Entre vontades de saber, poder e verdade: as vozes decoloniais da resistência no teatro de bonecos popular do Nordeste

Abstract

The present work has the objective of analyzing the constitution of the Northeast9s Popular Puppet Theater (NPPT) as an artistic and popular expression in which are constituted other desires of power, knowledge and truth demonstrated by the discursive construction from some of its traditional characters. There is a theory that this discursive construction denounces knowledge, powers and truths historically built, as the same time as it contributes to feeding other desires for truth, knowledge and power as a representation of resistance by the working classes through art in the Northeast of Brazil. For that matter, the relations of power, knowledge and truth mobilized through history and traditional texts from NPPT are the object of this research. Considering this proposition, three specific objectives were established. The first of them is reflecting about the concept of language as a cultural and discursive element, reinforcing the importance of oral speech as a fundamental aspect for all the populations, especially for the ones that don9t have access to the written language. It is also approached the importance of the voice as a collective and individual element, such as the procedures to silence the dissonant voices from the current discourse. For this, some theoretical references are used, such as Zumthor (1993/1997), Hall (2016), Orlandi (1992), among others. The second specific objective of this work is to elucidate how the popular puppet theater, in several places of the world and in different historical contexts, has established itself as a tool for denunciation and popular resistance, including the Northeast of Brazil (Borba Filho, 1966; Brasília, 2014; Mendonça, 2020), among others). The third specific objective of this work is to demonstrate how the presence of carnivalization subverts desires of truth, knowledge and power imposed by the discourse of coloniality in the fictional space of the traditional texts from NPPT. For this, the theories from Bakhtin (2008), Sodré and Paiva (2004), Kilomba (2019), Bento (2020), Sodré (2023), DaMatta (1997) are used, among others. The present thesis is organized in six parts: 1) introduction; 2) a theoretical-methodological chapter; 3) a theoretical chapter about language, culture, representation, discourse and coloniality; 4) a theoretical-analytical chapter about the history, the transformations and the characteristics of the popular puppet theater in the world and in Brazil; 5) an analysis chapter of some traditional texts from NPPT; 6) final considerations. Methodologically, the contributions from the Foucaultian archaeology and genealogy (Foucault, 2021; 2020; 2012) are accepted, such as the perspective from the coloniality of the power, the knowledge, the being and the language (Quijano, 1992; Castro-Gómez and Grosfoguel, 2007; Mignolo, 2007; Veronelli, 2019/2015). By the end of the historical analysis and from the traditional texts from NPPT, it is defended that the popular manifestation of puppet theater in the Northeast of Brazil is a resistance tool against the consequences of the colonialities of the power, the knowledge, the being and the language.