Modernity devoured: Re-viewing the Anthropocene with Oswald de Andrade’s concept of anthropophagy

Abstract

Certain images produced by nature as a result of ecological disasters and climate crisis challenge our classic representation paradigm based on the separation between nature and culture. At the same time, these contemporary images, evoke a complex temporality of an apocalyptic future arriving sooner than expected and a colonial past that never seizes to violently consume natural resources. This paper proposes to revisit the Brazilian 1928 Anthropophagic Manifest, one of Latin America’s founding epistemologies according to Boaventura Souza Santos, as an aesthetic, philosophical and pragmatical proposal capable of providing tools to address our present crisis and these challenging images of the Anthropocene. How can a cannibalistic (indigenous) past set the grounds for creative invention and anti-colonial art? How can this transcultural use of indigenous philosophy help us find tools not only to frame these images of the Anthropocene, but above all, offer possibilities of surviving the “end of the world”?