Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Narrativas de Viagem
Travel Narratives
Texto eletrônico.
Modo de acesso: World Wide Web.
Texto em português, inglês e espanhol
São Paulo, when the editors of this book, after spending some time discussing together,
thought that maybe it was time to reflect better and deeper on the subject. But why?
This was basically because travel narrative had been long present in the most diverse
spheres of academia (scholarly papers, conferences etc) and thus it would be maybe
11 interesting and also neccessary to promote a project in this scope in order to pave the
way for ourselves and other researchers to come.
And that is what we just did.
In this book, dear fellow researcher, you will find 16 dual-language chapters
which constitute more than attempts of interpreting what we understand for travel
narratives and their applications, like a map which allows us to conceptually delimitate
the state of the art of discussions on the subject. Like every map, and considering what
we have said beforehand on this introduction, this book should be better read as an
indication, a suggestion of paths to follow instead of an all-encompassing translation
of the field, since there are many spaces open for nee discoveries, new roads to travel.
In the same manner as the own ways of travelling and establishing some kind of
bond wich places and peoples have been transformed ans resignified among different
cultures and different times, the ways for aesthetically articulating and organizing
such experiences in nrrative form, as we shall see in this book, have also changed.
However, the constant of contact, of otherness, of the discovery of the other, of the
transformation of the nonplace in an ambience full of meaning, remains.
We wish you all a nice reading!
percées. J´espère qu´elle n´aura jamais cette idée sangrenue. Je l´en empêcherai. En numéro trois, quelque chose
de très délicat à décrire... En numéro trois, j´aime son nez ou, plus exactement, les ailes de son nez. Ces deux
petites courbes de chaque côté, delicates et frémissantes. Roses. Douces. Adorables. En numéro quatre... Mais dèjá
le charme est rompu : elle a senti que je la regardais et minaude en pinçant sa paille. Je me détourne. Je cherche
mon paquet de tabac en tâtant toutes me poches.
13 Mastigo e engulo em seu ritmo. Ela não fala muito comigo, mas eu geralmente
não falo muito com ela quando almoçamos: ela está ocupada demais olhando
para as mesas próximas. As pessoas a fascinam, é assim que é. Mesmo essa
energúmena que limpa a boca e assoa o nariz no mesmo guardanapo ao meu
lado lhe é mais interessante do que eu. Enquanto ela a observa, aproveito a
oportunidade para olhá-la com tranquilidade. O que eu mais gosto nela? Em
primeiro lugar, eu colocaria suas sobrancelhas. Ela tem sobrancelhas muito
bonitas. Muito bem desenhadas. O bom Deus devia estar inspirado naquele
dia. Em segundo lugar, seus lóbulos da orelha. Perfeitos. Suas orelhas não são
furadas. Espero que ela nunca tenha essa ideia sangrenta. Eu vou impedi-la.
Em terceiro lugar, algo muito delicado para descrever... No número três, gosto
do nariz dela ou, mais exatamente, das asas do nariz. Essas duas pequenas
curvas de cada lado, delicadas e trêmulas. Rosas. Doces. Adoráveis. Em quarto
lugar... Mas o encanto se quebra: ela sentiu que eu a olhava e sorri afetadamente
segurando seu canudo. Eu me afasto. Procuro meu pacote de tabaco tateando os
meus bolsos (GAVALDA, 2000, tradução nossa).
Trata-se de um gênero literário conhecido como nouvelle à chute, que tem como
mote surpreender o leitor, uma vez que no início a leitura dá a impressão de ser algo
que no final se revela não ser. Este conto, que parece ser o de um homem apaixonado
por uma jovem mulher que o despreza, revela-se o relato de viagem de um pai pelas
atitudes e comportamentos de sua querida filha pequena, que como toda criança não
dá bola aos pais enquanto mergulha no mundo vasto que a cerca.
Nesse sentido, podemos dizer que a noção de narrativa de viagem pode ser mais
ampla do que imaginamos. Ela acontece para fora, sim. Aliás, desde os relatos das
pinturas rupestres, como mostram as rock art da brasileiríssima Serra da Capivara, no
Piauí (PESSIS, 2003).
Se nos restringirmos ao mundo ocidental, os gregos – ah, sempre eles –
registraram bem este trânsito, a começar pelo dos conflitos, como a Guerra de Troia
em Ilíada (HOMERO, 2013). Naquele momento, com deuses como personagens tão de
carne e osso como os mortais.
