TOPOGRAPHIES OF REPAIR

Río Nuevo is a new river - sort of. In its current form, the river is growing due to a process called sapping in which the groundwater eats away at the earth from below. There’s also evidence of sapping on Mars, leading geomorphologists to believe that water once flowed on the Martian surface. But back here on Earth in Argentina’s San Luis province, scientists concluded that the sapping, which transformed this semi-arid landscape, was prompted by something manmade: genetically modified soybeans. Soybeans’ shallow roots proved incapable of holding the landscape’s friable soil in place. And as the soil split, a once hidden, subterranean river resurfaced. In the three decades since producers began planting GMOs in the area, Río Nuevo has ripped through farmland, flooded highways and homes, and forced some to abandon their land entirely.

I heard stories about this subterranean waterway passed down through families - memories that call into question whether Río Nuevo is actually a new phenomenon or whether it is just narrated that way. I also witnessed the immense dedication it took to build new social and institutional networks among those hoping to slow the spread of the river. Based on these findings and from my research elsewhere in rural Argentina, my book project explores what possibilities for repair emerge when communities reconsider what they thought they knew about their homes, their land, and their homeland.

Topographies of Repair charts the earthly expressions of labor and love remaking social, political, and environmental relations from the land up.