La plantación denunciada: cuerpos, tierra y ética en Bananos y hombres y Mamita Yunai: Una lectura decolonial y ecocrítica de la narrativa bananera costarricense.

Details

Supervisors

Fabry, Geneviève

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation générale, à finalité didactique

Abstract

enThis thesis proposes a comparative analysis of two key works of twentieth-century Costa Rican banana literature: Bananos y hombres (1931), by Carmen Lyra, and Mamita Yunai (1941), by Carlos Luis Fallas. The present research fills an existing critical gap in the comparison of both narratives from the ethical, ecological, and decolonial perspectives that run through the two texts. It puts forward as its central hypothesis that the banana plantation controlled by the United Fruit Company constitutes a neocolonial space founded on economic exploitation, racial and gender domination, and environmental degradation. The theoretical framework makes it possible to understand the plantation as a system of environmental, racial, and economic violence that damages the laboring, female, and child body. These lines of inquiry are deepened through the integration of theoretical concepts from ecocriticism and decoloniality, such as the Plantationocene, the Capitalocene, and the Negrocene, as well as the colonization of territory, Otherness, biopolitics/necropolitics, and Counter-plantation. The work is structured in five chapters. The first addresses the sociohistorical and literary context of Costa Rica and the rise of banana literature, while the second develops the theoretical framework on coloniality, ecocriticism, and ethics. Building on these foundations, the third chapter compares the authors and their works, contrasting Fallas's testimonial novel with Lyra's ironic short story. The fourth chapter analyzes the subaltern subjects of the enclave, the aesthetics of denunciation, and the forms of resistance. Finally, the fifth examines the narrative space through geocriticism and the geopoetics of the banana locus horribilis. In conclusion, the thesis demonstrates that both works reduce the human and the natural to a mere exploitable resource, while denouncing the racial segregation and necropolitics of the enclave. It further shows that the two narratives differ in their form of denunciation: testimonial and collective in the case of Fallas, ironic and polyphonic in that of Lyra. Despite these differences, both texts constitute forms of "Counter-plantation" against the hegemonic power of the United Fruit Company.