Planetary Hinterlands: Extraction, Abandonment and Care (Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society)

This open access book considers the concept of the hinterland as a crucial tool for understanding the global and planetary present as a time defined by the lasting legacies of colonialism, increasing labor precarity under late capitalist regimes, and looming climate disasters. Traditionally seen to serve a (colonial) port or market town, the hinterland here becomes a lens to attend to the times and spaces shaped and experienced across the received categories of the urban, rural, wilderness or nature. In straddling these categories, the concept of the hinterland foregrounds the human and more-than-human lively processes and forms of care that go on even in sites defined by capitalist extraction and political abandonment. Bringing together scholars from the humanities and social sciences, the book rethinks hinterland materialities, affectivities, and ecologies across places and cultural imaginations, Global North and South, urban and rural, and land and water. Acknowledgment Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures Part I: Materialities: Extraction, Logistics Chapter 1: Introduction: Conceptualizing Hinterlands Defining the Hinterland Colonial and Postcolonial Hinterlands Contemporary Hinterlands Looking from the Hinterland Part I—Materialities: Extraction, Logistics Part II—Affectivities: Abandonment, Dreaming Part III—Ecologies: Care, Transformation References Chapter 2: Belly of the World: Toxicity, Innocence, and Indigestibility in Plastic China Eating Time: Plastics Between Post/socialism and Global Capitalism The Ends of Life: Toxicity and Inertia Innocence and the Toxic Sublime Waste: Between Consubstantiation and Localization Closing References Chapter 3: Cultivating Hinterland: What Lies Behind Agnes Denes’ Wheatfield? Planting Ideas Unearthing Extractivism Growing Complications Harvesting Complexity References Chapter 4: Dividing, Connecting, and Complicating the Hinterland: The Lower !Garib/Orange River Understanding Hinterlands from a Hinterland Shifting Hinterlands and Colonial Borders Farming and Agriculture: A Rural Economy or a Colonial Hinterland? Spaces of Inclusion and Exclusion: A Mining Hinterland? New Dynamics Along the Lower !Garib References Chapter 5: The Coast Bouleverses at Kolkata Seeing Kolkata’s Hinterland The Old Hinterland British Port-Hinterland Axis: First Moment British Port-Hinterland Axis: Second Moment From Port to Railways From Space to Place: Ecology, Religion, and Politics in the Hinterland The Flailing Far-Hinterland References Chapter 6: Reclaiming the (Hinter)land: Lake Texcoco and the Airport That Never Was Machetes Against Airplanes The Tezontle Land Reclamation Ecological Speculations Conclusions References Chapter 7: Hinterlands of Extraction, Climate Change, and South African Energy Companies Introduction: Cecil John Rhodes in the Company Gardens The Hinterland of COP26 The Relationship Between Imperialism and Climate Change: A Hermeneutic Injustice? South African Corporations in the Hinterland Powerplays in Climate Action Conclusion References Part II: Affectivities: Abandonment, Dreaming Chapter 8: “Washed with Sun”: Landscaping South Africa’s Hinterlands Prelude Part I: Introduction Part II: Landscaping South Africa—of farm towns and townships Rob Nixon: of prickly pears and aloes, feathers and fantasies Jacob Dlamini: of fragments and flowers, rats and radio waves Part III: Entangled Hinterscapes Part IV: By way of Conclusion, photographing an upside-down mannequin References Chapter 9: Swamp Things: The Wetland Roots of American Authoritarianism The Politics of Hinterland Extraction Oiling the Jim Crow Machine, Mainstreaming the Hinterland The Hinterland as Harbinger References Chapter 10: Ambivalence and Resistance in Contemporary Imaginations of US Capitalist Hinterlands Vacating the Far Hinterland of Political Potential Nomadland: Resistance, Ambivalence, and Settler Colonial Desire References Chapter 11: An Arc Beyond Stasis: Activism in the Hinterland-facing Fictions of Alex La Guma and Zoë Wicomb References Chapter 12: “Reservoirs of the Subconscious of a People”: The Local, National, and Global Resonances of a Lost Hinterland Wales as a Geographic Hinterland Capel Celyn as Drowned Postcolonial Haunted Hinterland The Wales / Patagonia Exiled Hinterland References Chapter 13: Biophilia in the Hinterland: Symbiotic Affects in Robinson in Ruins Introduction: Nonhumans in the Hinterland Marginal in Plain Sight: Lichens at the Edge Biophilia in the Far Hinterland: Flowers and GPSS Markers Enclosures and Land Affects Conclusion: Staying with the Far Hinterland References Part III: Ecologies: Care, Transformation Chapter 14: The Hinterland at Sea References Chapter 15: Wet and Dry Hinterlands: Pluviality and Drought in J. M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K I II III IV References Chapter 16: The Animal Hinterland in Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s My Heavenly Favorite Introduction Becoming Animal on the Farm Becoming Nocturnal, Playing Death The Animals of the Hinterland Conclusion References Chapter 17: Compound Focalization in the Literary Hinterlands References Chapter 18: Behind Johannesburg: Plants and Possible Futures in an Industrialized Hinterland Cultivation Global Hinterland Invasive Species: Blackjack Pioneer’s Plants: Maize Future Nature References Chapter 19: Hinterland, Underground Underground Frontiers Mining the Soil Matter Out of Place References Index