Figurations of Pain: Memory Through Life

Abstract

In this text I discuss my encounters with Veena Das’s ideas over the course of my own research on suffering and violence. I trace the paths that led to my investigation of the theme through the memories of Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985), highlighting the points where the author’s work resonated and made itself present. The reading of violence proposed by Das, which sees it not as merely destructive but also as a source of possibilities for reconstructing life after devastation, provided a way forward for my own inquiry that focuses not on the events of the dictatorship per se, but on the singularity of the experiences of suffering, apprehended in the forms of speaking expressed in the testimony of those who lived through these experiences or were affected by them.