The editors of the Special Issue "After Pristine Nature: Writing environmental history from and about the Amazon" extends a warm welcome particularly to contributions primarily based on environmental history in a close cooperation with pan-Amazonian approaches, political ecologies, structural shifts in the technosphere, comparative perspectives spanning short and long durations, indigenous resistances and cosmologies, human and post-human productions, as well as decolonial and critical studies on the Amazon and its cultural manifestations.
Journal Monde(s): Histoire, Espaces, Relations
Call for abstracts: until May 30 2024
Submission of papers: until May 30 2025
Please send a one-paragraph sum of your proposal plus title of the contribution to: dhviegas@gmail.com by May 30.
Similar to other tropical forests, the Modern Amazon has for several decades been characterized by the stereotype of pristine nature. The global media constantly reports on the discovery of "lost cities" beneath the Amazonian canopy, expressing amazement at the ancient management of the forest and the urban settlements found. The perceived novelty surrounding this trend was accompanied by historiography devoted to deconstructing concepts such as the wilderness and pristine. Simultaneously, it scrutinized cultural representations like green hell or lost paradise.
Nevertheless, the advancements resulting from the deconstruction of the dichotomy between nature and culture have given rise to certain historiographical recurrence. These include the association of environmental history with a narrative centered around disasters and studies with nationalist undertones. In face of that, we question new directions of writing global history in the Anthropocene age by questioning how environmental history and its objects could redefine what is called history. By doing this, we endorse the classical understanding of narrative as a pivotal element of historical sciences, but at the same time, we open up space to push the boundaries in global history based on research themes that emerge from multi-species relations, post-humans, and structural shifts in the technosphere. The Amazon region offers promising avenues for exploration and fostering dialogues across various scales and objects and is understood as a key site not just seen as a passive backdrop for external experiences but it's also acknowledged for its unique role as a contested arena for global historical issues.
With this background in mind, we propose a special issue that understands pristine nature as a point of departure to new trends in global environmental history from and about the Amazon region, its populations, cosmopolitics, and territories. The volume extends a warm welcome particularly to contributions primarily based on environment history in a close cooperation with pan-Amazonian approaches, political ecologies, structural shifts in the technosphere, comparative perspectives spanning short and long durations, indigenous resistances and cosmologies, human and post-human productions, as well as decolonial and critical studies on the Amazon and its cultural manifestations.
The articles are sent to the editorial board for review by external experts in June 2025. They will then be peer-reviewed during the summer. Authors then have one-two months to modify their article in line with the reviews. The final versions of the articles are sent to the publisher in December 2025 and the issue is published in spring 2026 (No. 29)
Please send a one-paragraph plus title of the contribution to: dhviegas@gmail.com by May 30.