There is no place to hide: Environmental humanities and climate change studies in Latin America

NAME OF THE COURSE: There is no place to hide: Environmental humanities and climate

change studies in Latin America

HOURS: 60 contact hours
CREDITS: 4
COURSE CODE: PIIE 438-1

Course description
Since the climate crisis, various fields of knowledge have begun to position themselves as
critical, reflective and creative. It is within this spectrum and from an interdisciplinary
approach that the environmental humanities are beginning to emerge. This new approach to
the ecological problem allows the integration of philosophy, art, literature and sciences such
as geography, botany, earth sciences and ecology. In this line, Latin America positions itself
on the basis of a long intercultural, decolonial and hybrid path that has been travelled for more
than a century. In this course we want to learn about the contributions of the Global South, and
Latin America in particular, to the reflection on the climate crisis, and at the same time deepen
our understanding of its own problems, its territorial approach and its resistance. By reading
and discussing the texts in class, we will be able to see what is unique about these southern
latitudes: Is there a place to hide from the troubled planet? What new refuges are emerging for
a habitable future?
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course the student should be able to critically discuss about:
• Major socio-environmental problems in Latin America.
• Environmental humanities as a field of study and creative research.
• Proposals for alternative paths linked to the territory.
• Study and defense of the forest as a multi-species space.

Content
• Concepts related to socio-environmental thinking in Latin America.
• Territorial turn.
• New ontologies for inhabiting territories.
• The climate crisis as a reconfiguration of inhabitation.
• Affective theory and affective ecologies.
• Environmentalism, pluriverse, resistances in Latin America.

Course units

Thematic unit 1: Introduction to the problematic of the Climate Change, a Latin-
American perspective.

Global Warming, Climate Change and others. The idea of the Anthropocene. Critics from the
Global South. Humans and nature: The world of complex interconnections. Complex relation
between society and environment. Decisions and challenges. Optimism or pessimism? Where
to start? Where to hide? Possible actions: education, information, ethics, politics and social
influence.
Thematic unit 2: Environmental Humanities, territory and affect theory.
Spacial turn, the concept of territory. The Latin-American thought about the territory. Affect
Theory. New and recent representation about nature and environment. Hybrids spaces,
community and resistances.
Thematic unit 3: Hide in the forest.
Ontologies, ecologies and other ways to be/feel/think the nature. The forest and the
environmental humanities in Latin America.
Thematic unit 4: Local environmental solutions and new paths to design the futures.
The idea of the pluriverse, a speculative concept from Latinoamérica. Design the future,
Where? Whom? In which directions? Against what? Knowing some local solutions. Ways to
reimagine the life and te world. Field Trip (to confirme place and experience).

Evaluation:
Two essays ................................................................. 60%
Field Trip .................................................................... 20%
Participation weekly workshops ....................................... 20%

Course policies
Attendance is required. Punctuality is mandatory.
All assignments must be turned in via the professor ́s mail (pedro.achondo@pucv.cl)
You may use your preferred citation style, provided it is applied consistently. However, the
APA citation is considered appropriate for academic work. You can find the guidelines in:
https://www.awelu.lu.se/referencing/quick-guides-to-reference-styles/apa
About Plagiarism: Acts of plagiarism, including reproducing text from websites and
paraphrasing from another source (including other students) without proper citation, will lead
to harsh consequences such as failure to receive credit for the course.
Bibliography for each thematic unit

Thematic unit 1: Introduction to the problematic of the Climate Change, a Latin-
American perspective.

Mansilla Quiñones, P.; Melín Pehuén, M., y Alberto Curamil Millanao. (2023). Confronting
coloniality of nature: Strategies to recover water and life in mapuche territory. December
2023,GEOFORUM 148(2):103922. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103922
Ojeda D., y Caicedo, A. (2023). Intervention Symposium—“Plantation Methodologies:
Questioning Scale, Space, and Subjecthood”.
Ibarra, T., et al. (2024). While clearing the forests: The social–ecological memory of trees in
the Anthropocene. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-024-02008-5
Ulloa, A. (2023). Aesthetics of green dispossession: From coal to wind extraction in La
Guajira, Colombia. Journal of Political Ecology.
https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/5475/
Ulloa, A. (2017). Indigenous Knowledge Regarding Climate in Colombia.
https://www.academia.edu/41700042/Ulloa_Astrid_2019_Indigenous_Knowledge_Regardi
ng_Climate_in_Colombia
Tsing, A., Swanson, H., Gan, E. y Bubandt, N. (Editors) (2017). Arts of living on a damaged
planet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Moore, J. (ed). (2016). Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History and the Crisis of
Capitalism. PM Press.
Armiero, M. (2021). Wasteocene, Stories from the Global Dump. Cambridge University
Press.

Thematic unit 2: Environmental Humanities, territory and affect theory.
Weik von Mossner, A. (2017). Affective ecologies: empathy, emotion, and environmental
narrative. The Ohio University Press.
Gregg, M., & Seigworth, G.J. (2010). The Affect Theory Reader. Duke university press.

Abram, D. (1997). The spell of the sensuous: perception and language in a more-than-human
world. Random House.
Podcast from: https://networkingwithplants.org/the-podcast-2/

Thematic unit 3: Hide in the forest.
Vidalou, J-B. (2018). We are Forests: Inhabiting Territories in Struggle. Polity.
Powers, R. (2018). The Overstory. Random House International.
Elkin, R. (2022). Plant Life. The Entangled Politics of Afforestation. University of Minnesota
Press.
Ibarra, J.T., Petitpas, R., Barreau, A., Caviedes, J., Cortés, J., Orrego, G., Salazar, G.,
y Altamirano, T. (2022). Becoming tree, becoming memory. Social-ecological fabrics in
Pewen (Araucaria araucana) landscapes of the southern Andes. 15-31. En: Wall, J. (Ed.).
The Cultural Value of Trees. Folk Value and Biocultural Conservation. Routledge. DOI:
10.4324/9780429320897-3
Gibson, C. y Warren, A. (2019). Keeping time with trees: Climate change, forest resources,
and experimental relations with the future. Geoforum, 110, 325-337.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.02.017
Irigaray, L. Y Marder, M. (2006). Through Vegetal Being. New York: Columbia University
Press.

Thematic unit 4: Local environmental solutions and new paths to design the futures.

De la Cadena, M. & Blaser, M. (eds). (2018). A world of many worlds. Duke University Press,
London. Introduction: Pluriverse, Proposals for a World of Many Worlds, p.1-22.
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble. Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke
University Press. Capítulo 2: Tentacular Thinking, p.30-57. Cap 4: Making Kin, p.99-103.
Escobar, A. (2020). Pluriversal Politics. The Real and the Possible. Durham and London:
Duke University Press. Capítulo 3: The Earth-Form of Life, p.46-66 y Cap4: Sentipensar with
the Earth, p.67-83.