Colonialism, Landscape and the Subterranean

Abstract

Scott, H. V. (2008). Colonialism, Landscape and the Subterranean. Geography Compass 2(6), 1853-1869.Recent geographical contributions to post-colonial studies have paid relatively little attention to subterranean spaces as arenas of modern European imperial and colonial expansion and instead have concentrated almost exclusively on examining ?surface? landscapes and practices. This article argues that greater critical attention deserves to be paid by geographers to the ?colonial underground?, not only because mining played a central role in many imperial ventures since the 16th century, but also because closer scrutiny of the vertical dimension can provide new insights into the nature of colonial relations and into the ways in which colonial landscapes were inhabited and given meaning. Drawing on recent literature as well as on documentation from early colonial Peru, the article shows that colonial European engagements with the underground were more varied than most work in human geography suggests and, moreover, that the subterranean cannot exclusively be regarded as a space of colonial domination and exploitation.Peer reviewe

Negotiating Absence and Presence: Rural Muslims and ‘Subterranean’ Sacred Spaces

“…Accounts of these spatial imaginations discuss such diverse aspects as colonialism (Scott, 2008), Victorian imagination (Williams, 2008), infrastructure (Pike, 2005), urban exploration (Garrett, 2011), and popular music (Solomon, 2005). In these works, two characteristics emerge which are central to the subterranean: invisibility and verticality.…”

“…The use of the word underground to denote resistance groups in Nazi-occupied Europe conveys this sense, as well as talk about criminalised activities being 'driven underground', where they cannot be regulated. As Scott (2008) notes, the subterranean was a source of anxiety for 16th-century Spanish colonisers in Peru as it was a space where indigenous beliefs could continue despite evangelising processes. This leads to the final theme, the underground as counter-cultural.…”

“…Furthermore, the rhetoric of the subterranean has clandestine overtones. The subterranean has been viewed as a space of threat at least since the 16th century (Scott, 2008) and there is a danger that adopting this subterranean concept reifies an association between British Muslims and these attributes. However, the argument I make in this paper is that the subterranean ontology is much broader than these themes and there is a need to think about it in more holistic terms, incorporating other themes that recur in Williams' (2008) study, such as the underground as a space of resource and mineral wealth.…”

“…Such ontology is central not only in distinguishing between what is seen and what is not seen, but also in gaining knowledge. Scott (2008), for example, discusses how colonisers' anxieties of the subterranean Peruvian mines led to their incorporation in mapping projects. For Perkins and Dodge (2009), satellite images are akin to an all-seeing eye that succeeds in mapping the earth's surface, capturing its secrets and allowing for recording movements and resources.…”

Water and vertical territory: the volatile and hidden historical geographies of Derbyshire’s lead mining soughs, 1650s–1830s

“…A series of scholarly interventions in recent years has made the case for considering the vertical dimension of landscape (Scott 2008). This work has highlighted the value of looking through rather than across landscapes (Graham 2004, Graham andHewitt 2013;Elden 2013) and for adopting more multidimensional, volumetric consideration of space (Elden 2013; see also Bridge 2013; Adey 2013).…”