Series Editors: Vinay Gidwani, University of Minnesota, USA and Sharad Chari, CISA at the University of the Witwatersrand, USA
Like its parent journal, the Antipode Book Series reflects distinctive new developments in radical geography. It publishes books in a variety of formats – from reference books to works of broad explication to titles that develop and extend the scholarly research base – but the commitment is always the same: to contribute to the praxis of a new and more just society.
Frontier Road: Power, History, and the Everyday State in the Colombian Amazon
Simón Uribe
Enterprising Nature: Economics, Markets and Finance in Global Biodiversity Politics
Jessica Dempsey
Global Displacements: The Making of Uneven Development in the Caribbean
Marion Werner
Banking Across Boundaries: Placing Finance in Capitalism
Brett Christophers
The Down‐deep Delight of Democracy
Mark Purcell
Gramsci: Space, Nature, Politics
Edited by Michael Ekers, Gillian Hart, Stefan Kipfer and Alex Loftus
Places of Possibility: Property, Nature and Community Land Ownership
A. Fiona D. Mackenzie
The New Carbon Economy: Constitution, Governance and Contestation
Edited by Peter Newell, Max Boykoff and Emily Boyd
Capitalism and Conservation
Edited by Dan Brockington and Rosaleen Duffy
Spaces of Environmental Justice
Edited by Ryan Holifield, Michael Porter and Gordon Walker
The Point is to Change it: Geographies of Hope and Survival in an Age of Crisis
Edited by Noel Castree, Paul Chatterton, Nik Heynen, Wendy Larner and Melissa W. Wright
Privatization: Property and the Remaking of Nature‐Society
Edited by Becky Mansfield
Practising Public Scholarship: Experiences and Possibilities Beyond the Academy
Edited by Katharyne Mitchell
Grounding Globalization: Labour in the Age of Insecurity
Edward Webster, Rob Lambert and Andries Bezuidenhout
Privatization: Property and the Remaking of Nature‐Society Relations
Edited by Becky Mansfield
Decolonizing Development: Colonial Power and the Maya
Joel Wainwright
Cities of Whiteness
Wendy S. Shaw
Neoliberalization: States, Networks, Peoples
Edited by Kim England and Kevin Ward
The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism: Cleaners in the Global Economy
Edited by Luis L. M. Aguiar and Andrew Herod
David Harvey: A Critical Reader
Edited by Noel Castree and Derek Gregory
Working the Spaces of Neoliberalism: Activism, Professionalisation and Incorporation
Edited by Nina Laurie and Liz Bondi
Threads of Labour: Garment Industry Supply Chains from the Workers’ Perspective
Edited by Angela Hale and Jane Wills
Life’s Work: Geographies of Social Reproduction
Edited by Katharyne Mitchell, Sallie A. Marston and Cindi Katz
Redundant Masculinities? Employment Change and White Working Class Youth
Linda McDowell
Spaces of Neoliberalism
Edited by Neil Brenner and Nik Theodore
Space, Place and the New Labour Internationalism
Edited by Peter Waterman and Jane Wills
This edition first published 2017
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The right of Simón Uribe to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Uribe, Simón, author.
Title: Frontier road : power, history, and the everyday state in the Colombian Amazon / Simón Uribe.
Description: Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016044212| ISBN 9781119100171 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119100188 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Roads–Colombia–Putumayo (Department) | Infrastructure (Economics)–Colombia–Putumayo (Department) | Roads–Design and construction.
Classification: LCC H359.C7 U75 2017 | DDC 338.9861/63–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016044212
Cover Images: Image 1: Lorry making the route between Mocoa and San Francisco, c. 1950 (Reproduced by permission of the Archive of the Diocese of Sibundoy)
Image 2: San Francisco‐Mocoa road © Simón Uribe, 2010
Cover Design: Wiley
To Antonio, and to the memory of Roberto Franco and Guillermo Guerrero
The Antipode Book Series explores radical geography ‘antipodally,’ in opposition, from various margins, limits or borderlands.
