Life story, prostitution and activism: Challenges and possibilities of research in co-creation

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the process of writing, which I refer to here as ‘co-creation’, of the life story of Lourdes Barreto, co-founder of the Brazilian Movement of Prostitutes. I intertwine public history and oral history methodologies with a decolonising feminist epistemology. This theoretical framework made it possible to situate Lourdes’ narratives of prostitution in the North and Northeast of Brazil within the conceptual fields of agency and resistance. Lourdes guided the fieldwork and helped me redefine how I incorporated my presence into her daily life. In dialogue with her, I sought to conduct a participatory research project, in which authorities on distinct knowledges were also shared. I refer to the intersection of subjectivities and positionalities between investigator and collaborator as part of an intense process of co-creation, participation, and negotiation. Co-creation stimulated reflections on ethical and political issues throughout the research process with Lourdes; as the narrator, she was a participant in the process as opposed to an object to be analysed. Similarly, throughout the process of researching prostitution, as a researcher, I became an active member of the movement. The essay includes photographs of the process, alongside reflections on the challenges and particularities around the relationship between researcher and narrator.

KEYWORDS:

• Oral history
• prostitution
• feminism
• decolonial studies
• epistemology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 About racial identification, Lourdes said in the interview: I can't speak as a Black person, because I, even in today’s society, consider myself white. Which she isn’t. It’s yellow, I don’t know what the hell it is. ‘Yellow’ here indicates Lourdes' non-identification with whiteness, which makes sense if we consider the prejudice experienced by northeastern and northern women in Brazil.

2 The term putafeminista was coined in Latin America and is used by different sex workers. In Brazil, Monique Prada, an activist sex worker, launched the book ‘Putafeminista’ (2018). In her consideration, Putafeminism makes possible advancements in sex workers’ struggles of based on their specific demands, while ‘it can be seen as a possibility to rethink the whole structure of prostitution, identifying and combating the existing oppressions in it’ (2018, p. 37). Argentine activist, Georgina Orellano, also uses the term, which demonstrates the circularity of the ‘putafeminista’ notion among sex workers.

3 The video dates from the 1990s with the title ‘Bar Cascatinha’. It is located in the Davida’s archive, in the Public Archive of the State of Rio de Janeiro (APERJ). Davida’s archive gathers documents of different natures that record the trajectory of the movement of prostitutes in Brazil. The archive is preserved and disseminated by Coletivo Puta Davida and is available for consultation.

4 Paraibana refers to a woman born in the state of Paraíba in Northeastern Brazil. However, the term is used in a derogatory way in some regions of Brazil. Lourdes proudly presents herself as Paraibana, reinverting the hegemonic cultural meaning.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.