Corpo, vida e mundo como territórios de dominação em Uma mulher no limiar do tempo: uma crítica ecofeminista animalista para construção de novos mundos possíveis

Abstract

This article develops an animal ecofeminist analysis of Woman on the Edge of Time, by Marge Piercy, examining how the narrative represents body, life, and world as interconnected territories of domination. The study argues that the novel articulates a structural critique of patriarchal, capitalist, colonial, and speciesist rationalities responsible for transforming life into an object of control, exploitation, and disposability. The research adopts a qualitative, bibliographical, and interpretative approach grounded mainly in ecofeminism, animal ecofeminism, and decolonial theory, especially the works of Karen J. Warren, Carol J. Adams, Val Plumwood, Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva, and Malcom Ferdinand. The article argues that the novel exposes the interdependence between the oppression of women, animal exploitation, and ecological destruction, revealing that patriarchal capitalism operates through the objectification of bodies considered available for appropriation. Connie Ramos’ trajectory demonstrates how medicalization, racialization, psychiatric violence, and animalization function as convergent technologies of biopolitical control. Simultaneously, the narrative structure itself, marked by temporal fragmentation, ontological ambiguity, and the protagonist’s perceptual instability, transforms the “edge” into a literary device that questions modern rationality. In contrast to Connie’s oppressive present, Mattapoisett represents the possibility of communal reorganization grounded in ecological interdependence, collective care, and the partial rupture with gender hierarchies and property relations. Nevertheless, the article critically argues that Piercy’s utopia remains limited because it does not entirely overcome anthropocentrism, since animal instrumentalization persists in partially normalized forms. The study concludes that the novel frames the future as a political field of dispute in which the construction of other possible worlds depends upon the simultaneous dismantling of patriarchy, capitalism, coloniality, and speciesism.