What is this place?

[ENG; PT]

This blog is part of the appendix of my PhD dissertation. Here I will post several stories I wrote while I was working on my dissertation.

Este blog é parte do apêndice da minha tese de doutorado. Aqui vou postar as muitas histórias que escrevi enquanto trabalhava na minha tese.

Besides the blog, I also worked on other creative products, and you can access them by clicking here: https://www.anemolina.com/hantitese

Além do Blog, eu tenho outros produtos criativos, você pode acessar todos eles clicando aqui: https://www.anemolina.com/hantitese

How my cat was important to see how complex research is

Como a minha gata me mostrou a dimensão afetiva da minha pesquisa.

I was in a very intense moment without much sleep, losing weight, and facing financial struggle to take care of her. All my time with her at that moment was about giving her meds by force, watching her suffer without any action and taking her to doctors to bring her more suffering. Everything was dark and sad, the opposite of the way it had been the whole time we lived together. In my drawings, her presence was not essential to telling my story, but at that moment, I wanted to register not the challenge we were facing, but the timeless peace she would always bring to my life.

Eu e a Encrenca. Encrenca and I.

Through this simple, few-traced drawing, I was able to express the immense dimension of my cat’s presence and her importance in my journey. Placing us among the stars gave me the tools to begin healing, as I was certain of her departure. Staging our silent conversations about unlimited space and its possibilities reshaped my expectations for my academic journey and the relevance of a close relationship with all beings around me. This is one example of how visual elements can go further to express emotional meaning.

My body in my comics/zine

Como meu corpo fala na minha história em quadrinhos.

Você pode ampliar essa imagem clicando nela. You can increase the size by clicking it.

Comics media call attention to the materiality of the elements represented, including the body (Rys, 2019, p. 10). Still, in my case, the representation of this materiality is obscured by unrealistic colors, which not only elicits curiosity but also prompts reflection on how to interpret the narrator's body and, consequently, the narrative when one lacks a complete understanding of that person. As colors are at once objective and subjective (Dunst, 2023, p. 90), they are linked with the reality of the elements represented, and, at the same time, they can provide clear statements about less objective disruptions during the narrative, such as changes in temporality, context, mood, and existential status (Dunst, 2023). In my comics/zine, the body that draws the pages is not fully apparent; therefore, it creates an empty space between the reader and the narrator that can be both disturbing and generative. The colors of my body are a tense element, representing race, societal perceptions, and access to resources. The decision to withhold important information about my body throughout most of the comics/zine was a narrative strategy linked to anticolonial principles that plays with identity to create the same tension we see in society.