The Program in Agrarian Studies presents:
Gordon Gordillo, Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia: “Ambient Thickness: The Atmospheric Materiality of the Anthropocene.”
In his current ethnographic research, he is analyzing the social and spatial impact that agribusiness is having on the western edge of the Gran Chaco in northern Argentina. In particular, he is focusing on the political responses by local people affected by the land grabs, evictions, and deforestation triggered by the global demand for soybeans. He is examining these disruptions and conflicts as the result of the subsumption of rural areas to the planetary Metropolis, which he conceives of as the material infrastructure and high-speed currents of goods and energy that make up globalization.