Give the Oxen a Name: Animals and the Mirroring of Modernity (Natal, 19th-20th Centuries)

Abstract

The article aims to understand the animals’ role within modernization process of the city of Natal between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From the second half of the 19th century, chroniclers and writers expressed, in their articles, the desire for the physical remodeling of the capital of Rio Grande do Norte according to the ideal of European civilizing urbanity. As this desire was realized and the city transformed, the relationship between humans and animals also changed, producing new tensions and conflicts. The work employs Animal Studies and Environmental History theoretical and methodological contribution to revisit documentary sources widely used in the historiography of Rio Grande do Norte, especially widely circulated local newspapers, but emphasizing the animals that were part of the daily life of the city of Natal in relation to functions such as feeding and transportation, as well as cats and dogs – so-called "invisible in plain sight," as said by Thomas Almeroth-Williams. The presence of animals in newspapers often points to anti-modern representations; undesirable yet necessary, animals were used in pejorative analogies to criticize attitudes and political positions, or in factual episodes to emphasize urban problems. Furthermore, the presence of animals reinforced the idea of colonial inferences, in contrast to a city that was striving to integrate into the Western capitalist world.