Claudio de Majo | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (original) (raw)
Papers by Claudio de Majo
Global Environment
This article analyses the historical trajectory of a southern Brazilian population emerging from ... more This article analyses the historical trajectory of a southern Brazilian population emerging from the interbreeding of Amerindian, African and European peoples: the so-called caboclos. In particular, it focuses on their relationship with Brazilian institutions in the nation-building and modernisation processes between 1889 and 1945. Although caboclos constituted a considerable portion of the population of southern Brazil, because of their lifestyle, they were generally regarded as incapable of participating in the national developmental effort. As a result, they were forcefully assimilated through ethnic interbreeding and sanitation reforms. Reconstructing this historical process, this article adopts the term 'bio-anthropophagy', a concept describing the combination of anthropological and biological practices of persecution and appropriation in the region. First, it looks at the impact of racial theories promoted by national institutions during the nineteenth century that led...
Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña (HALAC) revista de la Solcha
Until the 1970s, the Brazilian Cerrado was considered an unsuitable agricultural territory. Logis... more Until the 1970s, the Brazilian Cerrado was considered an unsuitable agricultural territory. Logistic and infrastructural issues, combined with soil acidity, made the Cerrado a marginal biome for crop production. However, since the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) was created in 1973, the Cerrado has become a national and international hotspot for the food industry. Such a transformation turned this savannah biome into a landmark for the tropical expansion of commodity frontiers, especially in soy production. This research seeks to analyze data on the historical development of soy production volumes and productivity in the Cerrado, considering the complex interrelations between commodity frontier dynamics and its interface within different Brazilian biomes. Comparing data from the Cerrado and other biomes, our results indicate a rapid expansion of the soybean frontier in most Brazilian biogeographic regions. Moreover, it demonstrates how the growth of soy farming...
Fronteiras: Revista Catarinense de História
O objetivo principal deste artigo é investigar possíveis percursos disciplinares e metodologias p... more O objetivo principal deste artigo é investigar possíveis percursos disciplinares e metodologias para o estudo dos bens comuns no contexto acadêmico brasileiro. Primeiramente, analisamos as práticas coletivas no Brasil desde a perspectiva da História Ambiental, discutindo os chamados bens comuns naturais – ou natural commons – a forma mais antiga de bens comuns. Trazemos essa mesma perspectiva ambiental ao presente, tecendo uma análise crítica sobre as relações entre bens comuns naturais e Ecologia Política. Por fim, desenvolvemos o tema dos commons nos contextos urbanos e nas redes digitais, demonstrando tanto as oportunidades que políticas urbanas baseadas no compartilhamento oferecem às comunidades desfavorecidas economicamente, quanto o potencial dos digital commons na distribuição horizontal dos conhecimentos e na construção de um movimento nacional dos bens comuns.
Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña (HALAC) revista de la Solcha
As the European colonization of the Americas progressed through territorial occupation and econom... more As the European colonization of the Americas progressed through territorial occupation and economic exploitation, the motley Atlantic society that emerged from the Columbian Exchange also led to unprecedented social experiments. This article analyzes the consolidation of buccaneers’ society in the island of Hispaniola during the first half of the seventeenth century. Adopting the methodological tools of environmental history – with a particular emphasis on coevolutionary history and neo-materialism – it assesses how feral European-borne animal species such as feral cattle and pigs played a central role in the creation of this cosmopolitan society living at margins of western civilization. The result was a coevolutionary ecological niche built upon the pounding heart of the creole Caribbean environment of Hispaniola, one the first Spanish settlements in the Americas. After reconstructing their historical trajectory in relation to feral animal species, it also analyzes the historical ...
Focusing our attention on its setting, its choreographic choices, the protagonist's gestures,... more Focusing our attention on its setting, its choreographic choices, the protagonist's gestures, the stage costumes and through the lenses of visual and communication, we develop a critical analysis illustrating the political and social discourses provided by This Is America. As the song's lyrics do not explicitly deal with topics such as gun control, police brutality and racism, this essay focuses on visual theory in order to assess the emergence of these themes along the visual images of the videoclip. In this sense, this research effort focuses on two main critical aspects: on the one hand, it assesses the visual strategies adopted by Gambino and Murai in order to produce a critical discourse on race relations in America without falling into the usual clichés associated to Black culture. On the other hand, it looks at the multiple cultural references to black culture, from pop music to the cinematic production of Spike Lee and Jordan Peele, and how these are weaved into the ...
