A pena do espírito e o corpo de papel : narrativa e conhecimento sobre o corpo indígena no Chaco (século XVIII)

Abstract

The production of narratives and the production of knowledge in the modern West is a process that developed concurrently and inseparably from the colonization dynamics of the American continent. Based on this assumption, this research aims to inquire about the modern and colonial conditions of the production of representations and knowledge about the indigenous body in the eighteenth century, through the analysis of two works written by priests of the Society of Jesus who missioned in the Chaco region in the mid-century, namely the Historia de los Abipones (1784) of Fr. Martin Dobrizhoffer SJ and Hacia allá y para acá (1780) of Fr. Florian Paucke SJ. The course of narrative composition of this investigation is to reflect theoretically on the relationship between the concepts of narrative, knowledge and representation, referring them to the conjuncture of development of modernity and coloniality, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. From that point, identify the contributions and idiosyncrasies of the narratives of the Jesuit priests in the intellectual panorama of the seven hundred, especially in the construction and representation of the bodies of different Chaco indigenous groups.