The urban experience in Latin America is explained less by the opposition between the countryside and the city, than by the image of a continuum—highlighting the integration of cities into rural economies, extractivist communities, and into the Latin American landscape in general.
This article looks at the history of agrodiversity in Latin America using the example of three crop types—maize, potatoes, and coffee—where small-scale cultivators and local landraces have played a considerable role.
The expansion of ranching in South America is linked to the growth of both domestic and export market demand, as well as to the biological advantages of cattle over other types of livestock.
The current mining “boom” in Latin America is the latest reincarnation of a colonial era business that intensified with industrialization in the nineteenth century. The continuities in the practice are as striking as the breaks are remarkable.
Over time, the peoples living in Latin America’s diverse landscapes have developed complex and varied ways of understanding the world around them. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the main goal of the sciences was to keep Latin America’s “prodigal” landscapes as productive as possible. Since the mid-twentieth century, a new countercurrent has emerged, which focuses on using science to conserve biological diversity, and to promote sustainability.
This article looks at the discovery and storming of the Americas in relation to narratives of sustainability.
Esta coletânea reúne alguns dos principais estudiosos das histórias ambientais da América Latina e do Caribe. Ela sugere novas perspectivas para discutir o desenvolvimento do continente no período pós-colonial. Estes ensaios narram histórias variadas sobre as interações complexas entre sociedades, estados, territórios e ecossistemas. Eles questionam narrativas anteriormente aceitas e abrem novos horizontes de interpretação.
Using the example of mountains in South America, this article illustrates how different ways of thinking about scale can shape the questions we ask.
This film follows resistance to mining companies and the Peruvian government by local residents, focusing on the small town of Tambogrande.
This film follows an Argentinian town which must struggle to decide whether to allow a gold mine that could reduce poverty but also uses toxic mining methods.
