Instead of a classic literature review, this book includes several portraits of “figures” whose ideas have been influential to this book, including portraits of well-known philosophers, such as Jacques Derrida, or anthropologists who have been important to my thinking, such as Arturo Escobar and Anne Chapman. The accumulation of these portraits, such as the “the World’s End” which begins the book, form the book’s intellectual archive.

Prompts to Consider

• If the “world’s end” is a key figure of the Fuegian Archipelago, what is the key figure of the place you call home?

• How do these figures function in this book?

Write a “figure” that illustrates something or someone that has shaped your thinking?