Abstract

August 2015. A bus. A trip. Travelling in highways during more than thirty-six hours from the point of departure – the city of Três de Maio – to the point of arrival: Brasília. What might seem a tiring trip due to the huge amount of hours, one day and one night, did not affect my decision in any way […]. I didn’t think twice about accepting a place on the bus and I confirmed my presence in the trip leading to the 5 ^th Marcha das Margaridas straight away ¹1. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Narrativas de si em movimento: uma genealogia da ação política de mulheres trabalhadoras rurais do sul do Brasil [ tese ]. Porto, Florianópolis : Universidade do Porto, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina ; 2017 . . (p. 147)

In this rhizomatic essay, we evoke scenes, images ^ccImage credits: the images were produced by the first author, Rita de Cássia Maciazeki-Gomes, at the V Marcha das Margaridas , in 2015. and affections triggered by our participation, with rural women workers, in the delegation of the northwestern region of the State of Rio Grande do Sul in the 5 ^th Marcha das Margaridas , in Brasília – Brazil’s Federal District. The study is part of a larger project that resulted in the Doctoral dissertation entitled Narratives of self in movement: a genealogy of the political action of rural women workers from the south of Brazil ¹1. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Narrativas de si em movimento: uma genealogia da ação política de mulheres trabalhadoras rurais do sul do Brasil [ tese ]. Porto, Florianópolis : Universidade do Porto, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina ; 2017 . and in the audiovisual record Margaridas, fighting and hitting the road ²2. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Margaridas, luta e pé na estrada [ Internet ]. Youtube ; 2017 [ citado 17 Abr 2019 ]. Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8hhV0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8h... . When we evoke the territory produced by Marcha das Margaridas (2005), we count on experience and narrative as powerful tools “in the transmission of stories, in their uniqueness, difference and multiplicity” ¹1. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Narrativas de si em movimento: uma genealogia da ação política de mulheres trabalhadoras rurais do sul do Brasil [ tese ]. Porto, Florianópolis : Universidade do Porto, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina ; 2017 . . (p. 22).

Experience and narrative as other ways of speaking, listening, sharing and making the peripheral knowledge reverberate – knowledge that has been neglected by the official story. These minority existences, present in a daily oral tradition, begin to be forgotten when they cease to be told. Experience and narrative acquire political contours when they embody the fragments of a story that is made by being ; a story that is non-linear, cut and (re)invented in the art of narrating, which makes it become an handicraft ¹1. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Narrativas de si em movimento: uma genealogia da ação política de mulheres trabalhadoras rurais do sul do Brasil [ tese ]. Porto, Florianópolis : Universidade do Porto, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina ; 2017 . .

The testimony of the rural women workers’ narratives produces a march-encounter-event ^ddEncounter-event, in a Foucauldian inspiration of eventualization as an analytical movement in a genealogical perspective; historicization. . In its nineteen years of existence, Marcha das Margaridas has consolidated itself as a broad struggle strategy that aggregates thousands of women from the countryside, from the waters and from the forests all over Brazil. With joy and multiple colors, the women perform ⁴4. Butler J . Problemas de gênero: feminismo e subversão da identidade . Rio de Janeiro : Civilização Brasileira ; 2015 . , in public, an act-manifesto based on agendas from the north to the south of Brazil in the fight against retrocessions and for the guarantee of rights. The March’s political strength of mobilization breaks with the stereotypes of predictability, calmness, resignation and silence that are often attributed to women in society’s mental imagery.

In the process of development and socialization of this record, there were countless challenges. Among them, how to transmit an experience and under what conditions ⁵5. Benjamin W . Obras Escolhidas 1 - Magia e técnica, arte e política: ensaios sobre literatura história e cultura . São Paulo : Brasiliense ; 1994 . p. 114 - 9 . . And we state, here, our strategy of being available to accompany them, to be with them, to get moving, opening spaces for an implicated and sensitive hearing of the effects of narratives about the experience of “becoming Margarida ”, which constitutes these women’s subjectivation process.

Look, Brasília is blooming / Bold women are coming / Look, Brasília is blooming / It’s the will of the Margaridas / We come from all sorts of places / We have all types of hair / Tall, short, our heads up high / We are the Margaridas / We who is always sweating / This country is feeding / We are here to remember / This country has to change! ^eeSong: O canto das Margaridas. Loucas de Pedra Lilás . Theatrical Group of the Women of Recife/State of Pernambuco. .

The articulation of writing-experience-narrative produced the need of a collective storytelling. The act of writing, like a sharpened blade for cutting and selecting a piece of reality, brings to the surface not one truth, but singular perspectives of a story.

Writing-experience-narrative impregnated with affection, as a poetic-political inspiration distant from prescriptive manuals. The traveled path bursts among fragments, discontinuous cuts, impregnated with experienceaffections in their ethical, aesthetical and political dimensions. Experienceaffection connected with multiple, desiring, political, historical, economic and institutional inscriptions ¹1. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Narrativas de si em movimento: uma genealogia da ação política de mulheres trabalhadoras rurais do sul do Brasil [ tese ]. Porto, Florianópolis : Universidade do Porto, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina ; 2017 . , ⁶6. Fernández AM . Las lógicas colectivas: imaginários, cuerpos y multiplicidades . Buenos Aires : Biblos ; 2007 . . Experienceaffection as the effect of a subjectivity production process crossed by collective intelligence and affectivities ¹1. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Narrativas de si em movimento: uma genealogia da ação política de mulheres trabalhadoras rurais do sul do Brasil [ tese ]. Porto, Florianópolis : Universidade do Porto, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina ; 2017 . , ⁷7. Fernández AM . Política y subjetividad: asambleas barriales y fábricas recuperadas . Buenos Aires : Biblos ; 2008 . .

