- Auscultating memory: Scholastique Mukasonga and the diasophoric duty to narrate
História e memória ruandesa. Scholastique Mukasonga. A mulher de pés descalços. Feminismo africano. Representações do feminino.
In the field of postcolonial studies, memory has the difficult task of recovering what was lost in time-past and, through history, narrating the events that constitute the formation of the social, political and cultural identity of a people. The evocation of memory and the rupture with the homogeneous record of history mark the political commitment to the criticism of colonialism and the deconstruction of its discourse of power. In this investigative context, the literary production of rwandan writer Scholastique Mukasonga plays an important role in contemporary critical theories; be a spokesperson for the story that the story does not tell. In order to understand this writing that transits between denunciation and testimony, this research proposes to analyze the dialogues that the novel the barefoot woman establishes with the policies of Rwandan memory and history, in the second half of the twentieth century, from the representations of the feminine that are drawn in the work. For this intent, the work is theoretically based on Piton (2018), Hatzfeld (2005) and Ancel (2018), with regard to rwanda's witness history and the impacts of modern genocide. In cultural literary theory, with the studies of Noa (2015), Nganang (2007) and Glissant (2005), in conjunction with knowledge of the individual and collective memory of Halbwachs (2006), Benjamin (2012) and Seligmann-Silva (2006). Focusing on the representations of the feminine, addressed by the author in the autobiographical literary making, the texts of Kilomba (2019), Adichie (2019) and Oyěwùmí (2004; 2017) are highlighted. The results of the research indicate that the historical-traumatic event narrated by the author has the female figure as the center of the actions developed in the struggle for survival. In the literary text, the feminine is represented under the gaze of the Rwandan tradition, centered on the maternal functions that Tutsi women performed; also addressing issues such as female empowerment and sexual violence against women in situations of armed conflict, as ocurred in the civil war in Rwanda.