Polar bears, cactus, and natives: race, agrarian reform, and environmental determinism in Latin America (1920–1950)

Abstract

Early twentieth-century environmentalism or environmental determinism, as it is more pejoratively known, has been widely denounced by critical human geographers on the grounds of its well-established role in imperialist dispossession and subordination. Recently, however, historical geographers have re-visited environmentalism in an effort to better understand its diverse and often contradictory deployments. This article examines environmentalist thought as a function of Latin American anti-imperialist reform movements in the first half of the twentieth century, arguing that progressive Latin American intellectuals emphasized constitutive links between race and place to support community claims to land and subsistence.