Modernidade e violência em Mad Maria, de Márcio Souza

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the reflection about the modernist project of construction of the “Madeira-Mamoré” railroad, built in the Amazon rainforest during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This work was one of the most significant civil engineering challenges of the 20th century and had the function of connecting Brazil and Bolivia in order to favor the flow of latex production from Bolivian rubber plantations. In addition to resulting in irreversible environmental impacts, workers from more than fifty different ethnicities died in the process, which also caused the ethnocide of the Karipuna indigenous people, which at the time of the project was estimated at 12 thousand people, and is currently reduced to just 43 individuals, in Rondônia. The work Mad Maria, by Márcio Souza was the catalyst for the analyzes presented here. Although it is an open work, subject to numerous interpretations, our focus was on problematizing the modernizing project, from the indigenous perspective represented in that work. The study was developed in a qualitative approach, based on bibliographic research methodology. The problem was investigated from a historical and literary perspective and the study allowed us to conclude that literature is a relevant source for historical understanding. In the present case, the work with a decolonial profile provided a critical approach to the problem of modernization in the Amazonian jungles.