ABSTRACT
The invention of the Americas in the wake of the European conquests was based upon imaginaries and appropriations of nature (→ America, I/2). The idealization of the potential of soil and subsoil, the idea of frontier and physical proximity with the “wild,” the perception of great distances and vast geographic spaces constituted social representations of nature in the colonial situation that persist until today (→ Foundational Discourses, III/8). The colonizers appropriated mineral resources on a large-scale and later on used part of the conquered territory, its soil, water, and its people to establish plantations for export products such as sugar, cotton, indigo, and later on bananas, coffee, and other products often introduced from other continents (→ Colonial Economies, I/4), which introduced complete environmental changes (→ Columbian Exchange, I/6). Colonialism (→ Colonial Rule, I/5) brought large-scale environmental transformations, making the interaction between humans and nature a central issue in the formation of modern American societies during the 19th and 20th centuries. The present entry addresses the concept of nature that derives from this history, and its impact on power relations, inequalities, and conflicts within and between different parts of the continent, as well as for the Americas in a global context. Rather than analyzing material change of the environment over time, the intersection between knowledge and politics is emphasized, from which new power constellations have emerged in the past five centuries, while also discussing existing and possible alternatives to the modern power regimes as ways to overcome the nature/culture divide.
