This chapter of the “Wilderness Babel” exhibition, written by geographer María José Barragán-Paladines, highlights the immense spectrum of variations of wilderness within the Spanish-speaking world that make the term a rich and complex source for semantics.

This exhibition collects wilderness-equivalent terms and describes them in a few short paragraphs, discussing how they may be similar to or different from the wilderness that native English speakers know and admire. The subtleties of meanings encompassed by the above terms, say, between human presence or absence, or between love and fear for the wild regions, is what we hope to explore. The exhibition is coordinated and edited by environmental historian Marcus Hall.

What does Wilderness Mean in Your Language? Listen to words for “wilderness” and learn about their political and historical meanings in different regional contexts.