Objective/context:

This introductory essay to the Special Issue “Urban Environmental History of Latin America and the Caribbean” examines the development of this historiographical field, by pointing out the relationships, differences, and particularities in contrast to the historiography of the Global North, and also by establishing the problematizations, approaches, and challenges that emerge from urban environmental history made about and in Latin America. We argue that the ecosystemic diversity of the subcontinent allows for a wide range of topics and theoretical-methodological approaches to research. Thus, periodic historiographical reviews are an essential contribution for the field.

Originality:

The article undertakes an assessment of the contexts of historical knowledge production on urban environmental historicity, its ecosystemic and onto-epistemological relations, and its constitutive tensions between colonial legacies and local production.

Methodology:

We discuss the contributions and connections between urban history and environmental history that are reconfigured as urban environmental history, and propose new perspectives open to the material, post-human, and decolonial turns, redefining the idea of the city and prompting a dialogue with the works that constitute the dossier.

Conclusions:

The article sheds light on the developments of urban environmental historiography in Latin America, as a field that is distinct, diverse, and growing.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )