The Nature of Space By Milton Santos, translated by Brenda Baletti Duke University Press (2021)

Abstract

Introduction If asked to name the most influential Latin American geographer of the past century, most would probably reply “Milton Santos” without hesitation. Born in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia in 1926, Santos has long been a key thinker on space and place in the region. It is only more recently, however, that his work has gained the attention of broader publics in North America and Europe. That Santos’s oeuvre is finally receiving the international recognition it undoubtedlydeservesisowedinlargepartto the recent translation into English of several of his most important works, including the latest, Brenda Baletti’s translation of The Nature of Space, following editions of the book in French and Spanish (Santos, 1997, 2000). In this JLAG Book Review Forum we haveinvitedgeographersfromLatinAmerica, North America, Europe, and Africa whose own work is influenced by Santos or who have engaged with this writtings to reflect on this new translation. And we’ve invited Baletti, who spent more than a decade immersed in the project of this translation, to offer her rejoinder to these reviews. This book review forum advances two of JLAG’s editorial priorities: 1) to facilitate better South-North geographical dialogues, especially highlighting Latin American perspectives; and 2) to facilitate communicationandcirculationofdiversescholarlyideas through translation (see Finn et al., 2020). As for the first point, Milton Santos has hitherto not received nearly the prominence that he deserves in academic geography outside Latin America. Though some of his texts have been translated into English, French, Spanish, and Italian (Santos 1979, 1986, 1990a, 1990b, 2016), Santos’s extensive body of work has not had considerable impact within North American and European geography. How well is Santos known in the Northern Hemisphere? How can his work speak to pressing epistemic and theoretical issues in contemporary geography? How can non–Latin American geographers find relevance and meaning in his writings? Howcangeographicalandsocialtheoryfrom The Nature of Space By Milton Santos, translated by Brenda Baletti Duke University Press (2021) jlag Book Review Forum JOURNAL OF LATIN AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY xx(x), 1–30 the global South inspire and animate geographers in the North? And how can Milton Santos’s thoughts on space and place from a Latin American point of view serve as an inspiration to current debates on decoloniality and Southern epistemologies? We hope this JLAG Book Review Forum begins to answersomeofthesequestions,and inspires geographers from across the discipline and around the world to engage more deeply with Santos’s extensive contributions, and specifically with Baletti’s new translation of The Nature of Space. As for our second point, while theories and concepts from Europe and North America frequently gain swift acceptance across Latin America, Latin American contributions to social and geographical theory do not find traction nearly as quickly or easily in the global North. Language barriers remain one of the key reasons for this paucity of Latin American influence. As Maria Dolores Garcia-Ramon (2003) wrote nearly twenty years ago, the monolingualism of Anglophone geography means that the ideas, contributions, research, and writings of anyone writing in any language other than English are largely neglected and left outside of dominant geographical conversations. As a result, she argues, “[T]here is the undisputed hegemony of one single geography, Anglo-American geography, which sets the guidelines for intellectual debate in many parts of the world” (Garcia-Ramon, 2003, p. 1). Not only does this give short shrift to the outstanding and diverse work of scholars from all over Latin America, but it also narrows the intellectual field in unfortunate and counterproductive ways. Each one of thecontributionstothisJLAGBookReview Forum highlights creative ways this newly translated text has the potential to counter this narrowing of the field, to jettison a singularAnglophonegeography ,andtobuildupon Santos’s body of work to create inclusive and authentic transnational scholarly dialogues. Finally, Baletti’s rejoinder to the five reviews in this forum provides vital insights into the complexity of academic translation . Some may think that a simple online translation through Google would render obsolete the need for professional translation of books and articles. But as Baletti clearly shows, translation is not a simple word-by-word exchange of vocabulary, but is itself a scholarly undertaking that must capture meanings, be situated in the historical , geographical, and...