An Anarchist Rainforest: Cooperation in Ferreira de Castro’s A selva

Abstract

In this essay, I read Portuguese writer Ferreira de Castro’s Amazonian “novel of the jungle” A selva (1930) through the lens of the author’s lifelong commitment to anarchist ideals and, in particular, to the thinking of Pëtr Kropotkin. I argue that Kropotkin’s reflections on collaboration in more-than-human forms of existence and on the role mutual aid will play in an anarchist world to come are key to understanding the political evolution of the novel’s protagonist from an elitist believer in monarchy to a proto-anarchist. Working in a rubber collection facility in the final years of the Amazonian rubber boom, A selva’s main character observes the centrality of cooperation and symbiosis both within and across plant and animal species. Mutual aid, in turn, proves decisive for the survival of the destitute migrant rubber tappers that flocked to the Amazon in search of a better life. I contend that, in the novel, the cooperation between more-than-human rainforest beings serves as a blueprint for a more equitable human polity.