Abstract

This article aims to identify new historical causes for the making of the Anthropocene (the rise of humans to a geological force) by addressing Brazil’s transformation into an oil producer and an oil-dependent country between 1930 and 1975. This example allows an escape from the essentialist explanation of the Anthropocene as the result of humans’ insatiable appetite for consumption, commonly rooted in an analysis of Western industrial society, and to focus instead on the notion of freedom in a former colony. Indeed, in the context of nation-building and modernization debates, petroleum appeared to many Brazilians as an opportunity to emancipate the country from its peripheral role as global raw material provider. The rise of petroleum gave a post-colonial sense to the nation-founding myth of Brazil’s exceptional nature, which served as romantic background for a movement towards resource sovereignty embedded into a global anti-imperialist context. In Brazil specifically, oil production became an opportunity for a process of ecological transformation that promised to rid the country of colonial landscapes of exploitation, and even appeared as a solution for stopping the unsustainable destruction of tropical forests. Ultimately, these petro-ideals of emancipation, by positively linking nature and the nation, also hindered fully detecting the scope of the pollution problems that oil was generating. As argued in the article’s conclusion, this example should rekindle the discussion about the unintended link between freedom and geological change in the analysis of Anthropocene causalities.

中文翻译：

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人类世间的另一个故事：巴西对殖民地的后石油探索（1930年至1975年）*

摘要

本文旨在通过探讨巴西在1930年至1975年之间转型为石油生产国和石油依赖国的情况，来确定人类世的新历史成因（人类向地质力量的崛起）。人类对食欲无尽的需求导致的人类世的本质主义解释，通常源于对西方工业社会的分析，而侧重于前殖民地的自由概念。的确，在国家建设和现代化辩论的背景下，石油对许多巴西人而言，似乎是一个机会，使该国摆脱了作为全球原材料提供者的外围角色。石油的崛起给这个国家建立了后殖民主义的感觉，这个神话源于巴西杰出自然的神话，这是全球反帝国主义背景下实现资源主权运动的浪漫背景。特别是在巴西，石油生产成为生态转型过程的机会，该过程有望摆脱该国的殖民地剥削景观，甚至成为阻止热带森林不可持续破坏的解决方案。最终，这些解放的石油理想主义者通过自然与国家的积极联系，也阻碍了对石油正在产生的污染问题范围的全面了解。正如本文结论中所论证的那样，该示例应重新点燃关于人类世因果关系分析中自由与地质变化之间意外联系的讨论。