Experience, language and storytelling: theoretical issues and fieldwork reflections

Abstract

Drawing on a range of works about experience, language, storytelling and subjectivation processes, especially of Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, I argue in this article that among ecological smallholder farmers from West of Santa Catarina, Brazil, the past is constantly triggered in the actors’ narratives and the act of visualizing a desired future happens through their lived experiences, particularly in moments of introspection and collaboration. Based on fieldwork data from ethnographic research, I analyze how the past-future relationship in agroecology challenges rural development models, integrating and interweaving shared experiences with narrative and practices, as it involves memories of suffering, exploitation, unfulfilled desires and, simultaneously, group work with collective construction of ideals. This empirical context is particularly useful for thinking about development, since it is understood as a process in which both the overcoming of forms of exploitation and subjective and collaborative self-construction emerge.