Pandemia, animalidade e literatura: quem são os filhos da Terra?

Abstract

The pandemic period that our society now faces has contributed to reveal the cruelty with which the human being acts towards the animal, the Earth and the human himself, calling attention to questions which require urgent answers. The precarious relations between humans and non-humans have denounced the failure of humanism, ethics and common sense, prompting the search for new ways of approaching the problem. Keeping this idea in mind and considering the context of the Anthropocene, the objective here is to reflect on the link between the anthropocentric strategies of domination of nature and the basic concepts and precepts of Westernity that, despite the idea of no longer existing, remain guiding the human practices in relation to the natural world. We will see, therefore, how literature has dealt with situations of distance, approach and encounter between humans and non-humans and to what extent it gives preference to animal representations characterized by humanization of the non-human. We always look at Ailton Krenak's conception that we are children of the Earth, a vision that perhaps holds power for the reopening ways of relating to otherness, the other human, and the other, non-humans. To do so, we dialogue with Gustavo Yañez Gonzalez (2020), Paul B. Preciado (2020), Mário Perniola (2016) Davi Kopenawa (2015) and Ailton Krenak (2017), (2019).