Ethnologica Dalmatica, Vol. 26 , 2019.
Original scientific paper
Hemp: Anthropological Aspects of Cultivation and Use
Duje Dorotka
; Muzej Općine Jelsa, Jelsa 477, 21465 Jelsa
Abstract
This paper problematizes the dynamic past of human interference with hemp, and it's implications on the present legal status of this plant. Although since the first Chinese writings it has been praised as a very useful plant with a great potential in textile, medical, food and oil production, specific historical circumstances will lead to it being gradually forsaken. This proces can be traced in at least two historical "wholes". The first one is connected with the era of colonialism when with the introduction of hash in the European public discourse hemp is being orientalised and takes upon itself the complete ambiguous symbolics attributed with the Orient. The second historical whole covers the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. The times in which the American slave system was abandoned, and with it the labour-intensive large-scale hemp industries; the era of converting paper, textile and rope industries to other natural, and later artificial resources; also, the era of abandoning the alcohol prohibition in America which resulted in a need to take care of it's large birocratic aparatus; the rise of the anti-Mexican and xenophobic spirit; and at last, the era of complete prohibition of hemp first on the American, and soon on the level of the whole world.
Keywords
Hemp; cannabis; prohibitionism; orientalism
Hrčak ID:
223311
URI
Publication date:
24.7.2019.
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