Contudo, talvez não seja a viagem no tempo e no espaço que cerque este gênero
de tantos interessados. Como um símbolo que nunca se revele totalmente, no cerne
desta questão talvez esteja o mistério de que viajar de encontro ao outro seja a grande
provocação que os relatos de viagem tragam camuflados em seu bojo.
Assim, mais do que os exotismos que ficam evidentes no plano do ego que
registra que o eu gosta disso ou não gosta daquilo, as narrativas de viagem talvez
sejam um convite ao mergulho na alteridade de indivíduos e culturas. É esse
entrar na vida do outro que permite, provavelmente, que a pessoa se conheça
melhor a si mesma.
No fundo, relatar viagens para dentro e fora de nós e de nossas realidades, como
um espelho, talvez nos permita ver melhor a nós mesmos. E aqueles que responderem
a este que quiçá seja o mais difícil dos chamados pode se abrir à realidade de que no
fundo somos todos humanos, criando resistências desnecessárias para fazer nosso
Prefácio
Inverno de 2019
REFERÊNCIAS
Monica Martinez
1 Je mastigue et déglutis à son rythme. Elle ne me parle pas beaucoup mais j´ai ´habitude, elle ne me parle jamais
beaucoup quand je l´emmène déjeuner: elle est bien trop occupée à regarder les tables voisines. Les gens la fas-
cinent, c´est comme ça. Même cet énergumène qui s´essuie la bouche et se mouche dans la même serviette juste
à côté a plus d´atrait que moi. Comme elle les observe, j´en profite pour la dévisager tranquillement. Qu´est-ce
que j´aime le plus chez elle ? En numéro un, je metrais ses soucils. Elle a de très jolis sourcils. Très bien dessinés.
Foreword
Le bon Dieu devait être inspiré ce jour-là. En numéro deux, ses lobes d´oreilles. Parfaits. Ses oreilles ne sont pas
percées. J´espère qu´elle n´aura jamais cette idée sangrenue. Je l´en empêcherai. En numéro trois, quelque chose
de très délicat à décrire... En numéro trois, j´aime son nez ou, plus exactement, les ailes de son nez. Ces deux
petites courbes de chaque côté, delicates et frémissantes. Roses. Douces. Adorables. En numéro quatre... Mais dèjá
le charme est rompu : elle a senti que je la regardais et minaude en pinçant sa paille. Je me détourne. Je cherche
mon paquet de tabac en tâtant toutes me poches.
16 I’m chewing and swallowing at her own pace. She does not talk to me much,
but I usually do not talk to her much either when I take her to lunch: she
is too busy looking at the tables nearby. People fascinate her, that’s how it
is. Even this bitch who wipes her mouth and blows her nose in the same
napkin next to me picked her interest more than me. As she observes her, I
take the opportunity to quietly stare at her. What do I like the most about
her? Number one, I would put her eyebrows. She has very pretty eyebrows.
Very well drawn. The good Lord had to be inspired that day. Number two,
her earlobes. Perfect. Her ears are not pierced. I hope she will never have
this bloody idea. I will prevent it. Number three, something very delicate
to describe ... In number three, I like her nose or, more exactly, the wings
of her nose. These two small curves on each side, delicate and quivering.
Roses. Sweet. Adorable. Number four ... But the charm is broken: she felt
that I looked at her and smiled with affectation while holding her straw. I
turn away. I am checking all my pockets looking for my tobacco package.
(GAVALDA, 2000, our translation).
This literary genre, known as nouvelle à chute, has as its motto to surprise the
reader, since at the beginning it gives the impression of being something and in the
end turns out to be something entirely else. This short story, which seems to be that
of a man in love with a young woman who despises him, reveals a father’s account of
the attitudes and behaviors of his dear little daughter, who like every child does not
care about his parents while diving in the vast world that surrounds her.
In this sense, we can say that the notion of travel narrative may be broader than
we imagine. It happens out to the world, yes. In fact, since the reports of cave paintings,
as shown by the rock art at Serra da Capivara, in Piauí, Brazil (PESSIS, 2003).
The Greeks - oh, yes, always them – have well-recorded travels, starting with
conflicts such as the Trojan War depicted in the Iliad (Homer, 2013) where gods are
characters made of the same flesh and blood as mortals.
However, it may not be time and space travel what surrounds this genre which
piques the interest of so many people. As a symbol that never fully reveals itself,
at the heart of any travel narrative perhaps lies the mystery that traveling through
another human being’s self is the deepest insight that travels reports can do.
