Questioning and Listening : An Attempt to Investigate Voinha's Migration Journey
(2023) In PlaySpace (PS) 2(N.1). p.71-77- Abstract
- In this essay I analyze how the artefacts of questioning and listening became resourceful in the procedure of excavating the personal and political reasons behind the migration journey my maternal grandmother Voinha embarked on in 1945 from Ananindeua and Belém to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Voinha, who turned 100 years old on April 08th, 2021 and passed away on March 06th, 2022, influenced my own migration journey, which started sixteen years ago when I left Rio de Janeiro for Doha, Qatar and later moved on to the Northern European cities of Munich, Frankfurt am Main, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Malmö. Coupling questioning with listening allowed an oppressed woman to speak for herself, fostering in this way dramaturgies that brought awareness to... (More)
- In this essay I analyze how the artefacts of questioning and listening became resourceful in the procedure of excavating the personal and political reasons behind the migration journey my maternal grandmother Voinha embarked on in 1945 from Ananindeua and Belém to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Voinha, who turned 100 years old on April 08th, 2021 and passed away on March 06th, 2022, influenced my own migration journey, which started sixteen years ago when I left Rio de Janeiro for Doha, Qatar and later moved on to the Northern European cities of Munich, Frankfurt am Main, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Malmö. Coupling questioning with listening allowed an oppressed woman to speak for herself, fostering in this way dramaturgies that brought awareness to feminist empowerment as a means to tackle the colonial and patriarchal ways in which the Brazilian national identity is constructed.
The writing style is mainly anecdotal and based on conversations I had with Voinha on different occasions. The recordings of our last in-person encounter on September 15th, 2018, became the foundation for the performance Feliz Aniversário, created primarily as an opportunity for Voinha to tell the story of her migration journey. Excerpts of this audio and video footage will be further analyzed alongside this essay.
The methodology adopted is autoethnography with the intention of offering nuanced, complex, and specific knowledge about particular lives, experiences, and relationships (Adams, Jones, Ellis 2014). Within autoethnographical methodological tools, I focus on reflexivity with the aim of troubling the relationship between researchers ‘selves’ and ‘others’ and offering a re-examination of the paradigm modernity/coloniality as simultaneously shaped through specific articulations of race, gender, and sexuality (Lugones 2007). The final intention is to analyze how turning back to my ancestors’ and my own experiences, identities, and their socio-political implications; how analyzing them according to gender and queer theories and from a decolonial perspective, can potentialize my current practice focused on autobiographical performance.
One last important point to be acknowledged is my role as an artist-researcher examining the complex ethical and creative processes of working with intimate family memories, observing the growing necessity of developing dramaturgies of care and resistance (Malzacher 2008).
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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/15661875-1b6f-4646-ac5c-5a8bf6118177
- author
- Salustiano Trojaborg, Iury LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023-11-02
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Autobiographical performance; Autoethnography; Questioning, Listening; Migration, Feminism.
- in
- PlaySpace (PS)
- volume
- 2
- issue
- N.1
- pages
- 71 - 77
- publisher
- University of Stavanger
- ISSN
- 2703-9838
- DOI
- 10.31265/ps.608
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 15661875-1b6f-4646-ac5c-5a8bf6118177
- date added to LUP
- 2024-12-17 10:23:45
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:20:45
@article{15661875-1b6f-4646-ac5c-5a8bf6118177,
abstract = {{In this essay I analyze how the artefacts of questioning and listening became resourceful in the procedure of excavating the personal and political reasons behind the migration journey my maternal grandmother Voinha embarked on in 1945 from Ananindeua and Belém to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Voinha, who turned 100 years old on April 08th, 2021 and passed away on March 06th, 2022, influenced my own migration journey, which started sixteen years ago when I left Rio de Janeiro for Doha, Qatar and later moved on to the Northern European cities of Munich, Frankfurt am Main, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Malmö. Coupling questioning with listening allowed an oppressed woman to speak for herself, fostering in this way dramaturgies that brought awareness to feminist empowerment as a means to tackle the colonial and patriarchal ways in which the Brazilian national identity is constructed.<br/>The writing style is mainly anecdotal and based on conversations I had with Voinha on different occasions. The recordings of our last in-person encounter on September 15th, 2018, became the foundation for the performance Feliz Aniversário, created primarily as an opportunity for Voinha to tell the story of her migration journey. Excerpts of this audio and video footage will be further analyzed alongside this essay. <br/>The methodology adopted is autoethnography with the intention of offering nuanced, complex, and specific knowledge about particular lives, experiences, and relationships (Adams, Jones, Ellis 2014). Within autoethnographical methodological tools, I focus on reflexivity with the aim of troubling the relationship between researchers ‘selves’ and ‘others’ and offering a re-examination of the paradigm modernity/coloniality as simultaneously shaped through specific articulations of race, gender, and sexuality (Lugones 2007). The final intention is to analyze how turning back to my ancestors’ and my own experiences, identities, and their socio-political implications; how analyzing them according to gender and queer theories and from a decolonial perspective, can potentialize my current practice focused on autobiographical performance.<br/>One last important point to be acknowledged is my role as an artist-researcher examining the complex ethical and creative processes of working with intimate family memories, observing the growing necessity of developing dramaturgies of care and resistance (Malzacher 2008).<br/>}},
author = {{Salustiano Trojaborg, Iury}},
issn = {{2703-9838}},
keywords = {{Autobiographical performance; Autoethnography; Questioning, Listening; Migration, Feminism.}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{11}},
number = {{N.1}},
pages = {{71--77}},
publisher = {{University of Stavanger}},
series = {{PlaySpace (PS)}},
title = {{Questioning and Listening : An Attempt to Investigate Voinha's Migration Journey}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.31265/ps.608}},
doi = {{10.31265/ps.608}},
volume = {{2}},
year = {{2023}},
}