Experiences that tangent the (un) visible and mobility: ethnographies in dialogue

Abstract

The process of cross-referencing perspectives and analyzes of two researchers is the focus
of the discussion of this text. It discusses the requests issues during the ethnographic work, characterized by the long duration, both between the Dogon (in Mali) and between the Tsonga (in the south of Mozambique). New understandings emerge from experiences linked to madness, reproductive incapacity, migration and a set of endogenous knowledge dynamics in situations of crisis and individual and social suffering. In the analysis, the authors look for the movement of the imaginary and the creativity, assuming, in a complementary way, a reflexive re-reading as a way to fulfill epistemological crossings to the understanding of dense questions of sense and ambiguities that emerged in field studies. It became relevant for both researchers to use sensitive strategies for access to the imaginal world – drawing, photography and film construction –, inscribing expressive productions in anthropological interpretation as intercultural possibilities in the context of ethnographic work. Cultural and epistemic references generate contrasting perceptions, sometimes unintelligible, requiring the use of non-linear languages in terms of the notions related to the domains of non-visible and forms of elaboration of mobility in the midst of the shadows cast in intersubjective constructions.