Global Environment, 2022
actual swamp to metaphorical, an ambiguous space characterised by chaos and disorder, hostility a... more actual swamp to metaphorical, an ambiguous space characterised by chaos and disorder, hostility and risks, but also resistance, dignity and hope. It is a story both local and global, of "hygienist" thought, urbanisation, industrialisation and deindustrialisation, ecological risk and attempted regeneration.
I contributi raccolti muovono da esperienze e riflessioni autobiografiche e offrono uno sguardo o... more I contributi raccolti muovono da esperienze e riflessioni autobiografiche e offrono uno sguardo originale sulle ricerche in corso in storia dell'ambiente e nelle environmental humanities di studiosi e studiose basati in centri di ricerca tedeschi e italiani. Questo volume entra nel dietro le quinte della scrittura della storia ambientale e riflette sui diversi e inevitabili processi di traduzione che vanno dal campo alla pagina, dal passato al presente, dai ricordi alla storiografia. Ciascun contributo mette in relazione le trasformazioni ambientali del e nel passato con la sfida globale attuale del cambiamento climatico.
In this experimental volume, researchers from Germany and Italy draw on autobiographical reflecti... more In this experimental volume, researchers from Germany and Italy draw on autobiographical reflection to engage in environmental storytelling. From the translation of historical artifacts to reflections on the role of experience and memory in interpreting landscape change, this collection provides an exciting glimpse into the nature of environmental translation. Working across disciplines at the cutting edge of environmental humanities research, each essay probes the boundaries of its own historical context, questioning the ongoing dynamic between people and our finite planet.
Recounting his fieldwork in the mountains of Sila in Calabria, southern Italy, and in Brazil'... more Recounting his fieldwork in the mountains of Sila in Calabria, southern Italy, and in Brazil's southeastern uplands, Serra Gaucha, Claudio de Majo combines ecological knowledge derived from the natural sciences with an understanding of the notion of the commons to piece together the environmental history of these two mountain ranges. He argues that the commons, most often seen as an economically motivated notion, can also be seen in relation to metabolic cycles, with mountains uniting the fate of different human populations.
Over the last decades our world has been threatened by multiple environmental issues that have ge... more Over the last decades our world has been threatened by multiple environmental issues that have generated debates over the future survival of the human species on this planet: climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, the emission of phosphorous and nitrogen in the atmosphere, the non-orthodox management of toxic waste, the exhaustion of food and water supplies, the loss of biodiversity and the destruction of ecosystems, are only some of the main issues. (Foster, 2010; Bollier, 2013) The impact of these multiple issues has led modern science to formulate the existence of a new geological era for our planet, the anthropocene, in order to indicate the central role played by humans in the balance of life on earth. Although from a purely scientific perspective the causes enumerated herein seem to provide a thorough overview of the main risk factors that might determine the next environmental crises, it is necessary however to assess the historical causes that have led humanit...
Modern Italy, 2019
In this article, I examine patterns of collective action in the South of Italy, a region where co... more In this article, I examine patterns of collective action in the South of Italy, a region where commons scholarship presents several challenges, mainly due to its feudal heritage. In analysing the history of Southern Italian commons, Elinor Ostrom's theories on polycentric governance are adopted. I propose a case study on the mountains of Sila, where collective action was institutionalised through a municipal organisation known as universitas casalium, consisting of the city of Cosenza and its hamlets. This institution collaborated with the royal government, creating a polycentric governance system where institutional functions contentiously intermingled, generating conflicting relations, but also unique governmental arrangements. Yet how did previous historical interpretations miss this point? Documentary evidence provides a clear answer: while the institutional recognition of the universitas casalium can be traced back as far as the twelfth century, a series of institutional re...
