Modernity/Colonialism in the literary representation of center/periphery dichotomy

Walter Mignolo proposes in The Darker side of Western Modernity (2011) a deconstruction of the idea of Modernity. According to him it is not possible to talk about Western Modernity without directly linkin it with colonialism and all the wounds and violence involved in this process. One example of a new hiarearchy created by Modernity in the European colonial project was the idea of classifying space and time. From the creatin of the term New World, we have the Old World and the division of the planet into hierarchical spaces. The rhetoric of modernity/coloniality also contais the ideas of salvation, progress, development, democracy, order. J.B. Harley in The nature of maps: essays in the history of cartography (2001) also argue about this construction of the hierarchy of spaces. According to him, the progressive standardization of maps from Modernity has dehumanized places, specially in the called “New World”. Every territory became “only” a territory which could more easily be shaped, conquered. Putting together the arguments of the two scholars about the mechanisms of hierarchization of spaces from modernity and colonial design, this paper proposes the analysis of Marcus Vinicius Faustini’s contemporary novel Guia afetivo da periferia (2009). From the creation of an “affective guide” and a constant moving around the city, the narrator seeks to deconstruct the center/periphery geographical hierarchy of the city, in this case, Rio de Janeiro, the former Brazilian capital and the city where in the 19th century, the Portuguese crown and its court was establisehd. From there and following the various urbanization projects in the 20th century, huge areas of the city were relegated to the plan of “margins” or “periphery” although they represent spatially most of the territory.