Thus, more than the exoticisms that stand in their surface, travel narratives
may be an invitation to plunge into the otherness of individuals and cultures. It is this
entering the other’s life that probably allows us to know ourselves better.
Basically, travel reporting into and out of ourselves and our realities, like a mirror,
may allow us to perceive ourselves better. And those who answer this difficult call may
be open to the reality that deep down we are all only humans, creating unnecessary
resistance to make our ephemeral journey through our beautiful blue planet.
After all, at the end, the big questions along this path perhaps will remain
unanswered. Where do we come from? Where are we going? What are we here for?
Only death, the ultimate companion of our travels through life, may whisper the
Foreword
Winter 2019
17 REFERENCES
De volta ao começo...
Saio de casa de minha mãe e dobro a esquina. Detenho-me alguns instantes, para,
de novo, olhar a rua, espichando o olhar até avistar, no quarteirão seguinte, a casa da
minha avó, já falecida. Aciono o motor do corpo e vou lentamente dando as passadas
na direção da casa velha, de madeira, desgastada pelo tempo. Os olhos se detêm na
calçada conhecida. Vou revendo as pedras, as rachaduras da calçada, com a diferença de
que, agora, percebo uma alteração nas proporções. Tudo parece menor, mais próximo,
menor de tamanho e de distâncias. Por um instante, eu penso: “Parece que essa calçada
encolheu!”. Não, imediatamente reconheço que não foi isso que aconteceu. A calçada
não encolheu, minhas pernas é que cresceram... muito. Com o tempo, eu me fiz mulher.
Parece que me vi, então, em diversas idades, refazendo o percurso. De novo, senti ‘os
sentimentos’, enxerguei a mim mesma, em diferentes momentos da vida, voltando ao
começo. O começo do trajeto, o lugar de onde saí de casa, em busca de outros universos
existenciais, onde pude fazer minhas viagens, de desterritorializações geográficas e
imaginárias. Viagens também intelectuais e amorosas.
A casa era da minha vó, dona Zefa, como todos a chamavam, uma senhora
descendente de austríacos, de uma amorosidade ‘a-pegada’, forte, sempre uma imensidão
de afeto. Era mãe adotiva do meu pai. Em certo sentido, ela também me adotou, na vida,
talvez também tenha me ensinado a graça e a força da adoção, experiência que hoje
tenho com quatro dos meus cinco filhos. Minha avó era analfabeta. Quando me dei conta
que ela não sabia escrever, fiquei chocada, entristecida. Assim, também por isso, decidi
ensiná-la, e, desse modo, ela foi também minha ‘primeira aluna’. Eu era ainda menina,
quando a ensinei a escrever o próprio nome. Assim, entendi cedo a importância da
inscrição de si, de ver-se inscrita com autoria. Ainda me lembro de suas mãos trêmulas,
Narrativas de Viagem
acomodações, etc.) e faltas (em relação ao que temos nos nossos territórios existenciais),
vamos aprendendo a nos misturar a paisagem, vamos, aos poucos nos fixando, às vezes
até mesmo sem perceber, nos grudando no cenário ou nos misturando à paisagem.
Desse modo, quando temos que partir, sentimo-nos, novamente, sendo arrancados
de nosso campo de brotação e, então, a vida vai ter que ser reinventada novamente,
assim como fizemos desde o início da desterritorialização. Vemos, desse modo, o
sujeito passar da desterritorialização, pela simulação e até mesmo atingir o grau de
reterritorialização, das três linhas de vida do processo do desejo, apresentadas por
Guattari e Rolnik (1986), Guattari e Deleuze (1995) e Guattari (1987). É muito comum
24 que se queira voltar a destinos turísticos visitados, porque vivemos o processo de
tranversalização mútua, em que passamos a ter inscritas em nós as marcas do lugar, ao
mesmo tempo em que deixamos, certamente, intensidades afetivas dos nossos traços.
