The University of Arizona Press
Harvesting the Clouds
Ecologies of Fog Capture in Coastal Peru
Vision limited, sounds muffled. Tiny water droplets reflect light back to its source and make it difficult to locate the origin of sounds: this is fog. In Chakad Ojani’s ethnography, this atmospheric phenomenon plays a pivotal role.
Drawing on long-term ethnographic research on engagements with fog in Lima and coastal Peru, Harvesting the Clouds examines how local NGO workers and fog oasis conservationists sought to utilize coastal fog as a water source. NGO workers installed fog catchers in informal or recently formalized neighborhoods where state infrastructure was absent, while conservationists harnessed ground-touching clouds in order to prevent informal urbanization. As they set out to capture ground-touching clouds to pursue their distinct goals, these collectives became entrapped by activities, demands, and expectations that they had not foreseen. The book frames these relationships as ecologies of capture: emergent webs of relationships held together by conflicting aims and expectations, the possibilities and limitations of fog capture, and the material qualities of fog itself.
Harvesting the Clouds argues that capture is always only partially successful, but by virtue of this partiality, it becomes a product of social relations—an understanding that the author extends to anthropological inquiry itself as an exercise in the productive impossibility of ethnographic entrapment.
“Chakad Ojani provides a fascinating examination of fog capture projects in Lima, Peru, and their entanglement with conservation, urban development, and the city’s race-class politics. This is one of the most creative and engaging books I’ve read on coastal Peru. It will be of interest to scholars and students working on urban politics, conservation, infrastructure, and the state in Peru and beyond.”—Maximilian Viatori, author of The Unequal Ocean: Living with Environmental Change along the Peruvian Coast
