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Accepted Paper:
A Story of Sand: Canal Dredging and Land Reclamation in Panama City, Panama
Madelyn West
(McGill University)
This paper uses sand as a vehicle to track geophysical movements and the human processes they incur. Grounded in land reclamation sites of Panama City from the early 20th century until today, it explores themes of degradation, displacement, and development embedded in anthropogenic landscapes.
Paper Abstract:
Sand is a constituent of almost all materials in the anthropogenic world, including roads, buildings, glass, clothing, pharmaceuticals, silicon chips and the very ground beneath our feet. Despite the importance of this under-appreciated and over-exploited resource, little attention is paid to the sedimentary transformations that form both our built environment and the foundation of our socio-spatial relationships. This paper uses sand as a vehicle to track geophysical movements and the human processes they incur, grounded in land reclamation sites of Panama City from the early 20th century until today. Calling on three moments in the history of Panama City’s urban expansion, namely 1) the excavation of the Panama Canal and simultaneous land reclamation to accommodate an influx of international workers, 2) a shift in the uses and users of reclaimed land following the construction of the Bridge of the Americas, and 3) modern land reclamation on the coast of Panama City for green space and luxury housing, this paper will tell a story of sand through the themes of environmental degradation, human movement, and urban development embedded in anthropogenic landscapes.