Literature, biopower, necropolitics and coloniality in “Órfãos do Eldorado” by Milton Hatoum

Abstract

Órfãos do Eldorado, a narrative written by Milton Hatoum and published in 2008, portrays the development of Northern Brazil during the late 19th and 20th centuries through the family trajectory of the narrator-protagonist Arminto Cordovil. By observing the social relations established within the work through the lens of coloniality, this article analyzes the fate of Indigenous women, who are subjugated to economic order and patriarchal domination. The main objective of this study was to discuss the fate of female Indigenous characters from the perspective of a critique of necropolitics. As a theoretical foundation, authors who support a reflection on necropolitics are mobilized, such as Mbembe (2016); biopolitics and sovereignty, from Foucault (1988); State of Exception, by Agamben (2004); and coloniality, by Quijano (2004). The study is organized into three subsections. The first discusses necropolitics, biopower, and decoloniality; the second focuses on the characterization of Hatoum's novella as Indigenist; and the third analyzes the condition of Indigenous women in the text from a decolonial perspective. This is a qualitative, bibliographical, and literary analysis research, focusing on the relationships between time, space, and characters. As a result, Hatoum's narrative is understood as a warning about the persistence of the coloniality of power under a regime of necropolitics, which maintains the Indigenous population in a permanent State of Exception—actions that can perpetuate practices of genocide and epistemicide.