<b>Bolivarian Landslides? Ecological Disasters, Political Upheavals and (Trans)National Futures in Contemporary Venezuelan Culture</b> // ¿Derrumbes bolivarianos? Desastres ecológicos, sublevaciones políticas y futuros (trans)nacionales en la cultual venezolana actual

Authors

  • Rebecca Jarman University of Leeds

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2017.8.1.1056

Keywords:

Bolivarian socialism, Venezuela, disaster studies, Vargas Tragedy, Latin American studies, ecocriticism // Socialismo bolivariano, estudios de los desastres, Tragedia de Vargas, estudios latinoamericanos, ecocrítica

Abstract

    In December 1999, the so-called “Vargas Tragedy” destroyed the Venezuelan coast after days of torrential rain caused over fifty landslides in the greater metropolitan area of Caracas. The disaster coincided with a referendum to redraft the Venezuelan constitution during the first year of Bolivarian Socialism, and was conceived of as a punctual political event that marked the beginning of a new historical period for Venezuela. This understanding of the landslides has been contested by authors and filmmakers who negotiate ecological crises as complex multitemporal, transnational processes. Focusing on the use of child protagonists in Una tarde con campanas (2004), a novel by Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez, and El chico que miente (2011), a film directed by Marité Ugás, this article analyses the creative strategies employed in contemporary Venezuelan culture that foreground alternative responses to the landslides. On the one hand, I argue that adolescence is used in these texts as a figurative device that rebels against the politicisation of the disaster and thus, by extension, undermines the state’s elision of a post-catastrophic and post-capitalist future. On the other, I argue that childhood is mediated as a heterogeneous site that defies facile reification, much like the disaster, and invites a reconsideration of the ways in which we conceptualise the relationship between the human and the non-human.


Resumen

      En diciembre de 1999, la llamada “tragedia de Vargas” destruyó la costa venezolana después de días de lluvias torrenciales que causaron más de cincuenta derrumbes en las afueras de Caracas. El desastre coincidió con un referéndum para reformar la constitución venezolana durante el primer año del mandato de Hugo Chávez y, por lo tanto, se consideró un evento histórico que rompió con la “cuarta república” y marcó una nueva era para el país bolivariano. En el ámbito cultural, esta visión del desastre ha sido rechazada por varios autores y directores venezolanos, quienes señalan al desastre como un proceso no cronológico cuyos efectos e impactos transcienden las fronteras nacionales. Este artículo analiza el trama pos-catastrófico protagonizado por niños en Una tarde con campanas (2004), una novela de Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez, y El chico que miente (2011), una película de Marité Ugás. Por un lado, argumento que estos textos recurren a la infancia como un mecanismo narrativo que confronta la politización de la supervivencia y, por extensión, desautoriza las visiones de un futuro pos-capitalista/pos-catastrófico. Por otro lado, sugiero que la infancia se ve como un sitio heterogéneo que niega la codificación y el dualismo sociedad/naturaleza, exigiendo así una reconsideración de las relaciones entre lo humano y lo no-humano.

 

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Author Biography

Rebecca Jarman, University of Leeds

Rebecca is a Teaching Fellow in Latin American Studies at the University of Leeds (UK). She researches culture and politics in contemporary Latin America, particularly the themes of urbanization and poverty as they are mediated in film and literature. Her doctoral thesis, completed at the University of Cambridge, explored representations of the slums in Venezuelan culture (1958 onwards), to establish the links between populism, the oil industry and urban marginality in twentieth-century Venezuela. Developing from this is a project that interrogates recent representations of environmental catastrophes, especially in the urban spaces of Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Brazil and Hispaniola. She is also interested in literary and journalistic translation, and representations of Latin America in anglophone media. 

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Published

2017-04-27

Issue

Section

Articles: South Atlantic Ecocriticism