Seeing the Body-Territory: Nature, Technology, and Accumulation in Latin American Feminisms

Situated within contemporary feminist explorations of materiality and visual culture, the concept of “body-territory” offers a compelling framework for reimagining the interconnectedness of bodies, land, territory, and capital. Emerging from communitarian feminisms and further developed within Latin American movements, body-territory underscores and rethinks the profound ties between gender violence, and the accumulation of capital. The article examines the relationship between the concept of body-territory and visual representations of nature, technology, and extractivism, exploring how Latin American feminist theory and film use these images to elaborate on the material effects of colonization, capitalism, and ecological destruction—and to envision alternatives. It considers what it means to “see” the body-territory and analyzes its visual representation in Claudia Llosa’s Distancia de rescate. The first section addresses the relationship between body-territory and visual culture in two main aspects: how the concept broadens “our way of seeing,” as Verónica Gago writes, and the extent to which the film brings this idea to life visually. It shows how the film enables a critique of the nostalgic longing for a return to an unalienated past, often masked by the idea of “nature.” The second section explores the critical questions surrounding the materiality of body-territory raised by the film and proposes a dialogue between body-territory’s critique of extractivism in contemporary capitalism and cyborg ontology’s rejection of the mystification of nature. Finally, the article underscores the importance of understanding how films, cultural objects, and artworks engage with the complex dynamics among nature, technology, and capital accumulation amid ecological crises.