Combating Political Dissidence

Eugenics, Biopolitics, Sub-citizenships, and Genocide

Abstract

The book Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands), by Euclides da Cunha, is frequently referred to as the “Bible of Brazilian Nationality” due to its profound analysis of Brazilian society, particularly in the context of the War of Canudos. This important work by the Brazilian writer and journalist Euclides da Cunha was published in 1902 and is considered the first Brazilian literary non-fiction/reportage book (livro-reportagem). The work addresses the events of the war, preceded by a study of the region and its geographic and geologic characteristics, further exploring the cultural, social, and ethnic roots of Brazil, establishing a dialogue among science, literature, and history. The present article analyzes the fundamental elements of modern rationality, drawing from Os Sertões, in order to reflect upon the formation of Brazilian nationality. These foundations underpin the construction of the national State, its institutions, as well as the modern capitalist economy, and they are: the subaltern binary logic; historical linearity; European universalism; individualism; and the transformation of nature into a resource to be exploited by this individual separated from nature.