Geopolitics and Social Resistance: Flows of Latin America’s Natural Resources

Abstract

This review essay looks at Christopher Boyer’s Political landscapes: forests, conservation and community in Mexico, (Duke University Press, Durham, 2015), Thomas Miller Klubock’s La Frontera: forests and ecological conflict in Chile’s Frontier Territory (Duke University Press, Durham, 2014), Pablo Lapegna’s Soybeans and power: genetically modified crops, environmental politics and social movements in Argentina (Oxford University Press, New York, 2016) and Elspeth Probyn’s Eating the ocean (Duke University Press, Durham, 2016) as each provide a holistic study of how political ecology and marginalized peoples engage the issue of natural resources in Latin America. Through they deal with different regions and a wide range of approaches to management, collectively they shine light on the social interactions that accompany changes in the land and how local communities engage issues surrounding nature’s use. On a larger level, they offer readers more insight into the field of the environmental humanities and what it means to live with the land.