The introduction sketches the semantic fields of loss and wonder, this speculative ethnography’s two thematic refrains. Loss is not just a negation or absence, but a web of affect and behavior, including alarm, resignation, and mourning. Wonder is more than just a desire to know and master nature; it is “a practice of hope,” attuned to the ways in which assemblages of life endure and change in the face of loss. Thick description of the colonial history and ecological future of the Fuegian Archipelago are leavened by theoretical reflections on temporality, entanglement, sublimity, and apocalypse. These reflections return to the earthly “matters” of things and relations, with a meditation on the logics of archives.

Questions to Consider

• When are times that you have experienced loss and wonder?

• How do loss and wonder function in the book?

• How are wonder and loss interconnected?

• What are the politics of loss and wonder?

Photographs of Tierra del Fuego