Houve um momento em que me vi reconhecida nas ruas de Manaus, por
vendedores da Feira que acontece todos os domingos na rua Eduardo Ribeiro,
reconhecida e lembrada pelos produtos que costumo comprar, também pelo fato
de ser professora da UFAM. Também no mercado público, passei a ser tratada com
naturalidade, sem a típica encenação de tratamento dos turistas. O mesmo ocorreu na
Universidade e em outros pontos da cidade. Então, fui percebendo que eu já estava me
misturando à paisagem, me inscrevendo na cena e florescendo um pouco amazônica.
que registra a chegada de legiões de peregrinos do mundo todo”. Pelas informações dos
próprios galegos, se sabe que o caminho, originalmente, era o caminho até Finesterre,
ponto ao norte da Galícia, em que a terra avança para o mar, dando a sensação de ‘fim
da terra’. Daí também se entende a expressão que atravessou os tempos, sendo repetida,
quando se diz: “eu vou até o fim do mundo para provar que eu te amo”, ou “para provar
que estou certa, no que estou dizendo”. Segundo o guia e alguns galegos que conheci,
o caminho originalmente, em seu caráter de autodesafio filosófico e autopoiético, de
demonstração de resistência e luta existencial, era até o ‘fim do mundo’, passando pelo
25 ‘campo de estrelas’, Compostela, onde os astrônomos explicam há o melhor acesso visual
às estrelas. Aos poucos, o caminho até o fim da terra, Finesterre, passou a ser o Caminho
de Santiago de Compostela. Até hoje, os peregrinos que conhecem um pouco mais a
história não se detêm em Santiago de Compostela, mas avançam até Finesterre. Há,
inclusive, marcas do caminho até lá.
Esses fragmentos podem ser refletidos em entrelaços caosmóticos com Guattari
e Deleuze, a partir do texto Mil Platôs – Capitalismo e Esquizofrenia. V. 5. Uma pista
interessante no texto é a discussão sobre oposição entre mundanidade e sociabilidade.
Dizem os autores:
de si mesmo e, por isso, com uma sensação e potência de atuação, que o impulsiona
diferentemente do modo como faria em seu território de origem. Por isso mesmo,
tantas vezes, esse sujeito turista se permite escapar à máquina abstrata inerente aos
destinos turísticos, frequentemente marcados pela mecanização e artificialização do
setor, o que vem sendo chamado de turistificação, como expressão de duras críticas
aos falseamentos na produção dos destinos.
Nesse sentido, recordo-me da fala de um estudante de Economia, gerente
de banco, tímido, sujeito de poucas palavras: “Durante a viagem, eu parecia outra
26 pessoa, me desconheci. Estava mais solto, dancei, conversei com pessoas que nunca
tinha visto, me perdi na cidade, não me preocupei com a roupa que estava usando.
Ri muito. Ri à toa. Ri de mim mesmo. Eu mesmo não acreditava que era eu”. Na
verdade, não era. Era ele em outro lugar, era o resultado da desterritorialização
do sujeito-trama, com seus múltiplos atravessamentos, em contato com a trama
ecossistêmica do lugar. Assim, nada mais estava fixo, nenhuma regra, nenhum
dogma. Tudo poderia ser questionado.
O turista é um misto de nômade e guerreiro, indisciplinado e fora da lei.
Dependendo da força das estruturas que encontra, no ecossistema turístico que
visita, ele cede um pouco, mas está sempre em vias se romper com ‘a máquina’. E
tem sempre a resposta pronta: “Eu não sou daqui!”. Desterritorializado, ele encontra
consigo mesmo, com seu desejo, com suas verdades desnudadas, porque elas estão
desacopladas da máquina que o forjou e que se impõe com força no seu cotidiano.
Ao mesmo tempo, recém-chegado, ele ainda não se acoplou totalmente à máquina do
lugar, não se comprometeu totalmente, processo que vai depender das características
da trama de acolhimento desse sujeito e dos liames que vão se formando e envolvendo
esse ‘corpo estranho’.
Há muito tempo penso em mim mesma, como se fosse uma planta, quando se
trata da relação com os lugares. Sofro, em sentido amplo, quando me tiram de um lugar.
A partida de um lugar para outro, mesmo que seja do meu agrado, é sempre algo que
depende de um esforço, uma concentração. Eu tenho que me preparar para ir embora,
mesmo em situações mais simples. Então, me concentro, penso, me organizo, tento revisar
os procedimentos e checar o que é necessário levar. Dizendo de outra maneira, sair do
território (em que se está), desterritorializar-se, é algo que dá muito trabalho (interno e
externo). Pessoalmente, é como se me arrancasse com as minhas raízes. Penso: “estava
bem, me acostumei, conheço o lugar”. Poderia dizer, “já faço parte do ecossistema e sinto
os entrelaços sutis e intensos da trama ecossistêmica em que me envolvi”.
