When worlds converge: geological ontologies and volcanic epistemologies in Colombian literature after the 1985 eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz

Abstract

ABSTRACT The 1985 eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz was one of the deadliest disasters in Colombian history. It caused a debris flow that buried the town of Armero, killing the majority of its 25,000 inhabitants. The legacies of the Armero tragedy, as it has come to be known, have been obfuscated by the Colombian state, which did little to prevent the catastrophe. Disenchanted with institutional politics, some survivors instead return to the volcano, with recourse to writing as a vehicle for recovery. Examples include We Weren’t Going to Armero (No íbamos para Armero, 2015) by Víctor Hernán Cubillos Quintero, and From the Ashes She Speaks (Murciélago de oro, 2015) by Patricia Díaz Daza. Examining these texts, I build on scholarship in the geologic turn, decolonial studies, and postcolonial environmental humanities. I argue that in approximating the Ruiz, these texts convey pluralistic forms of knowledge that stem from intimate encounters with the volcano. These epistemologies are predicated on the geological ontologies, or the world-making practices, that are co-created with the Andes as a geophysical formation. In enacting these ontologies, Cubillos Quintero and Díaz Daza create new worlds that form part of what theorists term the pluriverse.