A Review of Artery: Racial Ecologies on Colombia’s Magdalena River

Artery: Racial Ecologies on Colombia’s Magdalena River by Austin Zeiderman (Duke University Press 2025)

Throughout history, rivers have been the seat of civilization and the connective tissue of urbanization. In Colombia, the Magdalena River has occupied a central role in its social, political and economic development. Artery: Racial Ecologies on Colombia’s Magdalena River by Austin Zeiderman explores not only the role of the Magdalena in Colombian society but also provides an excellent case study for how riverine and fluvial systems create racial formations. Zeiderman demonstrates that the Magdalena River is a backdrop for racialized social relations while also acting as an active site where race, nature and infrastructure are co-produced.

My own months-long fieldwork along the Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon informed the way in which I read this well-researched book. Ziederman’s personal accounts reflected many of the same phenomena I experienced as a foreign researcher. As a young researcher, this book provided context and even practical insight into conducting field research in Latin America in the modern day. It helped me to explore what it meant for me to go to Latin America as a researcher, beyond the work of gathering data, but how my presence interacts and is part of a broader social framework.

Using personal accounts, historical precedent and theoretical analysis, Zeiderman explores what he calls the “racial ecosystem” of the Magdalena. Zeiderman does not write on this topic just as an outside observer but uses his experience as a white man with a prestigious background as an interface for the way Colombian corporate professionals, laborers and everyday citizens treat race in everyday life. Mundane exchanges, like pointing out how he might react negatively to drinking water from the river, to critical connections and opportunities provided due to his position as a white researcher from a prestigious university. These profound insights from personal and historical accounts make Artery an expertly crafted—even artistic—book which explores the many facets of society along the Magdalena River.

By tracing how the river has been repeatedly transformed into an artery of trade, extraction and mobility, he shows how rivers are continually remade as infrastructure for the expansion of global capitalism. Yet this transformation is never seamless. The Magdalena resists full incorporation through natural processes like sedimentation or seasonal shifts, along with social processes like labor disruptions and social conflict. Change and continuity define the Magdalena and Ziederman’s blending of accounts explain the river’s social dynamics.

Throughout the book, you will find beautiful and thought-provoking photography by the author himself. This photography not only adds contextual texture to the writing but also draws you into the personal experiences of Ziederman. The image of the dredge rig (Figure 1.4) immediately reminded me of the level of industrialization that you find in river systems across South America. When reading about natural wonders, we often dissociate the reality of industrialization, where dredging rigs, oil tankers and the hum of machinery make up the landscape along with deep forests and the sounds of wild animals. I really enjoyed the artistic style of Ziederman and his photography. His artistry reminds me of the importance of style and aesthetics in sharing research projects. Especially deeply personal works like an in-depth overview of race and society along the Magalena.

Zeiderman’s attention to detail and theoretical precision are some of the book’s great strengths, allowing him to trace how racial ecologies are reproduced through everyday interactions. Most pages in the book are filled with footnotes that provide critical insights into personal and theoretical analysis. At times, however, this level of interpretive depth risks overdetermining meaning, as routine exchanges are subjected to extensive analysis. While this approach underscores the pervasiveness of racialized systems, it can occasionally obscure the distinction between analytically significant moments and those that might better serve as contextual texture.

The racial formations that Ziederman examines along the margins of the Magdalena can be seen in other river systems, but particularly on the Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon. The racial formations of these rivers are defined by the economic system they support. Both the Rio Negro and the Magdalena see millions of dollars of goods transported through them. They are often referred to as river highways, not for fish but for huge oil tankers and barges. Racial formations of these rivers are deeply defined by the positioning of people within the economic system. This provides an interesting position for foreign researchers who are connected to the economic system but do not make up a major component of it.

One of the important economic developments changing racial and social dynamics on the Magdalena that Ziederman describes is the long-term plan to improve navigability along the river through dredging and channeling. The Magdalena was once an important trade network for shipping between the Caribbean coast and the Andean interior. This network also defined the racial formation of the river. Ziederman describes how Colombian elites of the 19th century discussed the racial mixing that would take place between the large Afro-descendant community on the Caribbean coast and the mixed Indigenous and white heritage in the Andean interior. In recent years, the Colombian government has tried to revitalize the river’s navigation and bring back economic development to the interior.

Improved navigability along the Magdalena is not just an economic project but also a security project. Ziederman describes how, since the signing of the 2016 peace accords with the major leftist guerrilla groups in Colombia, there has been a major push for economic development to provide alternatives to armed violence. Numerous infrastructure projects have been introduced to secure peace in the region. Social and racial dynamics in the Rio Negro have similarly been affected as the region has become a hotspot for drug trafficking from major transnational criminal organizations like the Commando Vermelho. Increased drug trafficking has meant more violence on the Rio Negro and along its margins. This violence is not just from organized crime but also military forces, which have been ramped up in recent years to address the increased drug trafficking, including between Colombia and Venezuela.

Artery is timely while also being a critical text for the long-term study of Colombia. This year (2026), Colombia will decide on a new president. No matter who wins, there will be continued progress on the development of the Magdalena as the new president will dictate the general direction of this development. Colombia’s geography is also important for its future relationship with Venezuela. Ziederman mentions how many Venezuelan migrants are being trained as boat pilots and workers on the Magdalena. He goes on to explore the tension between these underpaid workers and the rich experience of the Magdalena workers who have been there for decades or grew up in the region. Often, these Venezuelan workers are trained faster but with less expertise, making them vulnerable to the complicated and dangerous routes on the river. By exploring the economic and social history of the Magdelena, we can find answers and insights for Colombia’s future challenges. As Colombia changes, so will the Magdalena. With that in mind, we have to understand the historic place of the river so we can understand its future.

Zeiderman avoids framing the river solely as a space of domination or resistance. Instead, Artery highlights how the entanglements of race, nature and capitalism complicate any simple division between oppression and freedom. River workers, engineers, state officials and local communities operate within overlapping systems of constraint and agency, navigating racialized hierarchies while also reshaping them in everyday practice. In this sense, the environmental politics unfolding along the Magdalena encapsulate the broader challenge of striving for a more just planetary future: how to confront deeply entrenched racial and economic inequalities without reproducing the very logic that sustains them. By situating these struggles within the material and symbolic life of a river, Artery offers a powerful lens for thinking about environmental justice not as an abstract goal, but as a contested and unfinished process grounded in place.

Marek D. Kong is a graduate student at Florida International University in the Master of Arts in Latin American and Caribbean Studies program and a recent recipient of the Tinker Field Research Grant for conducting research in the Brazilian Amazon. You can find more information about him here: www.linkedin.com/in/marek-kong-fiu 

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