The Water as an Engine of Creativity

Texto Ensaístico Sobre Pensamento Decolonial Através do Elemento

Abstract

This article addresses worldviews and decolonial philosophies to think of water as an engine for the creation and imagination of lives and possible worlds. It is an essay about the element at its maximum power, as in a dam breaking: uncontrollable and invincible. The objective is to identify, in an interdisciplinary way, the possibilities of intellect-body knowledge from this contemplation. As a method, we gathered documents such as artistic exhibitions, documentaries, public speeches, interviews and academic texts, as well as Brazilian Popular Music songs by Elza Soares, Liniker and Luedji Luna. From this, we formulate interpretations about metaphors with water, its material and empirical effects, in order to glimpse the importance of this element in the daily act of creating, remembering and living. We will see if it is possible to reinhabit Brazilian existences beyond the trauma and the “Capitalocene”, beyond the obstacles of the commoditization of water and the colonial traps of race and gender. We will also talk about the sociopolitical problems of water stress in large cities like Rio de Janeiro, which promote a 'water war'. At the end of the article, we will see that water is an engine of creativity and life thinking, through processes of investigation and internal immersion, collective memory and well-being with the environment. In this essay, it is stated that ecocentrism is an alternative for changing our episteme. We will conclude that water can establish links between the different actors in the world, especially through a deep dive, with zeal and affection.