Michael Taussig
Class of 1933 Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York
Book Recommendations:
Recommended by Michael Taussig
“What an exciting and devastating book! Philosophically as well as aesthetically it blends the material world of road-building into the Amazon with the myth of stately prowess, especially the state’s heroic tropes of “opening up” (from Amazon)
Frontier Road uses the history of one road in southern Colombia―known locally as “the trampoline of death”―to demonstrate how state-building processes and practices have depended on the production and maintenance of frontiers as inclusive-exclusive zones, often through violent means. Considers the topic from multiple perspectives, including ethnography of the state, the dynamics of frontiers, and the nature of postcolonial power, space, and violenceDraws attention to the political, environmental, and racial dynamics involved in the history and development of transport infrastructure in the Amazon regionExamines the violence that has sustained the state through time and space, as well as the ways in which ordinary people have made sense of and contested that violence in everyday lifeIncorporates a broad range of engaging sources, such as missionary and government archives, travel writing, and oral histories