IV Latin American Cultural Colloquium

Shaping Nature, Shaping Humans. Entwined Landscapes in Latin America

Programme

Abstracts

Laiz Ferguson (Independent Scholar, Edinburgh): ‘Patativa do Assaré: “A Terra É Naturá”’

This paper is focussed on Patativa do Assaré, a Brazilian oral poet and poor peasant, who taught himself to read and write, but composed all of his poems in his mind while working on his ‘piece of land’. His beloved ‘sertão’, the dry lands in the countryside of the Northeast region, and the struggle of its people were his main inspirations. He later gained recognition in the Brazilian popular literature canon for his genius and quality of his work, having been awarded several honorary degrees. His fame in the popular sectors, his cultural/mediatic capital and political activism instigated his appropriation by politicians, social movements and the cultural industry – the main profiteers from his commodified image and work. This presentation will explore the telluric theme that underpins most of his work, with a focus on the poem ‘A Terra É Naturá’.

Francisco-J. Hernández Adrián (University of Durham): ‘On the concept of insular and littoral cinema: shaping ruination in El vuelco del cangrejo by Óscar Ruiz Navia’

In El vuelco del cangrejo (2009) by Colombian filmmaker Óscar Ruiz Navia, Daniel travels to La Barra, a remote and environmentally fragile area on the Pacific coast. By entering the world of Cerebro, the informal patriarch of the local Afro-Colombian community, Daniel becomes entangled in a process of cultural and political reckoning with the insidious forces of regional and transnational neoliberalism. My paper seeks to define and expand on the concept of ‘insular and littoral cinema’ through a critical examination of economic, environmental and social ruination in the visuality of El vuelco del cangrejo.

Lesley Wylie (University of Leicester): ‘The Poetics of Plants in Latin American Literature’

The pervasiveness of botanical imagery in Latin American literature from the Conquest on, as well as the frequent recourse in fiction to vegetal loci (the garden, the jungle, the plantation), are indicative of the defining role of the natural world in Latin America and of an enduring concern about the relationship between people and plants. From the early writings of European explorers, to the work of contemporary Amazonian poets, flora has been central to the definition of identity in the Americas. This paper will offer a brief history of plants in Latin American Literature, before going on to explore the flower symbolism of one of Colombia’s most famous novels, Jorge Isaacs’ María [1867].

Patience Schell (University of Aberdeen): ‘Depictions of Chilean Nature in the Nineteenth Century: Sublime, Ridiculous, Bountiful and Beautiful’

From the uncanny experience of an earthquake in Concepción to the cold blue of Skyring Water, from the laden fruit trees of the Central Valley to the petrified forests of the high Andes, Chilean nature has awed, inspired and comforted; it has also provided evidence for stories about the nature of nature and helped to define Chile itself. This talk will examine encounters with Chilean nature and landscapes, focusing especially on British travellers Maria Graham and Charles Darwin, and the young Chilean naturalist, Enrique Ibar Sierra. These three are among a group of nineteenth-century explorers, wanderers, naturalists and writers for whom Chile’s landscapes offered a canvas to have adventures, establish a reputation and, overall, contribute to a growing national identity based upon these landscapes and to major scientific debates taking place around the world.

Luciana Martins (Birkbeck): ‘Collecting tropical botany and beyond: modes of inscription in the Spruce archive’

This paper focusses on the biocultural collections by British botanist Richard Spruce, who spent 15 years (1849-64) travelling in the Amazon and the Andes. In addition to regularly sending herbarium specimens and ethnobotanical artefacts to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, throughout his travels Spruce wrote detailed reports on plant uses, making drawings of the peoples, plants and landscapes he encountered. In this paper I examine the different modes of inscription present in his collections as a way of considering how tropical botany was constructed through the practices of a travelling botanist. In particular, I explore the use of drawing in the field, including its role in cross-cultural exchanges in the making of nineteenth-century science.

Flávia Pezzini (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh/University of Edinburgh): ‘The Forgotten Forests of Latin America’

Dry forests in Latin America are amongst the world’s most threatened tropical forests. Less than 10% of their original extent remains in many countries, much less than many rain forests such as Amazonia that remains approximately 80% intact. Dry forests were the cradle of pre-Colombian civilisation in Latin America, and the source of globally important crops such as maize, beans, peanuts and tomato, but despite this and their widespread destruction, they have been long-overlooked by scientists and conservationists. The Latin American Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest Floristic Network (DRYFLOR; http://www.dryflor.info/), including more than 50 scientists and conservationists from across Latin American and the Caribbean and led from the RBGE, has developed an unprecedented database of dry forest tree species, based upon 1602 inventories across Latin America and the Caribbean. DRYFLOR’s results provide a scientific framework within which, for the first time, national decision makers can contextualise the significance of their dry forests at a regional and continental scale.

Ann Simpson (University of Strathclyde): ‘Traditional indigenous perceptions of human interaction with the environment: Amazon forest and varzea, Colombia’

Amazon indigenous communities possess a profound knowledge of the tropical forest believing that humans live in balance with their surroundings. In the indigenous world everything possesses a spirit or an energy that must be interacted with and respected, and is fundamental to conservation and sustainable management of the ecosystem. The shamans, or wisepeople, communicate with these energies to manage the health of community and environment. This talk will briefly illustrate some of these concepts with field examples taken from more than 25 years of work with indigenous elders in Amazon forest communities (Colombia, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador).

Julieth Serrano (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh/University of Edinburgh): ‘The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Colombia (rbgeColombia) – science with culture’