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My research is an ethnography exploring (im)mobilities in this epoch marked by anthropogenic climate change. Specifically, I work with the Enseada da Baleia, a Caiçara community located on Cardoso's Island, on the southeast coast of Brazil. Caiçaras are a distinct group of people, their traditional subsistence agriculture and fishing activities are threatened by real estate speculation, restrictive laws, declining fish stocks and climate change. Enseada's forced relocation in 2016 resulted from coastal erosion and rising sea level that broke Cardoso’s Island in two. The breaking happened in the exact place where the community was located.
The ethnography merges participatory, feminist and decolonial methods approaches, resulting in a storytelling writing style illustrated with line draws. My research explores (im)mobilities regimes from different angles such as violence, temporalities and more-than-human kinship:
(1) The research conceptualises climate change as capitalism and colonialism violence. I argued that the commodification of nature through neoliberal policies creates im/mobility regimes dictating who can stay put, move, when and under what conditions. I engage with concepts such as slow violence and quasi-events to analyse how Enseada’s members have been forcedly (im)mobilised in a precarious place. It is a place that was/is disappearing, putting at risk their lives and their culture and identity. I pay attention to the displacement of people and the conditions of forced (im)mobility. Condition of exploitation in precariousness pushes bodies to exhaustion – death – of land and people.
(2) The research explores (im)mobilities temporalities using allegories of water, waves and deepness. I engaged with the concept of ‘thick time’ – a concept that argues that time is no lineal but that past, present and future are firmly knotted together. One finding of the ethnography is about how ancestral (im)mobilities shape current patterns. Two examples of how I engage with thick time: (1) the breaking of the island was expected. This is because elders used to say that the island was all water before, and the sea one day will arrive to take back that space. The past comes back to the present; (2) the community relocated to a place that elders used to habit. This was a way to ensure continuity after the destruction of a place. They were going back to the future.
(3) Multispecies (im)mobilities. I explore the connection between human and non-human shape (im)mobilities. I engaged with the idea of making kin through practice. I explore how fish moved after the breaking of the island and how humans followed them. The coming together of fish and humans is crucial for partial healing after the ruination of their place.
These angles are explored under (im)mobility research lenses and use lines and knots as a metaphor and tool for analysis.