Amazonian Utopias
There is a Western temporality, constituted by colonization and neoliberal interests, that singularizes the contemporary moment in the Amazon and on the planet. It orchestrates dystopias that allow no lines of flight. Everything seems consummated in the Great Forest, and its narratives and practices dissolve the future. In another register of meaning, but within the same episteme, utopias listen to the voices of Indigenous peoples and of those subalternized by economic exploitation; they make visible other possibilities for human existence and nourish the dream of buen vivir. Irreconcilable cosmovisions!
International interests and internal colonialism are ferocious toward the Forest. Could a second Cabanagem contain this already intensely structured tragedy? On the other hand, it is here, in these low latitudes, close to the Equator, that the sky holds more stars. Perhaps it is still possible to listen to them, to trace new trajectories that value life and allow us to postpone the end of the world. This book is an invitation to these reflections.
Bio
Marcos Colón is the Southwest Borderlands Initiative Assistant Professor of Media and Indigenous Communities at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research focuses on Brazilian literary and cultural studies, with a particular emphasis on the Amazon, Indigenous studies, and representations of natureculture in documentary film and world cinema. In addition to his academic role, he is a journalist whose articles have been featured in the Jornal Público, Folha de São Paulo, Revista Piauí, Le Club de Mediapart, Havard Review of Latin America, Latin America Bureau, El País and other outlets. He has also produced and directed two feature documentary films that represent diverse perspectives on humanity’s complex relations with the natural world: Beyond Fordlândia (2018) and Stepping Softly on the Earth (2022). He is the editor and founder of Amazônia Latitude, a digital environmental magazine. He is also the author of The Amazon in Times of War ( Practical Action Publishing & Latin America Bureau, 2024) La Amazonía en tiempos de guerra (Planeta, 2025) and the organizer of Utopias Amazônicas (Ateliê, 2025).
Praise for this book
With an interdisciplinary compass, Utopias Amazônicas is an admirable effort to see beyond and through. Amazonian Utopias is an interdisciplinary nonfiction volume that brings together essays on the Amazon, environmental imagination, Indigenous knowledge, culture, politics, and possible futures for the region.
Jotabê Medeiros Brazilian journalist, writer, reporter, and music critic. Born in Paraíba, he built a long career in cultural journalism, working for major Brazilian outlets such as Folha de S.Paulo, O Estado de S.Paulo, Veja São Paulo, and CNT/Gazet
