Archie Davies

My research takes an intellectual history approach to political ecology, attempting to broaden the theoretical scope of research on space, nature and social justice through deep engagements with histories of critical thought, principally from Latin America. For my Doctoral research I studied the intellectual biography of Josué de Castro (1908-73), a Brazilian geographer of hunger, politician, anti-imperialist, diplomat and activist. Through a focus on translation as a way of fracturing monolingual understandings of the history of ideas I showed how his texts and contexts provide fertile ground for theorizing hunger and challenging anglo- and Northern-centric histories of geography. I analysed Castro’s scientific, political and intellectual work on nutrition and metabolism, urban ecology, underdevelopment and international environmentalism. My research intervenes in debates about the body and nature, the history and epistemology of geography. Along with archival work, translation is an important part of my research practice, requiring deep investigation of theoretical, formal and linguistic structure. I have ongoing critical translation projects of two important Brazilian scholars, Milton Santos and Beatriz Nascimento.