Following an invitation from the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies to edit a review dossier of recent Latin American Environmental Humanities research, in 2022, with Gisela Heffes, we published a series of essays with Alejandro Ponce de León and Jamille Pinheiro Dias on contemporary botanical and environmental thinking. These were subsequently translated and published in Spanish inTabula Rasa (2023) and Portuguese in Revista Rosa (2024).
In “Cultivating Ongoingness Through Site-Specific Arts Research and Public Engagement,” I consider the contributions of projects in Latin America to the need “to think in the presence of ongoing facts of destruction”, and to imagine and design forms of “ongoingness” amid socioenvironmental challenges and conflicts. I focus on HAWAPI, Ensayos and EnlaceArq, three initiatives that have consolidated a decade of site-specific, practice research that departs from the arts to devise methods that bridge the arts, sciences, and communities to confront socioenvironmental pressures and enduring injustices caused by colonial legacies and continued extractivism. How does site-specific practice research seed and cultivate inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations around pressing socioenvironmental concerns affecting Latin America? How do projects establish critical relationships regarding the circulation of knowledges related to these issues and engage with diverse types of publics? And, insofar as the projects reviewed here often operate on the fringes of academia, what strengths and challenges does this generate for their sustainability over time and their impact on scholarly research, public conversations and the lives of specific communities?
Treading Lightly on the Earth: New Directions in Latin American Environmental Research and Practice. Guest-edited by Lisa Blackmore and Gisela Heffes. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 31, no. 1 (2022)
- Lisa Blackmore & Gisela Heffes, Latin American Environmental Research and Practice
- Lisa Blackmore, Cultivating Ongoingness Through Site-Specific Arts Research and Public Engagement
- Gisela Heffes, Submerged Strata and the Condition of Knowledge in Latin America.
- Alejandro Ponce de León, Latin America and the Botanical Turn
- Jamille Pinheiro Dias, Environmental Thinking and Indigenous Arts in Brazil Today
Pisando suavemente sobre la tierra: nuevos caminos para la investigación y la práctica ambiental en América Latina
- Lisa Blackmore & Gisela Heffes, Investigación académica y prácticas artísticas ambientales latinoamericanas
- Lisa Blackmore, La investigación artística y la participación pública como estrategias para la resiliencia territorial
- Gisela Heffes, Estratos sumergidos y la condición del conocimiento en América Latina
- Alejandro Ponce de León, América Latina y el giro botánico en los estudios culturales
- Jamille Pinheiro Dias, Pensamiento medioambiental y artes indígenas en el Brasil hoy
Pisar suavemente sobre a Terra: Novos caminhos para a pesquisa e a prática ambiental na América Latina
- Lisa Blackmore & Gisela Heffes, Investigación académica y prácticas artísticas ambientales latinoamericanas
- Lisa Blackmore, La investigación artística y la participación pública como estrategias para la resiliencia territorial
- Gisela Heffes, Estratos sumergidos y la condición del conocimiento en América Latina
- Alejandro Ponce de León, América Latina y el giro botánico en los estudios culturales
- Jamille Pinheiro Dias, Pensamiento medioambiental y artes indígenas en el Brasil hoy