香蕉不僅是熱帶地區常見的一種經濟作物,與上個世紀的殖民地農業和治理技術也有著高度牽連。它見證了帝國的擴張慾望,也演示了以交易為名的榨取及其後的崩解。當價值與價格的關係日漸偏離、交易的形象又不斷蛻變,現行經濟、金融體系的信任機制是否能打造人類的烏托邦?如果它早已注定要瓦解,我們又將如何從中挖掘出逃脫的通道?
Bananas are not only a common cash crop grown throughout the tropics, but are also a product with inescapable connections to the methods of colonial agriculture and governance from the last century. Bananas bore witness to the Japanese Empire’s desire for expansion, forming a constituent part of both the colonial act of extraction in the name of trade and its subsequent collapse. In the present day context, if the relationship between value and price is always steadily diverging, and given our constantly evolving understanding of the nature of transactions, can the trust mechanisms of current economic and financial models ever create the effective conditions for constructive utopia building? And if such systems are structurally primed for collapse, then what might our possible escape routes be?
李奎壁
LI Kuei-Pi