Só que, por necessidade ou desejo, em determinado momento, devo ir. Então, sinto-
me com planta sendo arrancada do lugar, como se o movimento de desterritorialização
fosse algo contra a (minha) natureza (ecossistêmica). Não é. Eu sei que não é. A natureza
do humano é movimento. O universo está em todo o tempo em movimento. Não seria
eu a conseguir ficar parada. A questão é que, nesse processo, perco um pouco o chão,
tenho que redescobrir modos de vida, improvisar, autopoietizar, adaptar-me ao percurso,
desde as minúcias, as minúsculas ações do cotidiano, como me alimentar, ir ao banheiro,
improvisar diante dos caminhos e desafios que encontro nos trajetos. Tenho que estar
pronta para improvisar. Sim, viajar é saber improvisar e desapegar-se das cristalizações
Narrativas de Viagem
existentes nos territórios existenciais. Preciso viver com menos roupas, com saudade de
pessoas que amo, com a disposição de conviver com estranhos, de viver aproximações
com eles, de aceitar sabores e cheiros diferentes, de abrir o coração e o olhar para novas
paisagens e experiências.
Nesse sentido, a ação de desterritorialização desejante da viagem envolve, ao
mesmo tempo, arrancar-me de territórios conhecidos e me pôr em movimento, com
passo firme e atento de uma peregrina nômade e guerreira. Quem vive a viagem
inteira e intensamente, se vê só no mundo, sem chão, tendo que reinventar o passo,
27 o laço, a caminhada, muitas vezes, tendo que lidar com a mutação dos horários e
desafiar o corpo a conviver com ‘novidades’. O guerreiro nômade turista, assim,
precisa aprender a arrumar e desarrumar a mala, a reinventar-se em relação às ‘casas’
improvisadas dos destinos. Depois, precisa aprender a ir embora dali também, talvez
voltar para um lugar conhecido, que, por sua vez, também vai passar por um processo
de reterritorialização, o que significa que, no reencontro, esse lugar também é sentido
como estranho, é ‘re-visto’, revisitado e passa a incorporar, não só as lembranças no
sujeito do turismo, mas também pedaços de memórias materializadas em ‘objetos-
lembrança’, que trazem um pouco dos territórios encontrados nessas ações da
movimentação da máquina de guerra do turismo. Assim, mesmo que resulte em muitas
alegrias e prazer, o turismo também é ruptura, desacoplamento, desterritorialização e,
nesse sentido, subversão dos vínculos, estabelecidos pelo agenciamento das máquinas
abstratas existenciais, assim como as dimensões maquínicas territorializadas de
aparelhos como o Estado ou o destino de origem, por assim dizer.
Considerando a reflexão, a partir de Deleuze e Guattari (1995), é fácil perceber a
falácia da frase “Eu não sou daqui!”, porque ela remete à discussão de ‘fora e dentro’,
categorias falsas, se consideramos a trama ecossistêmica inerente aos processos
dos fenômenos analisados. Lembro-me de uma canção cantada por Jorge Drexler,
intitulada Movimiento, com o verso que diz: “Jo no soy de aqui, pero tu tampoco.
Somos una espécie en viaje. No tenemos pertinência, sino equipaje”.
Assim, na lógica contemporânea, que nos remete à visão holística, se tudo
está interligado a tudo, se consideramos a dimensão das partículas subatômicas,
partimos da negação da existência de um ‘fora e um dentro’, já que percebemos que
é no movimento das coisas – desde as ínfimas partículas constituintes do átomo aos
planetas – que elas ganham existência. Nesse sentido, tempo e espaço precisam ser
ressignificados, assim como precisamos reconhecer os desmontes de todas a fronteiras,
desde as físicas, existenciais, às mais abstratas que existem3.
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Narrativas de Viagem
De vuelta al comienzo....
de aquel momento, en que ella se emocionó por poder escribir su propio nombre, en el
momento en que iba marcándose sujeto que se inscribe. Yo ya era la profesora, ya trataba
de ayudar a alguien a marcarse en letras, en sinuosidades que inscreaccionan (inscriben,
crean y accionan) la persona. La primer persona que ayudé a inscribirse fue mi abuela,
1 Doctora en Ciencias de la Comunicación (USP), profesora de Postgrado en Turismo y Hospitalidad de la
Universidad de Caxias do Sul (UCS). Posdoctoranda y Profesora colaboradora del Postgrado en Sociedad y
Cultura de la Amazonia (UFAM). Coordinadora del ¡Amorcomtur! Grupo de Estudios en Comunicación, Turismo,
Amorosidad y Autopoiesis (CNPq-UCS). Integrante del Ecomsul: Epistemologías y Prácticas Emergentes y
Transformadoras en Comunicación, Medios y Cultura, (UFRN). Periodista (UFRGS). Brasil.
