A(s) Facing the images: experiences of aging and memory as an episteme engraved on women's bodies

experiences of aging and memory as an episteme written on the bodies of women

Abstract

In the Maravilha District, located in the rural area of ​​Londrina, Paraná, live the traveling companions who accompany me in my doctoral research: Luzia dos Santos, Maria da Luz Caetano Lima, Aparecida dos Santos Maffi, and Rita Helena Hortêncio Neves. They are Black and white women, aged between 65 and 85, migrants or from migrant families, who built their trajectories in Maravilha. The photographs in this essay were taken during the fieldwork with the traveling companions; they emerged from the memory work we conducted with their family albums and individual photographs. In the memory work, the act of making new images was incorporated as part of the theoretical and methodological experimentation of the research, since, as Didi-Huberman observes, "the image burns in its contact with reality" (DIDI-HUBERMAN, 2012, p. 2012). In the fire ignited by the images in the mobilization of memories, new photographs emerged, blazing. Memories, forgotten experiences, fabrications, and reinventions were articulated by these women, and along the way, old age itself began to be mobilized as a movement to reinvent life.