Unsettling the History of Macadamia Nuts in Northern New South Wales

Abstract

The history of macadamia nuts both unsettles and challenges colonial tropes about native foods in Australia. A local history of this significant native food reveals changing attitudes to Indigenous flora and yet continuities between contemporary food culture and colonial attitudes. Food production motivated settlement to the North Coast of New South Wales and was also the grounds on which Aboriginal people were dispossessed of their land, defined as ‘unoccupied’ and negating knowledge about reproduction and how to reduce the impact of consumption. The establishment of the industry signals at once changes in how the land is used and Indigenous foods valued and, conversely, a continuation of colonial relations and land use patterns.

I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I am writing and writing about, the Widjabul Wia-bal people of the Bundjalung Nation, who cared for and protected the rainforest on which macadamia grew.