The concept of space has undergone a significanttransformation in the last decades. Its definition has expanded to consider itnot merely as a vacuum geographical area where events take place, but rather asa complex arena of interrelated layers of meanings, in which social practicesare performed and identities asserted. At the same time, spaces are made ofmatter in all its complex forms: cities, forests and deserts are constituted bymatter which is -in its living and non-living constituents- active.  The material turn allows for a reading ofmatter as actant a source to analyzethe relationship between nature and humans, as well as human actions and theirconsequences, and resonances. The term actantrefers to the source of energy, the potential for action which can be human ornon-human and which, above all, has ??efficacy, can do things, has sufficientcoherence to make a difference, produce effects, alter the course of events?(Bennett, Jane viii). In the novel Waitingfor the Barbarians (1980) by South African writer J.M. Coetzee the desert,the space ?out there? becomes an actant which, given the colonial quest ofexpansion, finds its way to answer back to the Empire. Space and the Other are thematized in this narrativewhich deconstructs the colonialist view and enterprise in a fictional manner.