390
Views
0
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles

Capital and Chlordecone Poisoning in the French Caribbean Islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique: A Thesis on Crimes of the Market

ORCID Icon
Pages 271-286 | Received 19 Jan 2021, Accepted 13 Feb 2021, Published online: 04 Jun 2021
 

ABSTRACT

Guadeloupe and Martinique, two French overseas territories located in the Caribbean, are today facing serious public health crises; particularly, the highest rates of prostate cancer in the world. These crises resulted from the French colonial policy of primitive accumulation, which authorized two decades of the use of a carcinogenic pesticide, chlordecone (a.k.a. Kepone), by French settler farmers to control banana weevil pests. This was despite evidence of its lethal toxicity. Deploying the theoretical arguments of Market Criminology, this paper discusses the current health crises in both islands and the political economy of predation which created them as criminal. This is in sync with a growing body of literature which contextualizes preventable market-generated harms as criminal.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ifeanyi Ezeonu

Ifeanyi Ezeonu is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the Brock University, Ontario, Canada. He has research interests, and has published, on market criminality, street gangs and violent armed groups, the sociology of energy and natural resources, and the deleterious effects of market rationality on Sub-Saharan Africa. His book, Market Criminology: State-Corporate Crime in the Petroleum Extraction Industry (Routledge, 2018) introduces the school of Market Criminology, which expands the criminological imagination to accommodate preventable market-generated harms in variegated forms of capitalism.

Log in via your institution

Log in to Taylor & Francis Online

PDF download + Online access

  • 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
  • Article PDF can be downloaded
  • Article PDF can be printed
USD 53.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase

  • 30 days online access to complete issue
  • Article PDFs can be downloaded
  • Article PDFs can be printed
USD 181.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable

Related Research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.