Writing as experience, or the experience of writing, in a Foucauldian perspective, [...] takes into account respect for the alterity of a becoming-with, in the idea that being one is becoming with many, in an attempt to unlearn who we are, breaking with self-centering as we hear different stories. Writing as an encounter-event, a strategy of resistance and creation, rupture with what is instituted. Writing-experience-narrative from which we emerge transformed. Writing-body, engendered in the construction of a collective plan of research that irradiates multiple experiences of us ¹1. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Narrativas de si em movimento: uma genealogia da ação política de mulheres trabalhadoras rurais do sul do Brasil [ tese ]. Porto, Florianópolis : Universidade do Porto, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina ; 2017 . . (p. 28-9)

The Margarida flower knows that the seed / Generates the daily bread in the life of her people / But the seed must be planted / With no land, her people will always be slaves / We want lands because land is life […] / In the ranks of her people she planted her flag / The oppressor laughed at her without fear / Who’s seen nameless women face our power / One fine day there was a ghost / Margarida was one thousand, one thousand, one million […] / With fresh blood she signed her name / She preferred to die in the fight instead of starving to death ^ffSong Ciranda para Margarida , by Cida de Caiana dos Crioulos and Severina Luzia da Silva. .

To celebrate, at this moment, above all, the strength and unity of the women who dare build this march, with much boldness, from our labor unions, our organizations, I’m sure that many women had to struggle with themselves, too, to say that it was possible, that we were going to arrive here with this amount of women ²2. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Margaridas, luta e pé na estrada [ Internet ]. Youtube ; 2017 [ citado 17 Abr 2019 ]. Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8hhV0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8h... .

I want to say here to all of you that accepted to face the challenge of being here, united, firm in the Marcha das Margaridas , that this won’t end tomorrow when our march ends and we fold our flag and say the fifth march is over. No! We will continue to march until everyone has healthcare, until everyone has education, until everyone has a plot of land to produce. This is the desire of the rural women workers of Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná and Santa Catarina, and surely of the entire Brazil! ²2. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Margaridas, luta e pé na estrada [ Internet ]. Youtube ; 2017 [ citado 17 Abr 2019 ]. Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8hhV0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8h...

Political action [...] as a potentiality for acting and interacting with the other, as part of life. Political action has begun to be understood as an intersubjective position; it is related to the conditions of appropriation and constitution of ways of life in different territories (countryside, forests, outback [sertão], desert, city, families, friends, fellow activists) ¹1. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Narrativas de si em movimento: uma genealogia da ação política de mulheres trabalhadoras rurais do sul do Brasil [ tese ]. Porto, Florianópolis : Universidade do Porto, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina ; 2017 . . (p. 27)

It was very exciting, we didn’t think it’d be like this, we didn’t expect it’d be like this, the emotion is very strong [...] we feel something and we see that our fight is not in vain and it’s worth it. We fight because people are united and fighting for what they want! ²2. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Margaridas, luta e pé na estrada [ Internet ]. Youtube ; 2017 [ citado 17 Abr 2019 ]. Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8hhV0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8h...

[...] every action starts to be considered political, set up in an intersubjective position (self-already-being-with-the other), that is, the practice of self-care that takes into account the relationship with the other and triggers political subjectivation processes that constitute an ethos; practices pervaded by multiplicity, difference and singularity. Ways of interacting with oneself and with the other, grounded on restlessness and dissent and, even so, on the possibility of constituting a common place, a space for the recognition of alterity ¹1. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Narrativas de si em movimento: uma genealogia da ação política de mulheres trabalhadoras rurais do sul do Brasil [ tese ]. Porto, Florianópolis : Universidade do Porto, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina ; 2017 . . (p. 27-8)

In August 2019, Brasília received the 6 ^th Marcha das Margaridas , whose slogan is: “ Margaridas in the struggle for a country with popular sovereignty, democracy, justice, equality and free from violence”. In a national political and economic scenario permeated by doubts, uncertainties and threats of retrocessions in historically conquered rights, we resume Nair’s message-invitation for mobilization: “My message: I want to invite… it’s worth participating in the movement of rural women workers and it is through them that we’ll conquer our space! Just struggle and hit the road!” ²2. Maciazeki-Gomes RC . Margaridas, luta e pé na estrada [ Internet ]. Youtube ; 2017 [ citado 17 Abr 2019 ]. Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8hhV0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeBub8h...

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the women who participated in the 5 ^th Marcha das Margaridas and continue to struggle in the 6 ^th Marcha das Margaridas (2019). To Têmis Nicolaidis and Jefferson Pinheiro, for the partnership in editing the video Margaridas, Luta e Pé na Estrada . To Marcelo Gobatto, for his collaboration in editing the images.

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