Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric Apr 2008 Open Access

Invoking Solidarity and Engaged Listening in Publicly Active Work: Translating and Transcribing Jorge Velasquez’s Testimonio

Michelle Bellino

Abstract

This article explores publicly active graduate work that engages with survivors of violence as they become testimonial narrators. Drawing on challenges I faced in transcribing and contextualizing the testimonio of Jorge Velásquez, who narrates his experience with injustice in post-war Guatemala, this analysis addresses some of the tensions that emerge during textual interactions with violence narratives. I explore second-hand trauma, notions of pornography of violence, and the role of accountability in scholarly and public representations. Paralleling Jorge’s testimonial performance, I offer narrative strategies I employed in the process of transcription and ethnographic contextualization into a larger narrative about the lived experience of violence within a culture of impunity.

Journal
Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
Published
2008-04-01
DOI
10.59236/rjv7i3pp24-33
CompPile
Open Access
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References (11)

  1. Abu-Lughod (1989)
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    Deconstructing Collaboration
    Anthropology News  ↗
  4. Frisch (1990)
    A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History
  5. Kaiser (2005)
    Postmemories of Terror: A New Generation Copes with the Legacy of the "Dirty War
     ↗
Show all 11 →
  1. Klempner (2006)
    Navigating Life Review Interviews with Survivors of Trauma
  2. Klempner (2006)
    Body of Evidence
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    What is Social in Oral History?
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    Feminicide in Guatemala
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