To consume and to be consumed, new perspectives about the relation between humans and animals in the contemporary latin american literature

Abstract

Ecopolitics can be understood as a new field of production of knowledge and power related to government technologies of the world that affect relations between capitalism and environment and between democracy and the management of the planet. One of the dimensions of the Ecopolitics is the statement, expansion and consolidation about animals rights as the basis on the ethical coexistence of the species, mainly the discussions of the frontier between humanity/animality. All the same time the Ecopolitics development, there is also the continuous insertion of State of Exception as a contemporary form of government, indistinction limit between law and violence that can turn any citizen into homo sacer (Agamben, 2002). Those are two constitute dimensions the dystopian book Cadáver Exquisito (2018) of the contemporary Argentine writer Agustina Bazterrica. In this article, we intend to analyse as they appear in the author’s novel: a) The State of Exception legitimation; and b) Frontier between humanity/animality and the dimension of ecopolitics in the novel. For this purpose, we used theoretical contributions as Giorgio Agamben, Peter Sloterdijk, Michel Foucault, Gabriel Giorgi and others. From the novel analysis, we observed that the problematization of the ontological difference between human and animal points to a contemporary trend of animal humanization, when animals are elevated to a qualified life. Meanwhile, in the relationship between human beings, the definition and standardization of the boundaries of what is human are highlighted, and those who exceed such frontiers are relegated to a bare life.

Keywords

• literatura latino-americana contemporânea. agustina bazterrica. ecopolítica. estado de exceção.