The Reconfiguration of a Global Market The Rubber Economy, 1860-1960

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hartmut Berghoff
• Subject Area: Economic and Social History ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 417431037

This project deals with the emergence and cnfiguration of the global market for rubber. The project's starting point is the rise of this agrarian cash crop during the second industrial revolution. With the help of the commody chain approach the actors and structures of the market will analyzed for the period 1860 to 1960. With exemplary case studies on mercantile businesses. large-scale plantations and political actors, the projects asks how this global market worked and changed under external pressure. One special focus is the impact of the so-called "de-globalization" in the interwar years of the 20th century. In order to analyze the market three different production systems, i. e. wild and plantation as well as synthetic rubber The parallel existence and the competition of these systems among each other were not only the result of supply and demand but also of institutional and technological transformations within and outside of the commodity chain.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants