O dispositivo da delação em regimes de exceção: análise das narrativas No corpo e na alma e Soledad no Recife

Abstract

The study analyses the reporting mechanism in narratives referring to the period of the civil and military dictatorship in Brazil. The corpus delimited to build the analysis is the testimony No corpo e na alma (2002), written by Derlei Catarina de Luca and the novel Soledad no Recife (2009), written by Urariano Mota. On the basis of the two narratives, it was possible to problematize the perspective of the reporting mechanism, proposed category to think about how reporting practices occurred and worked during the state of exception, and, mainly, how the resulting practices escaped as representations for the corpus both testimonial and literary. For this reason, through the case study, the analysis points out, while using other examples, how the protagonists of both narratives had their lives demobilized because of the reporting suffered. The delimitation of the political and historical context was fundamental, because I start from the analysis of the device concept thought up by Michel Foucault, whose assumption is that a device is a control technology that is constantly being readapted, depending on the requirements, therefore, the work understands as the reporting mechanism – that one situated in a historical and political context – as a control tactic readapted from other times and contexts. To better think about the implications and nuances of the reporting mechanism, it was necessary to systematize it from its action elements, which has made it possible to understand the practice of denunciation within the device. And beyond that, the work also needed to present the implications of literary theory with regard to the studies of testimony and testimonial content, concept thought up by Márcio Seligmann-Silva (2009), since both narratives needed to be problematized because of their literary value and the structural divergences presented between them, the first being a testimony and the second a novel with testimonial content. Taking these implications into account, this production needed to be based on categories such as Michael's Foucault (2017) device, state of exception and sovereignty of Giorgio Agamben (2004; 2010); Judith Butler’s precarious life (2018); in addition to theoretical contributions on testimony and Ceília de Luque’s testimonial content (2003), Valéria de Marco (2004), Eugênia Vilela (2012), Márcio Seligamann-Silva (2017); Tânia Sarmento-Pantoja (2018) e Augusto Sarmento-Pantoja (2019). Finally, the research takes as its methodological basis the comparative literature, in particular by considering the circulation of certain issues arising from the relationship between history and culture; and also historical materialism, especially, for analysing the emanations of barbarism in objects of culture and for betting on the perception of the past as a way of rethinking and changing structures of the present.