Non-human agents in the construction of the City-Park: History of Brasília’s urban arborization (1960-1970)

Abstract

The present article aims to examinate the influence of nature over the history of Brasília, more specifically, through the analysis of the Brasília’s arborization process as it was registered by two local periodics: Correio Braziliense and Jornal de Brasília. The activities of greening the new capital were a responsability of the Department of Parks and Gardens, known by DPJ, and their daily attempties were registered by the newspapers in midiatic narratives that also brought ideological propositions about the local biome, the Cerrado (brazilian savannah). Despite all the argumentation that tried to justify the fallibity of the attempts, many of them blaming on nature for the unsucess, the decade 1970s saw an imbalance on the ecosystem, it was an event of huge proportions within social, political and natural repercussions. That event leaded to a changing on the arborization methods that had been used by the DPJ’s employees since the previous decade, 1960s. Thoses changes are an example of how trees, among others non-humans elements, are a source of influence in the human experience and, therefore, could be understood as a specific type of historical agency.