In the Shadow of the Palms

“[In the Shadow of the Palms] is a beautiful read, a brilliantly executed thesis. . . . [Chao’s] explanations of the Marind life-worlds are grounded thoroughly in lived-experience shared through cohabitation, active-listening, and situated entangled interaction.”

-- Robert Wolfgramm * Pacific Circle Newsletter *
"In the Shadow of the Palms is a brave, compelling piece of ethnographic work, cleverly structured and delightful in its elegant yet accessible prose, offering a new, powerful take on the longstanding issue of agribusiness expansion in Indonesia." -- Silvia Pergetti * ANUAC - Rivista della Società Italiana di Antropologia Culturale *
"This is a brilliant book—beautifully written—based on rigorous and sensitive ethnography and sharp theoretical analysis that seamlessly blends ethnography with theory. Chao’s respect and admiration for her interlocutors shines through the text and brings to life Marinds kinship with sago and more-than-human becomings—and how this is under threat by the oil palm as an actor of multispecies violence. In the Shadow of the Palms is an important contribution to environmental anthropology and will be of interest to those interested in extractive agriculture, posthumanism, indigenous studies and settler colonialism, decolonising anthropology, political ecology and development studies—both within and beyond Southeast Asia and Papuan Oceania." -- Camelia Dewan * Anthropology Book Forum *
"In the Shadow of the Palms offers a haunting and novel perspective on themes of dispossession and alienation wrought by the expansion of oil palm agribusiness in Indonesia. . . . In the Shadow of the Palms stands out for its courageous attempt to apprehend and translate the internal experience of the Marind community. Meticulous descriptions of interactions with various animal and plant species evidence a profound intersubjectivity of human and environment in the Marind world." -- Carter Beale * Forest and Society *
"This was a story that needed to be told. A counter-narrative to the development agenda that promises a rosy future, without elaborating on the destruction and loss that it entails. . . . Chao's deeply thought-provoking and riveting tome is both theoretical and real, development economics and the anthropology of slow violence. It is a homage to an indigenous community with their own means of resistance—until they too finally fall prey to oil palm." -- Serina Rahman * Journal of Southeast Asian Economies *
"In sum, this book is beautifully written, deeply researched, and deserves to be read widely. Not only by students and scholars of Indonesia, but for all those interested in Southeast Asia and environmental politics. In the Shadow of the Palms may well become a classic in both anthropological studies and studies of Southeast Asia. No mean feat for a first book." -- Tomas Cole * Asian Studies Review *

“[In the Shadow of the Palms] is ethnographically rich, analytically incisive, and politically engaged. . . . Chao brings people, plants, and animals into a muddled assemblage to explore relationships, interdependencies, oppression, and generation with great effect. . . . This book will appeal greatly to scholars of more-than-human worlds and global capitalism.”

-- Sebastian Antoine * Journal of Anthropological Society of Oxford *
“As a reader, I laud Chao’s caring analysis and description; her eye for trouble—abu-abu—and her unrelenting commitment to thinking with rather than for the Marind. This accessible yet in-depth account of Marind ontologies, their fracturing, and their tentative remaking in the face of the oil palm is an important volume for diverse scholars and students in different fields, for instance those engaged with plantation ecologies, multispecies thought, and indigenous ontologies.” -- Irene van Oorschot * Etnofoor *
“In the Shadow of the Palms represents, above all, a deeply ethical project—in the sense of giving voice to otherwise marginalised and silenced people; and ethical in its broader existential ambitions. This is a book we all need to read: it speaks to the current predicaments facing all of us.” -- Warwick Anderson * The Australian Journal of Anthropology *

"In the Shadow of the Palms is a wonderful book that will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and activists. This includes those whose work is specifically focused on the necrobiopolitics of the Plantationocene, as well as anyone who might be having trouble finding possibilities for hope in this moment of planetary undoing."

-- Kevin Burke * American Ethnologist *
"Chao has a superpower — her writing. ... You’d have to search long and hard for a book that better captures the ineluctable violence of our times, that makes the damage feel so poignant, so inexorable, so real." -- Danilyn Rutherford * Journal of Asian Studies *
"Chao notes that she is still haunted by everything she experienced, and I am still haunted by her writing. It is an exceptional book on all counts—theoretically astute, ethnographically rigorous, and above all profoundly moving." -- Tania Murray Li * Southeast Asian Studi