Rooted Environmental History: Tinker Dissertation Fellow Mariana Calvo Shares Her Research Process

We had the opportunity to speak with Mariana Calvo, a fifth-year PhD candidate in Transnational, International, and Global History and coordinator of the Stanford Environmental and Climate History Workshop, about her dissertation project and research process. Mariana’s research has been funded by the Lurcy Fellowship, the King Center for Global Development, and the Anglo-Stansky Fund, among other fellowships. Next year, she will be a Tinker Dissertation Completion Fellow at the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford.

1. To start, could you tell us a bit about your research? 

Definitely! Broadly speaking, I am interested in how states have outsourced governance to private corporations in environments they found “unruly” and challenging to settle. Specifically, my dissertation explores how cash-strapped Latin American nation states and European colonial governments used private companies to annex and exploit their tropical and subtropical forest frontiers with devastating ecological and humanitarian consequences. 

One thing that has always bothered me is how Latin America is often excluded from discussions about modern European imperialism, that is, after 1870. Yet, we forget that vast swaths of the South American interior had been unexplored by Europeans. The prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases, unfamiliar wildlife, unnavigable rivers, and organized indigenous resistance had made the Amazon rainforest in the north and the Gran Chaco dry forest in the south impenetrable to outsiders. Spanish and Portuguese settlements were historically confined to the coasts, temperate regions, and areas surrounding silver mines. 

It was not until the advent of the industrial revolution that new technologies, such as quinine and the steamboat, made these ecosystems legible, and therefore, exploitable to outsiders. The industrial revolution also created new demand for tropical and subtropical forest resources such as rubber, hardwoods, and medicinal plants. While Europeans certainly sought these resources within their formal empires, these resources were not confined to imperial borders. They were transnational and found all over the world, including in Latin America. 

In Latin America, Europeans relied on private companies to extract raw materials for industrial processes. Latin American elites welcomed these foreign-owned companies as they were viewed as an affordable means to project sovereignty in places that were removed from state power. However, my research shows that the reliance on private companies to extract resources was not only a strategy employed by Latin American states, but it was also a strategy used by colonial governments too. This was especially the case in the Belgian and French Congo. People forget, but colonialism was controversial at home: colonial states turned to private companies to colonize cheaply. It was not until the terrible abuse committed by these companies came to light that Latin American and colonial states took charge of the settlement and governance of their forest frontiers. 

It is for this reason that my dissertation focuses on three case studies, two in South America and one in Africa. Specifically, I look at the Peruvian Amazon, the Argentinian Gran Chaco, and the Congo Basin. By showing the global scale and appeal of this governance and exploitation strategy, I hope to demonstrate how the past and ongoing deforestation and dispossession of indigenous people across tropical and subtropical forests are connected, less by imperial regimes and more by a sweeping desire for profit that transcends borders. 

2. What are some experiences that have shaped your scholarship? 

Great question! Looking back, I think one of the things that most influenced my scholarship was having worked as a journalist in Colombia in my early twenties. Through a complicated set of events, I ended up covering the drug trade and, later, the near collapse of Colombia’s largest dam site in the northern part of the province of Antioquia from 2017 to 2018. Built by Empresas Públicas de Medellín or EPM, a state-owned company, the dam is in one of the most inaccessible parts of the Andes Mountains. Many of the communities I visited had no indoor plumbing, roads, or even schools; state neglect was everywhere. 

Yet there was still some form of governance. Traditionally it had been carried out by armed groups like the FARC and the AUC, but it began to change when EPM began construction of Hidroituango. The company had begun to build roads, health clinics, schools, and electric grids. In fact, at one point I had to walk, or rather, run, across a highway that the company was building across a steep mountainside. Seeing the effort it took to keep the mountain from collapsing onto the new road, I couldn’t help but think about how difficult it must be to build infrastructure—much less govern—amidst such challenging geography. Increasingly, I began to see Colombia’s struggle against armed violence as primarily, but not exclusively, environmental. 

It was also the first time I became aware of company towns and the governance roles that companies often take, particularly in challenging environments. I ended up studying this phenomenon throughout graduate school. Initially, I looked at the public role of private telegraph companies in Newfoundland in the northern Atlantic but ultimately came back to South America when I realized how little of it had been explored until the late nineteenth century. What I had seen in Colombia was not new; it was historical, and I wanted more people to know about it. 

3. Can you tell us about your process for doing archival research? 

To be honest, I don’t have a specific process for doing archival research. This is probably obvious, but I try to visit a mix of state and private archives because I think they give you a more complete picture. I also always try to speak to an archivist as they can often point you in directions that you won’t find in an online catalog. Maybe this is specific to me, but when I am in the archive, I also try to read novels about the places that I am researching. They often give me a better sense of the place and what kinds of things to watch out for. 

4. How has traveling to the places about which you are writing shaped your work as an environmental historian? 

I think traveling to the places that you write about is essential. Reading can only take you so far, and traveling gives you a set of visceral experiences you can rely on to discern what you read in the archive. I will give you an example. Part of my dissertation focuses on a forestry company in the Argentinian Gran Chaco. This company relied on contracted woodcutters who went deep into the Gran Chaco to cut down huge quebracho trees that they would then haul to the closest railroad stop. Some accounts described the forest—and their workplace—as a “hot cauldron,” which of course catches your eye as a historian. And even though I knew intellectually how challenging their work was, I didn’t fully understand it until I visited the Gran Chaco during a heatwave and walked through the forest at a temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit. 

In a similar vein, I had read that the Gran Chaco was a thorn forest, but I didn’t know what that entailed until my pants got full of thorns while on a short hike through the forest attempting to evade venomous snakes. It was a stark contrast to the pinewood forests I grew up with in Mexico City, and it made me better understand why this region was never fully settled or annexed by the Spanish Empire. Since this experience, I have been determined to visit every place that I write about. It’s for this reason that I will be visiting the Peruvian Amazon over the summer. 
 

⁠Lagoon outside of Villa Guillermina, a company town built by The Forestal Land, Timber, and Railways Company in northern Argentina. This is an example of a classic landscape in the Gran Chaco region, South America’s second-largest forest. Photograph by Mariana Calvo.
 

Street in Villa Guillermina, a former company town built by La Forestal in northern Argentina. Villa Guillermina was home to the company’s largest factory where quebracho hardwood was converted into tannin extract used to tan leather. The buildings on the right used to be company-owned stores where workers bought food and supplies. Photograph by Mariana Calvo.

5. What advice would you have for environmental historians embarking on fieldwork? 

Number one, if you have the opportunity, visit the places that you write about. It’s so important, and it will help you understand your topic so much better. Number two, I highly suggest connecting with local academics who write about your topic. They often know the archives through and through and can help you organize trips to your respective research site. When I was in Argentina, I was amazed by the generosity of scholars at the University of Buenos Aires. They introduced me to Argentine scholarship on my topic and to people from the communities I was writing about. I am still in contact with them today and look forward to collaborating with them in the future.