Text & Talk
The term Anthropocene first appeared in 2000 when scientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer att... more The term Anthropocene first appeared in 2000 when scientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer attempted to define the environmental effects of anthropic activities. Since then, it has become a widespread, but also controversial, term in the academic community. As environmental discourses increasingly permeate our lives, it has trespassed the borders of scholarly traditions, becoming acknowledged in popular culture. Bearing in mind the pivotal role the press has in the popularization, dissemination and consequent understanding of given topics, the aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it assesses the popularity of the term Anthropocene in online and printed newspapers around the world. Secondly, it examines the degree of scientificity of the articles included in our analysis to understand the type of discourses journalists are relying on in discussing the Anthropocene. Exploring these questions, through a corpus-based discourse analysis, enabled us to assess the weight of the term ‘...
This article provides an historical analysis of soybean farming in the most productive region of ... more This article provides an historical analysis of soybean farming in the most productive region of the world: Latin America’s Southern Cone, with particular attention for Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. Drawing from the premise that current narratives on soybean cultivation and commercialization have mostly focused on quantitative data of a global scope, this article discusses the potential of scholarly narratives informed by the critical tools of environmental history. Moreover, it proposes the adoption of a new term sublimating the multilayered history of soybeans in the Southern Cone: the Soyacene. This term attempts to shape an original narrative of soybean production in the age of the Great Acceleration, deconstructing misleading historical assumptions. Moreover, by critically discussing the impacts of soybean production, the Soyacene strives to produce a non-essentialist historical narrative in which the diverging interests of different social layers (e.g. governmental ...
Modern Italy, 2021
This contribution discusses the early years of Italian immigration in the uplands of southern Bra... more This contribution discusses the early years of Italian immigration in the uplands of southern Brazil, known as the Serra Gaucha (1875–1915). Tracing back early agrarian practices and deforestation techniques of the early settlement years, we investigate the consolidation of this human group in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. In addition, analysing the development of both wood logging and winemaking industries in the region, the essay frames the identitarian construction of this social group, looking at the intersection between cultural traditions from the homeland, socioeconomic drives and local environmental factors. This analysis builds upon primary sources from both Brazilian and Italian institutions, local newspapers, and scholarly publications on environmental history, as well as Brazilian and Italian migration history.
Global Environment
This article analyses the historical trajectory of a southern Brazilian population emerging from ... more This article analyses the historical trajectory of a southern Brazilian population emerging from the interbreeding of Amerindian, African and European peoples: the so-called caboclos. In particular, it focuses on their relationship with Brazilian institutions in the nation-building and modernisation processes between 1889 and 1945. Although caboclos constituted a considerable portion of the population of southern Brazil, because of their lifestyle, they were generally regarded as incapable of participating in the national developmental effort. As a result, they were forcefully assimilated through ethnic interbreeding and sanitation reforms. Reconstructing this historical process, this article adopts the term 'bio-anthropophagy', a concept describing the combination of anthropological and biological practices of persecution and appropriation in the region. First, it looks at the impact of racial theories promoted by national institutions during the nineteenth century that led...
Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña (HALAC) revista de la Solcha
Until the 1970s, the Brazilian Cerrado was considered an unsuitable agricultural territory. Logis... more Until the 1970s, the Brazilian Cerrado was considered an unsuitable agricultural territory. Logistic and infrastructural issues, combined with soil acidity, made the Cerrado a marginal biome for crop production. However, since the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) was created in 1973, the Cerrado has become a national and international hotspot for the food industry. Such a transformation turned this savannah biome into a landmark for the tropical expansion of commodity frontiers, especially in soy production. This research seeks to analyze data on the historical development of soy production volumes and productivity in the Cerrado, considering the complex interrelations between commodity frontier dynamics and its interface within different Brazilian biomes. Comparing data from the Cerrado and other biomes, our results indicate a rapid expansion of the soybean frontier in most Brazilian biogeographic regions. Moreover, it demonstrates how the growth of soy farming...
