The Salete boxes

weavings of narratives from and in solidarity kitchen of Vila Barracão

Abstract

In this text, I explore memories of women who work in the solidarity kitchen of Vila Barracão, on the outskirts of Porto Alegre. Among these women, I highlight Salete who, by keeping dreams and pain in “boxes”, mobilizes feelings and reflections in me that permeate this writing. My meeting with these women was promoted by a teaching-extension-research project that recorded their narratives and revealed stories of abandonment and oppression, as well as resistance and insurgency. Making these stories visible and reflecting on the roles of women in solidarity kitchens and urban outskirts are the objectives of this work. In experimental writing, at the same time as I document and reflect on this topic, I also seek to think about the personal meanings of this work and about researchs based on narratives. The study is assembled as a loose, open fabric. I act “knots”, but I also leave “loose ends” for the composition of fictions to come or endless stories.