Multimodal Layers of Environmental Racism in Confinada, a Brazilian Webcomic
Multimodal Layers of Environmental Racism in Confinada, a Brazilian Webcomic

Summary/Abstract: The present study engages with the pressing environmental crisis by examining how Confinada(2020–2021), a Brazilian webcomic, contributes to critical ecocriticism, particularly through multimodal and intermedial strategies. As environmental degradation disproportionately affects marginalized populations in Brazil, particularly in non-planned urban spaces like favelas, the concept of environmental racism (Chavis) becomes essential for understanding these asymmetries. The aim of this paper is to investigate how architectural and urban elements diagrammatically represented in the narrative multimodal layers of Confinada evoke traces of Brazil’s colonial past while exposing the structural inequalities that persist in contemporary urban policies. Methodologically, the study draws from intermedial ecocriticism and (multi)modality studies (Elleström; Bruhn; Gibbons; Jensen), combining them with theoretical frameworks from environmental racism (Chavis). The analysis focuses on selected panels of the comic that emphasize spatial segregation, environmental vulnerability, and everyday resistance. Findings suggest that Confinada constructs a critical visual narrative that challenges representations of urban modernity and exposes how environmental precarity is racialized. The use of intermedial layers—visual, textual, spatial—becomes a powerful means of articulating socio-environmental critique from a marginalized perspective. While this study offers insights into a specific Brazilian context, its scope is limited by the focus on a single case study. Nevertheless, it opens pathways for further research on the role of graphic narratives and digital media in shaping decolonial ecocritical discourse.

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