August 13 -14, 2025, Aarhus Denmark
Entangled Oils: Transnational and Interwoven Histories of Indonesian Coconut and Palm Oil
Paper by Maliene Kip, TU Eindhoven
Extended Abstract:
A popular saying in Indonesia states, “there are as many uses for the coconut as there are days in the year.” From food and shelter to soap and medicine, the coconut tree has long been central to cultural and agricultural traditions across the archipelago. For generations, coconut oil production was prominent, its processing deeply embedded in smallholder farming systems and local economies. Yet, when one looks at Indonesia’s agricultural landscape today, the once-dominant coconut oil industry has been overshadowed by the explosive rise in palm oil—a non-native crop that has become the most consumed plant oil worldwide.
At first glance, palm oil and coconut oil share remarkable similarities. Functionally, they are highly versatile and are extensively used in food, cosmetics, and industrial applications. Their chemical compositions allow them to be substituted for one another in many products, making their functioning in global trade seem, at least superficially, interchangeable. However, their historical trajectories are vastly different. Palm oil currently dominates the global market, as it is known for its high yield and efficiency. Furthermore, it is heavily criticized for its environmental and social impacts, including deforestation and labor exploitation. By contrast, coconut oil remains tied to smallholder production and is known as being less environmentally disruptive. What explains these divergent historical paths for two functionally interchangeable oils?
Broad strands of literature exist on the singular commodification process of palm oil, and – albeit to a much lesser extent – on the singular trajectory of coconut oil and copra. Much of this literature focuses on either the (consequences of the) rapid expansion of palm oil as a global commodity or the historical significance of coconut oil in local economies, but they are rarely examined from a comparative perspective and viewed as interrelated commodities. Therefore, this paper will compare the development of coconut oil and palm oil as major export commodities from Indonesia, tracing their trajectories from the 1900s onward.
To do so, this study draws upon a recently developed dataset that tracks over a century of trade flows of edible oils and fats, including palm oil, copra, and coconut oil, offering insights into exporting dynamics and geographical shifts in processing. In addition to utilizing the dataset, this article synthesizes insights from both academic studies and historical materials, such as missionary reports and trade association reports, to provide a comprehensive perspective on the forces shaping these commodities’ trajectories and the sustainability trade-offs that resulted from these processes.
Conceptually, this paper employs and broadens the concept of disentanglement as an integral starting point of commodification. Disentanglement refers to the undoing of contextual connections as the central procedure that enables marketization. These attachments can take on various forms, such as technical, cognitive, legal, emotional or cultural. The undoing of these attachments allows for a commodity to be freely traded as a detached entity, removed from its original connections. The usage of disentanglement within the context of this paper will allow for an examination of how varying degrees of attachments have influenced the commodification trajectories of palm oil and coconut oil – the former as a ‘invasive’ species and the latter as a ‘native’ species.
Building on this, this article examines how different forms of entanglement — such as cultural, legal, and logistical—shaped the marketization of coconut oil and palm oil in Indonesia. Coconut oil, already deeply embedded in smallholder agricultural systems, presented unique challenges to large-scale commercialization. Western colonial powers, particularly the Netherlands, sought to integrate coconut oil into the global market but encountered e.g. significant knowledge gaps and logistical issues. Unlike palm oil, which was introduced as a new crop, coconut had long been cultivated and processed in Indonesia, with existing knowledge systems, local expertise, and logistical networks already in place. This limited the ability of colonial actors to fully control and reshape production according to large-scale industrial models.
Palm oil, by contrast, was introduced from West Africa by colonial trading enterprises and arrived in Indonesia as an almost entirely disentangled commodity—free from cultural and logistical constraints. Palm oil was integrated directly into large-scale plantation systems, where mechanized processing and the demands of global markets dictated its expansion. However, the term “almost” in relation to its disentanglement must be used with caution. While palm oil lacked deep-rooted local cultural or agricultural ties upon its introduction, it was by no means free from political and economic entanglements. These entanglements, however, were far less contested and largely shaped unidirectionally by colonial authorities and corporate interests. This distinctly different degree of entanglement allowed for a vaster marketization of palm oil and facilitated the application of industrial models.
These varying degrees of entanglement led to distinct sustainability trade-offs. The degree to which a product is entangled or disentangled within local economies and ecosystems directly shapes the social relations involved in its production. To put it in more concrete terms, the eventual shift in agricultural dominance placed significant pressure on the coconut industry, triggering economic displacement, labor shortages, and shifts in land use. The growing concentration of land and capital in the palm oil sector further marginalized smallholder coconut farmers. In response, some communities turned to unregulated production, as survival strategies in an increasingly unequal agrarian landscape.
Ultimately, this historical comparison hopes to provide insights into why contemporary sustainability issues surrounding palm oil and coconut oil take such different forms. The ways in which these commodities were commodified, from an interrelated perspective, continue to influence their environmental impact, labor structures, and the effects of smallholder agriculture in the face of industrial expansion.
Link to website: https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-151912