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Accepted Paper:
More-than-human encounters and transspecies collaborations in Brazilian carbon credit forests
Joaquim Almeida Neto
(University of São Paulo)
This paper is part of a more-than-human collaboration between an anthropologist, an artist, and the Eucalyptus globulus. Reflecting on transdisciplinary and transspecies exchanges, this paper discusses methodological and ethical aspects related to the elaboration of the Eucalyptus’ migration story.
Paper Abstract:
This paper is the product of a research-creation process started in 2021 that entangles a Brazilian anthropologist interested in art and more-than-human worlds, a Colombian artist involved with plants based on ecofeminism and witchcraft, and a plant species native to Australia that is now cultivated in more than 90 countries: Eucalyptus globulus. This more-than-human encounter, which involves subjects who are historically subordinate and subjected to different levels of violence, expropriation, and denial, was born amid the contradictions of climate justice and, more specifically, in the Brazilian forests of carbon credits. Seeking to reflect on transdisciplinary and transspecies exchanges, as well as on urgent ecological problems, this paper presents: (1) an outline of the more-than-human story of Eucalyptus globulus’ migration, which made it cease to be an endemic species in certain regions of Australia and become a commodity in Brazil, always linked to capitalist passions and interests; (2) the idea of an alliance of subordinates that gives rise to this more-than-human story; and (3) a discussion about the methodological and ethical aspects that permeate this entire research endeavour with more-than-humans. Considering the complexities of the more-than-human encounters that occur in the global South - and that eucalyptus brings us face-to-face with both stories of land expropriation and deforestation, as well as therapeutic encounters marked by affinities between local communities and the species - this paper seeks to elaborate an account that is neither innocent nor romanticised and that encompasses the relational and methodological horizons of research carried out with more-than-humans.