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Paper short abstract

Based on ethnography in Brazil’s Jequitinhonha Valley, this paper examines how Indigenous actors mobilize para-human formations and technologies to endure colonial land usurpation and lithium mining expansion, making ecological damage visible while reaffirming their ancestral presence and endurance.

Paper long abstract

This paper analyses how Indigenous actors in the Jequitinhonha Valley, Brazil, have articulated different (para-)human formations and technologies to endure, resist, and look forward despite the difficult context of ongoing colonial land usurpation and environmental degradation. The Jequitinhonha Valley has long been home to different Indigenous and Afrodiasporic groups who have attempted to reclaim territorial rights and re-live ecosystems of life and survival. More recently, driven by energy transition discourses, the Jequitinhonha Valley has become a central arena for lithium mining expansion projects in Brazil, increasing pressure on land and further reshaping the already disfigured ecologies of the region. Such mining projects have not only seized new land but have also impacted water, air, soil, and diverse living beings.

Based on ethnographic research, I offer an analysis of how Indigenous and other actors have mobilized para-human formations and technologies not only to make these impacts visible but also to reaffirm their ancestral presence and consolidate their future and ongoing endurance in the region. I observe that while approaches of repair seem impossible in the face of the ecological degradation (fore)seen in the Jequitinhonha Valley, cosmopolitical and para-human formations of endurance are constantly (re)articulated by Indigenous actors. I argue that paying attention to these strategies of resilience is crucial for opening new political possibilities despite increasing pressures from environmental catastrophes.