From a White Desert to the Largest World Deposit of Lithium: Symbolic Meanings and Materialities of the Uyuni Salt Flat in Bolivia

The Uyuni salt flat (Salar de Uyuni) in Bolivia possesses the largest lithium deposit in the world. Over the past 40 years, this location has been commodified and radically transformed. This paper examines how a landscape, understood from its material attributes and qualities, shapes and is shaped by social relations unfolding in a process of commodification and mining expansion. Based on primary qualitative data, the paper explores two elements: (1) how the symbolic meaning of this landscape has changed over time for the surrounding indigenous communities; and (2) how the different materialities of the salt flat as landscape, as ulexite and as lithium allow understanding of the drivers of socio‐environmental change and conflict in this region. The paper argues that social relations and governance frameworks are interlinked with changing symbolic meanings and the different materialities of the Uyuni salt flat.     

The counter-revolutionary Atlantic: white West Indian petitions and proslavery networks

Following recent research into imperial networks and their materialities, this paper addresses the geographies of the early-modern Atlantic. Its focus is the defensive response of white West Indian colonists to the emergence of popular antislavery sentiment in Britain during the ‘age of abolition’ (c. 1780–1833), which led to the increasing marginalization of slave-holding interests. This response included the production of corporate legislative petitions that sought to prevent or delay the reform of slavery. The paper argues that these petitions should be understood not as rhetorical forms of ‘influence’ that can be analysed in terms of their language, but as material objects whose potential efficacy derived from how, and in what textual company, they travelled. Tracing these material networks of petitioning provides a means to operationalize ‘circum-Atlantic’ perspectives and thus explore the spaces of the Atlantic. The paper also considers how theories of creolization, which underpin much thinking about the Atlantic, might be informed by a consideration of these petitionary networks.

L'Atlantique contre-révolutionnaire: les demandes des blancs des Antilles et les réseaux favorables à l'esclavagisme

Cet article fait suite aux recherches récentes effectuées sur les réseaux impériaux et leurs matérialités et s'intéresse aux géographies du début de l'époque moderne de l'Atlantique. Il met l'accent sur la réaction défensive des colons blancs des Antilles devant l'arrivée du sentiment populaire anti-esclavagiste en Angleterre pendant «l'ère abolitionniste» (1780–1833) qui a contribué à la marginalisation des propriétaires d'esclaves. Cette réaction comprenait des pétitions légales relevant de sociétés privées dont le but était d'empêcher ou de retarder le projet de réforme de l'esclavagisme. Cet article montre que ces pétitions ne devraient pas être vues comme des formes rhétoriques «d'influence» pouvant s'analyser en fonction de leurs modes linguistiques, mais comme des objets matériels dont la capacité de rendement résultait des manières et des formats textuels par lesquels elles pouvaient voyager. Remonter jusqu'aux réseaux concrets qui ont permis de protester par des pétitions est un moyen d'opérationnaliser les approches «circon-Atlantique» et d'explorer ainsi les espaces de l'Atlantique. Par ailleurs, l'article tente de montrer comment l'étude de ces réseaux de pétitions peut éclairer les théories de la créolisation qui sous-tendent la plupart des réflexions sur l'Atlantique.

El Atlántico contra-revolucionario: peticiones y organizaciones a favor de la esclavitud de la gente blanca de las Antillas

Con referencia a las recientes investigaciones de redes imperiales y su aspecto material, este papel trata las geografías del antiguo atlántico moderno. Se centra en la reacción defensiva de los colonos blancos de las Antillas al surgimiento del sentimiento popular antiesclavitud en Gran Bretaña durante ‘la era de la abolición’ (c. 1780–1833), que dio lugar a una marginación cada vez mayor de los intereses de los negreros. La producción de peticiones colectivas legislativas para tratar de impedir o retrasar la reforma de la esclavitud formó parte de esta reacción. Este papel sugiere que hay que ver estas peticiones no como formas retóricas de ‘influencia’ que se puede analizar por su lenguaje sino más bien como objetos materiales, la eficacia potencial de los cuales viene de cómo, y en qué compañía textual se viajaban. Un análisis del origen de estas redes materiales de peticionar posibilita el funcionamiento de perspectivas ‘circum-atlánticas’ y, por consiguiente, una exploración de los espacios del Atlántico. El papel también considera como teorías de criollización que son fundamentales al pensamiento actual sobre el Atlántico pueden ser informadas por un estudio de estas redes de peticionar.     

Meaning,materials and melancholia: understandingthe Palace Hotel

Whilst social science has recognized that racist discourse often attempts to ‘fix’ outsider groups to particular locations, much less has been said about the locations themselves. The Palace Hotel is a prominent feature in gossip and public debate concerning the presence of ‘asylum-seekers’ in the seaside town of Southend-on-Sea, Essex. This paper considers why this is so. As a basis for the development of a theoretical model, the focus of the paper is outlined using a variety of qualitative sources, including interviews from the author's doctoral fieldwork. From here two distinct approaches are applied in order to explain how the Palace Hotel has become synonymous with the presence of ‘asylum-seekers’ in Southend-on-Sea. The first of these draws upon the social constructionist trend within geography that conceives of certain spaces as ‘marginal’. The second account engages with the often forgotten role that materiality plays in such constructions. It is argued that there is no need to choose exclusively between the two approaches because tensions can be resolved on the basis of a stratified realist ontology. The fundamental tenet of this ontology is that objects are permitted ‘relative autonomy’ from our lay or scientific knowledge about them. Central to the explanation offered is an examination of the opposing conceptions of temporality inherent to each account. Lastly, the psycho-dynamic ‘space’ between meaning and materiality is argued to be generative of a collective condition of melancholia. This insight is drawn upon in the recommendation of a coherent model for understanding the pronounced position of the Palace Hotel in discourse surrounding ‘asylum-seekers’ living in Southend.     

Empiricismo pragmatista y creencia intuitiva en El cadáver arrepentido de Guelbenzu

A close reading of José María Guelbenzu's novel El cadáver arrepentido may help to show that Judge Mariana de Marco, one of the main characters, is explicitly determined to sympathize with pragmatist positions, based on empirical facts that could be verified at any moment. The judicial search carried out by Mariana contributes to the clarification of the circumstances that surrounded the death of the character insinuated in the title El cadáver arrepentido. However, the story presented in this novel remains always open to new, unpredictable, and perhaps disturbing interpretations. Such a narrative strategy happens to enrich the literary values of one of the most challenging novels published in Spain during the first decade of the twenty-first century.