Corpo embaile: giros da literatura, giros do afeto nos Gerais

Abstract

This thesis proposes a multiple translational, interactional and experimental play between the geogzaphlc space of the seztâo (the Brazilian “backland”) and the literary works of Joao Guimaraes Rosa s hCtlonal space. In the middle and on the banks of this play — or journey - , it took “a longer trip” to cross the whole space of the book, setting the researcher’s body in motion, in a sensory experience with the contemporary Rosa’s seztâo. Multi-field experiences have shown that Rosa’s literary language overflows beyond the limits of his own work, circulating, relating to and connecting with the socio-cultural, environmental and territorial configurations of the seztâo in some localities of the state of Minas Gerais. The agents in our research — local leaders, nongovernmental institutions, conservation units, artists, communities and researchers -, are intertwined in a “Rosian network”, nourished by a literary vitality. Similar to Rosa's language, which “disentangle the many languages entangled in the language”, the narratives, discourses and rationalities of this “Rosian network” are capable of destabilizing the instrumental, developmental and monothematic language that sprawls frantically all over the Cerrado (Brazilian’s savannah). How does it all work? How are Guimaraes Rosa s hCtlonal space discourses (already provided with great regional and national influence) crossed and translated into the geogzaphlc space of the Minas Gerais’ seztâo in contemporary times — a space intensely transformed, from the socio-environmental and cultural point of view, already in the decades that follow Rosa’s publications? Further, what are the effects, the outcomes of these interactions ? How do the htezar/ work and geogzaphlc space transform each other ? What are the uncertainties, hesitations and perplexities present in this process? It was necessary to drag the language of the geographies of the seztâo out of their habitual grooves in this thesis, and be another body that keeps spreading messages, multiplying worlds made out of oral traditions, writings, seztâes, geographies and literatures.