Fronteiras: Revista Catarinense de História
O objetivo principal deste artigo é investigar possíveis percursos disciplinares e metodologias p... more O objetivo principal deste artigo é investigar possíveis percursos disciplinares e metodologias para o estudo dos bens comuns no contexto acadêmico brasileiro. Primeiramente, analisamos as práticas coletivas no Brasil desde a perspectiva da História Ambiental, discutindo os chamados bens comuns naturais – ou natural commons – a forma mais antiga de bens comuns. Trazemos essa mesma perspectiva ambiental ao presente, tecendo uma análise crítica sobre as relações entre bens comuns naturais e Ecologia Política. Por fim, desenvolvemos o tema dos commons nos contextos urbanos e nas redes digitais, demonstrando tanto as oportunidades que políticas urbanas baseadas no compartilhamento oferecem às comunidades desfavorecidas economicamente, quanto o potencial dos digital commons na distribuição horizontal dos conhecimentos e na construção de um movimento nacional dos bens comuns.
Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña (HALAC) revista de la Solcha
As the European colonization of the Americas progressed through territorial occupation and econom... more As the European colonization of the Americas progressed through territorial occupation and economic exploitation, the motley Atlantic society that emerged from the Columbian Exchange also led to unprecedented social experiments. This article analyzes the consolidation of buccaneers’ society in the island of Hispaniola during the first half of the seventeenth century. Adopting the methodological tools of environmental history – with a particular emphasis on coevolutionary history and neo-materialism – it assesses how feral European-borne animal species such as feral cattle and pigs played a central role in the creation of this cosmopolitan society living at margins of western civilization. The result was a coevolutionary ecological niche built upon the pounding heart of the creole Caribbean environment of Hispaniola, one the first Spanish settlements in the Americas. After reconstructing their historical trajectory in relation to feral animal species, it also analyzes the historical ...
Focusing our attention on its setting, its choreographic choices, the protagonist's gestures,... more Focusing our attention on its setting, its choreographic choices, the protagonist's gestures, the stage costumes and through the lenses of visual and communication, we develop a critical analysis illustrating the political and social discourses provided by This Is America. As the song's lyrics do not explicitly deal with topics such as gun control, police brutality and racism, this essay focuses on visual theory in order to assess the emergence of these themes along the visual images of the videoclip. In this sense, this research effort focuses on two main critical aspects: on the one hand, it assesses the visual strategies adopted by Gambino and Murai in order to produce a critical discourse on race relations in America without falling into the usual clichés associated to Black culture. On the other hand, it looks at the multiple cultural references to black culture, from pop music to the cinematic production of Spike Lee and Jordan Peele, and how these are weaved into the ...
Global Environment, 2022
actual swamp to metaphorical, an ambiguous space characterised by chaos and disorder, hostility a... more actual swamp to metaphorical, an ambiguous space characterised by chaos and disorder, hostility and risks, but also resistance, dignity and hope. It is a story both local and global, of "hygienist" thought, urbanisation, industrialisation and deindustrialisation, ecological risk and attempted regeneration.
I contributi raccolti muovono da esperienze e riflessioni autobiografiche e offrono uno sguardo o... more I contributi raccolti muovono da esperienze e riflessioni autobiografiche e offrono uno sguardo originale sulle ricerche in corso in storia dell'ambiente e nelle environmental humanities di studiosi e studiose basati in centri di ricerca tedeschi e italiani. Questo volume entra nel dietro le quinte della scrittura della storia ambientale e riflette sui diversi e inevitabili processi di traduzione che vanno dal campo alla pagina, dal passato al presente, dai ricordi alla storiografia. Ciascun contributo mette in relazione le trasformazioni ambientali del e nel passato con la sfida globale attuale del cambiamento climatico.
In this experimental volume, researchers from Germany and Italy draw on autobiographical reflecti... more In this experimental volume, researchers from Germany and Italy draw on autobiographical reflection to engage in environmental storytelling. From the translation of historical artifacts to reflections on the role of experience and memory in interpreting landscape change, this collection provides an exciting glimpse into the nature of environmental translation. Working across disciplines at the cutting edge of environmental humanities research, each essay probes the boundaries of its own historical context, questioning the ongoing dynamic between people and our finite planet.
