Ecological Violence and Grassroots Justice: Undoing the Politics of Invisibilisation Through Amazona

The article delves into the visual politics of Canizales's graphic novel Amazona (2022) to unearth how it exposes the false promises of neoliberal developmentalism in Colombia. Amazona, written and illustrated by Colombian-born author Canizales, depicts the social, ecological and epistemic injustices inflicted by mining corporations upon the Indigenous communities of Colombian Amazonia. The narrative unfolds the chronicles of systemic disenfranchisement and displacement of Indigenous communities from their sacred ancestral lands, their subsequent relocation to the slums of the city of Cali and the deplorable standards they were forced to live in. Incorporating the interdisciplinary theoretical framework of grassroots justice, Indigenous studies and comics studies, the article attempts to map the ways in which Amazona visualises injustices wreaked upon Indigenous communities and the environment and their struggle for reclaiming the lost territories. The article also showcases how Indigenous eco-cosmologies and epistemologies together act as a guiding force, forwarding the movement and rekindling their lost relationship with the more-than-human ecologies. Furthermore, by scrutinising the visual-verbal narratological techniques, the article annotates how the visual mode of storytelling can itself function as a distinct mode of activism through its ingenious use of colours, layouts, splashes and imageries.