Paper short abstract:

Aiming to overcome the distinction between an informative and a performative narrative and to take testimony as an analytical and native category, this paper address testimony as a practice with its own temporality and historicity in Brazilian society.

Paper long abstract:

During my fieldwork in a Catholic Social Centre that works in partnership with public policies I observed the importance given to testimonies of those who succeeded in the process of social inclusion to those youngsters who are striving to achieve that position. In ethnographic accounts testimonies are usually seen as sources of information that renders the lives of those who narrate it meaningful for the observer. However, this approach neglects the testimony effects on their intended audiences's life.

Aiming to overcome the distinction between an informative and a performative narrative and to take testimony as an analytical and native category, this paper address testimony as a practice with its own temporality and suggests that it depends on the shared relationally between the narrator's past and the audience's future. This approach benefits from a close attention to individual histories as much as it does on the historicity of the testimony in Brazilian society. In this latter aspect, this paper aims to understand how a Christian practice was developed by Paulo Freire's Pedagogy into a secular empowerment strategy for the working classes and youngsters who narrate their own accomplishments.