NOT JUST A COCONUT: THE HISTORY OF COCONUTS IN BRITISH MALAYA 1900-1930

Abstract

Coconuts constituted an important part of British Malaya's economy and agriculture after rubber, bringing in a fairly significant proportion of revenue into Malaya as well as covering a notable part of the cultivated acreage in British Malaya. In the 1910s and to a lesser extent the 1920s, copra, the dried kernel of the coconut that was exported internationally to produce oil, prices experienced an incredible jump in profits. This jump in profits paralleled the increased appeal of coconut by-products, particularly nut butter and margarine, because these products were used to fill up the gap from the sudden drop in animal fats supply in the international market. These processes fed a growing excitement in the coconut industry and the potential for a coconut economic boom amongst the British community. Therefore during this period, 1900 to 1930, coconuts seem to gain new meanings in the perceptions of the British community, as its economic viability increasingly came into the forefront of much of the discussion of coconuts. This thesis will study three main aspects of the coconut, namely the reproduction, consumption and production of the coconut, its products and its industry. These three modes of interaction of the British community as well as the native community in British Malaya with the coconut, both reflected and were influenced by varying cultural and economic understandings of the coconut. This thesis will also attempt to argue that through the study of these multi faceted meanings, uses and reactions to the coconut, its products and industry, that it is possible to decipher some aspect of the relationship between the colonisers and the colonised in British Malaya. This being especially distinct through the coconut because of the coconut's strong connection with the identity of the natives in British Malaya from the British point of view.