Watkins’ book provides a master lesson in interdisciplinary history, constructing a detailed analysis of long-term geographical, political, social, and ecological relationships across the Afro-Brazilian diaspora. It is grounded in stories of real people like the enslaved, Brazilian-born Benta, and the landscapes that they inhabit. Drawing on geography and anthropology, Afro-Brazilian and Atlantic studies, and political ecology, Watkins combines ethnographic, historical, and geospatial methods to investigate the linkages of societies, environments, and power. His account illuminates the nuances of the transatlantic “Columbian exchange” in new and surprising ways, within the framework of decolonial theory and practice.1 “Rather than rigid binaries of top-down and reactionary forces, this book traces power through networked and fluid contingencies that coalesce in transatlantic socio-ecological assemblages” (268).
The dendê palm and the distinctive red cooking oil that it produces—a core cultural element in Afro-Brazilian cuisine and religions in Bahia, Brazil—provides an ideal vehicle for Watkins to...