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Looking at Landscape’s Political-Economic Fissures to Understand Social Radicals

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Abstract

When thinking about ways to explore the American past with the goal of developing radical progressive modes of moving forward into our own histories, the specific perspectives we use and the people we study matter. In my interrogations of the lives of Maroons and Indigenous Americans of the Great Dismal Swamp (VA and NC), and transient hobos in Delta, PA, I have explored social worlds created by people who acted through a living critique of the wider capitalistic world. A central part of that critique was recognizing the parts of the American geographic landscape that we would later call “underdeveloped” or “undeveloped” areas effectively, “cracks” in the spatial world of capital. Using examples from my work, I discuss why these people do matter to our contemporary discussions on fomenting radical social transformations today.

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    Daniel O. Sayers

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Sayers, D.O. Looking at Landscape’s Political-Economic Fissures to Understand Social Radicals. Int J Histor Archaeol 28, 64–85 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-022-00683-2

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