Singing the Unspeakable: The Transformative Power of Storytelling Otherwise in Weaving a New Tapestry of Knowledge and (Re)Constructing Collective Consciousness
Adriana Moreno Cely (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Although decolonizing research has opened new horizons towards a more pluriversal world, knowledge production remains the right of a privileged minority. This contribution seeks to exalt the possibilities that offer storytelling otherwise to de-centring and de-privileging knowledge generation. To this end, this presentation describes three different lived experiences of Afro-descendant women affected by the armed conflict in Colombia. Despite the fear, women refused to be silent and dared to sing and weave coloured threads, poems and songs to (re)signify and (re)construct collective memory to confront the different forms of violence that affect them. These stories illustrate how art and art-making are the vehicle to tell stories otherwise and serve as tools for (i) generating collective situated knowledge, (ii) developing critical awareness to foster social change through collective resistance, (iii) (re)valuing other ways of knowing, acting and being, as well as (iv) (re)inventing research practices born from the struggles in the territories.
