-Cultural Anthropology at Stanford University. Elliott conducts fieldwork on Dakelh Territory in Northern British Columbia, on capitalism, forestry, and colonialism. Elliott is studies contestations over profit, property and territory on Indigenous land. Elliott also has long standing interests in medical anthropology and the history of science and medicine.

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