Visual Representations – Handbook of the Anthropocene in Latin America VI

1. Why did you choose this topic? Studying the varied universe of images allows us to approach the Anthropocene through specific spatiotemporal settings in which individuals, communities and societies have mapped, sculpted, painted, designed, photographed, and otherwise represented their relationships with the environment. Visual representations not only reveal ideas about the world, but also form part of ideological projects; they formulate imaginaries that may uphold domination, but also resistance. 2. What new perspectives does your book offer? Utilizing the periodization, regional markers, and thematic divisions of the Handbook series, this volume encourages readers to make connections between diverse artefacts: from sixteenth-century maps to contemporary performance art, its entries trace the centrality of visuality to the Western project of colonization over the long duration. At the same time, given the image’s power to exceed the intent of its creators and acquire new meanings, the book also pays attention to critique and dissent. 3. What makes your topic relevant for current research debates? The Handbook contributes to current debates on socioenvironmental crisis in the Americas, including extractivism, violence, and the possibilities for restoration and transformation of existing relationships between humans and their environment in the Anthropocene. This volume engages with discussions of visualities and power: the role of visual representations in the domestication of nature, the persistence of colonial domination, the control of territories as well as their reimagining. 4. Choose one person you would like to discuss your book with! Given the power of images to transcend temporal and spatial barriers, our chosen interlocutor is Maria Sibylla Merian, whose stay in Suriname in 1699-1791 produced some of the earliest drawings of insects and plants of the Americas, including her iconic “Pineapple.” Merian experienced the early Anthropocene in Latin America; this conversation would be stimulating for her perspective on its later unfolding and on the mutations in the field of visual representation to the present. 5. Your book summary in one sentence: This book studies the role of visual images in defining and transforming human-environmental relations during five centuries in Latin America.