Antipode books provide insight ‘from elsewhere,’ across boundaries rarely transgressed, with internationalist ambition and located insight; they diagnose grounded critique emerging from particular contradictory social relations in order to sharpen the stakes and broaden public awareness. An Antipode book might revise scholarly debates by pushing at disciplinary boundaries, or by showing what happens to a problem as it moves or changes. It might investigate entanglements of power and struggle in particular sites, but with lessons that travel with surprising echoes elsewhere.
Antipode books will be theoretically bold and empirically rich, written in lively, accessible prose that does not sacrifice clarity at the altar of sophistication. We seek books from within and beyond the discipline of geography that deploy geographical critique in order to understand and transform our fractured world.
Several people and institutions have supported me through the long process of completing this book. Fieldwork and archive work were conducted in Barcelona, Bogotá and Putumayo from 2009 to 2011, and was funded with research grants from the Wenner‐Gren Foundation, the London School of Economics, the University of London and the Abbey‐Santander Travel Research Fund. During this period, many people contributed directly or indirectly to the research. I would like to express my deep gratitude and indebtedness to all of them, including those whom I may forget to mention here.
In the Putumayo, I owe special thanks to Judy and Guillermo Guerrero, Don Hernando Córdoba and his family, Doña Ruth, Humberto Toro, Franco Romo, Gerardo Rosero, Narciso Jacanamejoy, María Cerón, Humberto Tovar, Elvano Camacho, Rigoberto Chito, Guillermo Martínez, Mauricio Valencia, Guido Revelo, Silvana Castro, Felipe Arteaga, Adriana Barriga, Jorge Luis Guzmán, Bernardo Pérez and Gladys Bernal, Edgar Torres, and Alejandro and Rocío Ortiz.
In Barcelona, I want to thank Fra Valentí Serra, who granted me access to the Provincial Archive of the Capuchins of Catalonia (APCC), a rich source for the history of the road; and also to Lina González and Santiago Colmenares for their great hospitality and comradeship. The archive work in Barcelona was complemented by research in the Archive of the Diocese of Sibundoy in Putumayo (ADS), possible thanks to the help of Gustavo Torres; and in the National Library and the National Archive in Bogotá (AGN), carried out with the assistance of María Elisa Balen and Joaquín Uribe. In New York, where I spent an academic semester as an exchange student in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, I was fortunate to have the guidance of Michael Taussig, who offered generous advice and also introduced me to Timothy Mitchell and Richard Kernaghan, both of whom gave me useful insights during the early stages of the project. I would also like to thank Bret Ericson, Nando, Nicolás Cárdenas and Orlando Trujillo, who made my stay in New York enjoyable.
The bulk of the writing was done between 2011 and 2013, and was funded with a writing grant from the Foundation for Regional and Urban Studies (Oxford) and a scholarship from Colciencias (Bogotá). During this time, I received academic advice and personal support from several people. In the UK, I am especially indebted to Sharad Chari and Gareth Jones, who provided continuous guidance and support throughout my PhD research, which forms the basis of much of the book. In Colombia, Stefania Gallini and the Environmental History research group, Augusto Gómez, María Clemencia Ramírez, Martha Herrera and the members of the Umbra research workshop, offered valuable feedback during the writing process. Last but not least, posthumous thanks and appreciation go to my friend Roberto Franco, who first awoke my interest in the Amazon region and its history.
The people at Wiley‐Blackwell did a brilliant job in turning a raw manuscript into a finished book. Two anonymous reviewers meticulously read the different versions of the manuscript, providing thoughtful comments and critiques. Jacqueline Scott and the series editors provided efficient and generous guidance throughout the process. I want to express my thanks to them, as well as to the different persons who collaborated in the different stages of the edition and production process.
Finally, my deep gratitude goes to my friends and family, who supported and endured me all the way. And, of course, to María Elisa, for her company and unconditional help; in numerous ways this book is hers as well.