MULHERES LENDO MULHERES: construção e contestação de identidades de gênero no contexto do clube de leitura Leia Mulheres – Salvador

Abstract

The research presented here results from the experiences lived by myself and by other women in the context of the Leia Mulheres-Salvador reading club, whose purpose is to read and debate works written by women, in the time interval between April 2017 and September 2022. Throughout this period, as a member and researcher, I sought to investigate how the moderators of the group assess the repercussions of readings, reflections and debates on their processes of representation and identification. To do so, initially, I contextualize the emergence of Leia Mulheres in Brazil and discuss my personal and social motivations for choosing the group in Salvador as a research context, starting from reflections on my own trajectory and cathartic moments experienced during the debates. Then, I propose to discuss and design the research methodology, presenting the methodological procedures used, with the support of Anthropology from the concept of participant observation, as proposed by Ingold (2015; 2019), advocating a participatory and openly interpretive- critical posture in carrying out the research. The concepts of discourse, social change and discursive practice, articulated by the Critical Discourse Analysis undertaken by Fairclough (2016), proved to be a consistent theoretical starting point. From it, we weave dialogues with Critical Applied Linguistics (KLEIMAN, 2013) and we highlight the relevance of the group in raising questions about the production, distribution and consumption of literature written by women in Brazil, considering Dalcastagnè's (2012) look at these aspects, as well as the concepts of place of speech and representation (RIBEIRO, 2017). The moderators, chosen as subjects of this research, are presented in the form of chronicles elaborated from the answers given to the questionnaires, intertwined with reflections on identity, identification and gender performances, with emphasis on the ideas of Hall (2014), Butler (2003, 2019). The reports provided by the moderators were organized and grouped in the text based on the perception and systematization of common and recurring themes, passing through their personal experiences with the group and their impressions in relation to works, authors, characters, as well as the purpose and character assumed by the group in Salvador. They were then articulated with relevant theoretical reflections for the analysis of the discursive practices in question, with emphasis on dialogue with several authors who think about the identified issues from feminist perspectives. Finally, I recover the central propositions developed throughout the thesis, projecting possible alternatives regarding the production, distribution and consumption of works written by women, evaluating the possible social impacts of reading these works and discussing the social contributions of the research carried out. Among the results, the following stand out: the relevance of the group in the relationship of each moderator with reading, which starts to assume a collective and critical character, as well as the different impressions among the moderators about the purpose of the group, despite its apparent homogeneity. The writing of this thesis thus contributes to outline a profile of Leia Mulheres-Salvador in its identity, diversity, divergences and contradictions.