Recounting his fieldwork in the mountains of Sila in Calabria, southern Italy, and in Brazil'... more Recounting his fieldwork in the mountains of Sila in Calabria, southern Italy, and in Brazil's southeastern uplands, Serra Gaucha, Claudio de Majo combines ecological knowledge derived from the natural sciences with an understanding of the notion of the commons to piece together the environmental history of these two mountain ranges. He argues that the commons, most often seen as an economically motivated notion, can also be seen in relation to metabolic cycles, with mountains uniting the fate of different human populations.
Over the last decades our world has been threatened by multiple environmental issues that have ge... more Over the last decades our world has been threatened by multiple environmental issues that have generated debates over the future survival of the human species on this planet: climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, the emission of phosphorous and nitrogen in the atmosphere, the non-orthodox management of toxic waste, the exhaustion of food and water supplies, the loss of biodiversity and the destruction of ecosystems, are only some of the main issues. (Foster, 2010; Bollier, 2013) The impact of these multiple issues has led modern science to formulate the existence of a new geological era for our planet, the anthropocene, in order to indicate the central role played by humans in the balance of life on earth. Although from a purely scientific perspective the causes enumerated herein seem to provide a thorough overview of the main risk factors that might determine the next environmental crises, it is necessary however to assess the historical causes that have led humanit...
Modern Italy, 2019
In this article, I examine patterns of collective action in the South of Italy, a region where co... more In this article, I examine patterns of collective action in the South of Italy, a region where commons scholarship presents several challenges, mainly due to its feudal heritage. In analysing the history of Southern Italian commons, Elinor Ostrom's theories on polycentric governance are adopted. I propose a case study on the mountains of Sila, where collective action was institutionalised through a municipal organisation known as universitas casalium, consisting of the city of Cosenza and its hamlets. This institution collaborated with the royal government, creating a polycentric governance system where institutional functions contentiously intermingled, generating conflicting relations, but also unique governmental arrangements. Yet how did previous historical interpretations miss this point? Documentary evidence provides a clear answer: while the institutional recognition of the universitas casalium can be traced back as far as the twelfth century, a series of institutional re...
Text & Talk
The term Anthropocene first appeared in 2000 when scientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer att... more The term Anthropocene first appeared in 2000 when scientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer attempted to define the environmental effects of anthropic activities. Since then, it has become a widespread, but also controversial, term in the academic community. As environmental discourses increasingly permeate our lives, it has trespassed the borders of scholarly traditions, becoming acknowledged in popular culture. Bearing in mind the pivotal role the press has in the popularization, dissemination and consequent understanding of given topics, the aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it assesses the popularity of the term Anthropocene in online and printed newspapers around the world. Secondly, it examines the degree of scientificity of the articles included in our analysis to understand the type of discourses journalists are relying on in discussing the Anthropocene. Exploring these questions, through a corpus-based discourse analysis, enabled us to assess the weight of the term ‘...
This article provides an historical analysis of soybean farming in the most productive region of ... more This article provides an historical analysis of soybean farming in the most productive region of the world: Latin America’s Southern Cone, with particular attention for Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. Drawing from the premise that current narratives on soybean cultivation and commercialization have mostly focused on quantitative data of a global scope, this article discusses the potential of scholarly narratives informed by the critical tools of environmental history. Moreover, it proposes the adoption of a new term sublimating the multilayered history of soybeans in the Southern Cone: the Soyacene. This term attempts to shape an original narrative of soybean production in the age of the Great Acceleration, deconstructing misleading historical assumptions. Moreover, by critically discussing the impacts of soybean production, the Soyacene strives to produce a non-essentialist historical narrative in which the diverging interests of different social layers (e.g. governmental ...
Modern Italy, 2021
This contribution discusses the early years of Italian immigration in the uplands of southern Bra... more This contribution discusses the early years of Italian immigration in the uplands of southern Brazil, known as the Serra Gaucha (1875–1915). Tracing back early agrarian practices and deforestation techniques of the early settlement years, we investigate the consolidation of this human group in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. In addition, analysing the development of both wood logging and winemaking industries in the region, the essay frames the identitarian construction of this social group, looking at the intersection between cultural traditions from the homeland, socioeconomic drives and local environmental factors. This analysis builds upon primary sources from both Brazilian and Italian institutions, local newspapers, and scholarly publications on environmental history, as well as Brazilian and Italian migration history.