TP 4: Extractivism and Infrastructure in the Brazilian literature

• Applicant: Dr. Tomaz Amorim Izabel
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 524611401

The overarching aim of this project is to explore the multifaceted relationship between literary and extractive infrastructures in Brazil, focusing on two key periods: the early stages of high modernism (1900s-1920s) and contemporary literature. By adopting a comparative approach, the project seeks to reveal how literary works from these distinct periods engage with the complexities of extractive landscapes, shedding light on the evolving discourse surrounding colonial legacies, environmental destruction, and alternative perceptions, ways of life, and practices proposed by artists and social collectives. Taking into account both their material and symbolic dimensions, the study pursues the following general objectives: 1) The project aims to investigate the development of literary representations of extractive infrastructures and the "extractive gaze" through close readings. By comparing works from the early 20th century with those of contemporary literature, it will analyze changing modes of representation and conceptions of extractive infrastructures. The research examines how literary works have contributed to constructing an exploitative perspective on land and resources, and how these works have reflected, resisted, and reinforced prevailing ideologies. In doing so, it also considers the literary system itself as a type of infrastructure. 2) The project will analyze the forms and aesthetics that Brazilian literature, both modern and contemporary, has developed to raise awareness of environmental destruction caused by extractivism and to provoke emotional or affective responses. Through textual analysis, it will examine how authors employ specific linguistic and aesthetic strategies to confront readers both emotionally and cognitively with the consequences of extractivism and climate change, and to overcome various forms of eco-paralysis, eco-grief, or eco-guilt. 3. Additionally, the project will explore how contemporary literature, particularly by Indigenous and Quilombola authors, (re)constructs alternative worldviews that challenge dominant extractive narratives and propose different ways of being in relation to the land. It will investigate how these works mobilize diverse epistemological and ontological perspectives, foregrounding relationality, reciprocity, and the plurality of worlds. These works are understood as infrastructures for world-making, extending beyond the literary text to reorganize readers' perceptions through new forms and extraliterary references, thus enabling or even creating experiences with other worlds.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5710: Infrastructure: Aesthetics and Supply