Visual rebellions in the countryside: peasant visuality as a disobedient aesthetic-educational action

VISUALIDADES CAMPONESAS COMO AÇÃO ESTÉTICO-EDUCATIVA

Abstract

This essay is based on concerns about peasant visualities, a concept proposed in my ongoing doctoral research. In places that are far from large urban centres and where the struggle for land takes place, visualities can take on an aesthetic-educational character that touches on mechanisms of power. In this sense, the aim of this manuscript is to contribute to discussions about visual phenomena in the Zumbi dos Palmares settlement (RJ), a peasant territory located in the northern region of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Situated in the Brazilian context of disputes over basic rights such as art, culture and education, these phenomena could disobey the imaginary constructed about rural life as conformed and subalternised. We therefore propose a theoretical-conceptual dialogue between the areas of Teaching and Visual Culture, together with a participatory methodological proposal for data collection and analysis. The links between theory and empirics guided the discussion, which proposes image readings carried out with the research participants. The results show that, although the countryside originates from struggle, on the other hand, the aesthetics experienced in the countryside mobilises reaction, disobeys affirmations of rural life as backward and destabilises dominant discourses.