UNPREDICTABLE ARCHITECTURES

Considered either as material landscape or symbols, gardens are usually thought of as spaces where nature appears to be enclosed and controlled. But as professional and amateur horticulturists know too well, gardens are, above all, unpredictable: too much or too little rain will “spoil” them; transplants might grow differently in new, unknown geographies; and prelapsarian Western ideals (including early modern notions of the ‘New World’ and current representations of the Amazon as untouched) conceal forms of racialized violence that remain to be uncovered. In a time of rapid degradation of fundamental green spaces and the advancement of climate change, Unpredictable Architectures reflects on the cultural and environmental relevance of the vegetal world through spatial practices and land uses from the arrival of European white settlers to the present. This volume is divided into three parts, each one focusing on different aspects of the Latin American garden: “Part I: Gardens as Archives,” “Part II: Gardens as Discourse,” and “Part III: Gardens as Critique.” The contributors of this volume work across fields such as plant studies, landscape history, urban studies, literary, and cultural studies. Their articles think creatively about modes of human-vegetal cohabitation within the social, political, racial, and territorial coordinates of Latin America.