A memória e o direito de fala para além das fronteiras: produções visuais de crianças migrantes no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos

Abstract

Abstract: This article examines the discourse of migrant children in contexts of mobility, focusing on two groups: Venezuelan children in Brazil (ages 4-10) and Brazilian children in the United States (ages 8-9). Understanding the perspectives of these children is crucial to disrupt the invisibility to which they are subjected, reaffirming their subjectivity. The analysis of children's experiences involves examining their relational nature and power relations with adults and institutions. Here, it is key to recognize the heterogeneity of children's migration experiences, transcending discourses of innocence and victimization, while acknowledging their agency and role in migratory processes. This study centers migrants’ subjectivity, positioning children as subjects in their own right. Using the notions of discourse about and discourse of, we listened to migrant children in Brazil and the U.S., merging two different research projects, to examine their claims of memories and the right to speak in drawings and photographs. This analysis of visual productions employs materialist Discourse Analysis based on theoretical studies that leverage images as units of analysis. This analysis of drawings and photographs reveals discursive practices of resistance, using national and affective symbols to assert themselves as subjects with transnational lives, highlighting the importance of visual interpretation of children's non-verbal discourse.

Keywords: Discourse; Migrant children; Drawings/Photographs