From the drought to the mud: rediscovering geopoetics and cultural hybridity from the Global South

Abstract

This article addresses the notion of geopoetics, arguing for a decolonial rediscovery of ideas and practices associated with this concept through authors, narratives and (geo)poetical traditions from the Global South. For this purpose, I analyse a body of narrative work, poetry and archives by Brazilian geographers Mauro Mota and Josué de Castro, inserting their texts into the cultural and environmental contexts of their region, the Northeast of Brazil, which is characterised by ethnic hybridity and a history of anti-colonial insurgency from socially and racially marginalised groups. Extending and putting into relation literature on geopoetics, on the ‘creative (re)turn’ in geography and on the Global South as a notion associated with subaltern spaces and geographies of resistance, I argue for geopoetics as an engaged, activist, cosmopolitan, anti-racist and decolonial field of study, one which has the potential of extending the disciplinary reach of cultural geography. The literary works of these Northeastern geographers provide important contributions for blurring the classical European epistemological divide between nature and culture by addressing ideas on more-than-human hybridity associated with Northeastern environments, as well as indigenous and Afro-Brazilian cultural and ethical legacies.