Narrative and memory in the analysis of transformations related to social interventions in gender

Abstract

The article discusses the methodologies used in two of the author's research projects. Both studies analyzed experiences of social interventions in the field of sexuality, reproductive health and gender, especially involving masculinities. The sources used were various documents, such as field diaries, notebooks prepared for the activities, reports, articles, among others. One of the studies included the account of the trajectories of former inmates in social projects on the mentioned themes, in the early 2000s. Conducted in a participatory manner, through the precepts of popular education and intervention research, the social practices generated a large volume of records over the fifteen years of work. These writings, revisited in her analysis, triggered other memories, interspersed with the events of the present. The cartography of memory, conceived as a narrative that follows the events, open to the production of new problematizations, displaced theoretical concepts and research questions, also resulting from the expansion of debates on feminism in Brazil. Considering the narrative as political, this text seeks to expose the intricacies and the path taken in the analyses and writing of the investigation, pointing out its effects and differences with hegemonic modes of knowledge production.