Latin American Environmental History: Current Trends, Interdisciplinary Insights, and Future Directions

Latin American environmental history has traditionally focused on three categories of research: colonialism, capitalism, and conservation. It has also emphasized tragic tales of resource extraction and environmental destruction, primarily at the hands of imperial powers. Though important issues, these stories of degradation and exploitation also constrain the historiography. To broaden the field and push its theoretical grounding in new directions, this essay analyzes environmental history research conducted by nonhistorians. It highlights scholarship in several areas, including the history of natural sciences, cultural landscapes, environmental narratives, nature consumption, disasters, and social history. More dialogue across scholarly disciplines can help historians of Latin America reconceptualize the meaning of “nature,” blur nature-culture boundaries, and integrate environmental history with the region's broader historiography.