Histórias de violências domésticas em Tabira-PE: corte e costura como forma de expressão nos espaços intramuros e extramuros da AMURT

Abstract

This work addresses the multiple forms of domestic violence against women in the municipality of Tabira, Pernambuco (Brazil). The objective is to understand this social phenomenon through lived experience, narratives, and memories evoked by direct contact with reality, based on fieldwork conducted within the Associação do Movimento de Mulheres Urbanas e Rurais de Tabira-PE (AMURT). In this proposition, I developed and categorized a research path: the Colchanograma, a methodological tool that marks the moment when theory emerges from the field data, in the textures woven through direct contact with the research subjects, through participant observation and patchwork quilting, in the emergence of empirical data. This instrument consists of a bricolage woven between art and lived experience—a path built with the signs of belonging to the investigated territory (AMURT)—a patchwork stitched with lived experiences, evoking meanings of life that arise from narratives gathered from lines of flight. The theoretical-methodological journey is anchored in authors such as Girard (2008), Robles (2019), Priore (1999), Stone (2022), Perrot (2019), Foucault (1987), Butler (2019), Carneiro (2011), and Schwarcz (2023). These references create a processual and sensitive weave between theory and field. I seek to understand the phenomenon from a microsocial approach that also dialogues with general data on domestic violence. The research also aims to observe the institutional, social, and cultural intersections that shape experiences of violation and violence, while highlighting the women’s strategies of resistance. The study adopts a qualitative and descriptive approach, with ethnographic inspiration, supported by bibliographic analysis and knowledge dialogue. It is an interdisciplinary study bridging Human Rights and fields such as History, Anthropology, Sociology, Literature, and Philosophy. In this process, I used various techniques such as interviews, informal conversations, field diary, direct contact, participant observation, talking circles, interactive activities, dynamics, and patchwork production, connecting memories and bodily techniques. The social analysis points to high rates of violence in the municipality, as well as the fragility of institutional support systems for medium- and long-term care. The lack of effective guarantees of human rights in the daily lives of these women is also evident, as they often face violence without support from protection networks. Beyond the pain embedded in violence, resistance, struggle, and the power to create possible paths for the re-signification of life trajectories emerge. In this scenario, the research highlights education as a line of flight for deconstructing violence. Education in and for human rights proves to be a possible path toward a critical, conscious, and life-committed formation. In a context still strongly marked by patriarchy, machismo, and gender violence, it becomes essential to develop and implement educational actions articulated with local support networks and public policies, aiming to break the cycles of violence and foster a culture grounded in peace, respect, and the valuing of women's lives.