Frontier Road uses the history of one road in southern Colombia--known
locally as "the trampoline of death"--to demonstrate how state-building
processes and practices have depended on the production and maintenance
of frontiers as inclusive-exclusive zones, often through violent
means.
- Considers the topic from multiple perspectives, including ethnography
of the state, the dynamics of frontiers, and the nature of
postcolonial power, space, and violence
- Draws attention to the political, environmental, and racial dynamics
involved in the history and development of transport infrastructure in
the Amazon region
- Examines the violence that has sustained the state through time and
space, as well as the ways in which ordinary people have made sense of
and contested that violence in everyday life
- Incorporates a broad range of engaging sources, such as missionary and
government archives, travel writing, and oral histories