32 ser que marcó tanto mi propia vida, con su forma de ser, su mirar, su modo de ser. Pienso
que, de cierta forma, yo le enseñé a escribir y ella se inscribió en mí. Tal vez yo tenga aquí
la esencia de la educación, de los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje.
Hace mucho tiempo no rehago ese recorrido, que me lleva de vuelta a la casa
donde viví mi infancia, allí donde soñé los viajes, imaginé los trayectos por el mundo,
donde también inicié los entrelazados con los autores de ficción. Allí mismo, en la casa de
madera, juntamente con mi hermano Cláudio, yo me levantaba de madrugada y viajaba
mentalmente en las narrativas de Monteiro Lobato, recorriendo los lugares encantados
del Reino de las Aguas Claras. Allí esperaba el regreso de mi abuelo, que salía para
trabajar como conductor de taxi. Yo ya sentía la emoción de las partidas y regresos, de él
y de mi padre, mecánico y camionero, los dos apasionados por viajes. De allí, de esa casa,
yo también salí un día para el mundo, gané la carretera. Después, volví tantas veces,
para recordar, rever, reencontrar, antes de todo, a mí misma, como hago ahora, en este
esbozo de narrativa de viaje especular y autopoiética.
La casa está localizada en Guarantã, pequeña ciudad del interior de São Paulo, en
la región noroeste del Estado, aún hoy, con menos de 10 mil habitantes. El nombre de
la ciudad, según la página web del municipio, deriva de “iara-tã”, que significa madera
dura y se refiere a los árboles de la familia de las rutáceas, que forman las florestas
locales. Guarantã es de aquellas localidades que parecen una ciudad escenográfica, de
novela de época. La ciudad todavía es cortada por los senderos del tren, recordando una
época del auge del café, en que reinaba la prosperidad en la región del interior paulista.
Tiene tres bellas plazas y, claro, una de ellas es de la Iglesia Matriz, cuya construcción fue
iniciada en 1925, dedicada a la patrona de la ciudad, Santa Terezinha.
Me quedo pensando en una conversa de mi padre, refiriéndose a su propio modo
de ser, cuando se le preguntó, en algunas situaciones, sobre el hecho de estar muy serio.
Él siempre respondía: “ES el modo de ser de la madera!”. Yo reflexioné mucho sobre cuán
interesante es esa frase, como metáfora para pensar los las formas de cada ser, en las
múltiples posibilidades de referencia y en el propio estrecho vínculo con los árboles, con la
floresta, con el florecer, los procesos de flores y seres, florecidos, con yo vengo me referido.
Curioso que yo haya nacido en una ciudad, cuya enunciación del nombre ya dice eso,
inscribiendo en mí una marca, Iara-tã, Guarantã, madera dura de los árboles de la familia
de las rutáceas. Tal vez yo también tenga esa forma de ser Iara-tã Brasil, nombre de otra
madera, de tonalidades fuertes y rojizas. Así yo me veo, madera forjada a machete, por la
vida, por las inscripciones del tiempo en mí, al tiempo que insisto en seguir produciendo
rizomáticamente, en autopoiesis , floreciendo, ‘flores-siendo’, ‘flor-esta’, Malu Cardinale.
Este inicio presenta el texto con su singularidad propuesta. La idea es traer
Narrativas de Viaje
mucho y nos desafía a comprender muchos sentidos existenciales del viaje. A la vez,
nos ofrece todo, las máximas condiciones de supervivencia y nos obliga a aprender
2 Muchos textos producidos por los investigadores de la UFAM ayudaron a comprender la perspectiva y a
reconocer la aproximación de mis estudios. Destaco aquí, sólo algunos libros: Comunicación Midiatizada en la y de
la Amazonia, organizado por Maria Ataide Malcher, Netília Silva de los Ángeles Seixas, Regina Lúcia Alves de Lima
y Otacílio Amaral Hijo (2011); Estudios y perspectivas de los ecosistemas comunicacionales, organizado por Gilson
Vieira Monteiro, Maria Emilia de Oliveira Pereira Abbud y Mirna Feitoza Pereira (2011); Procesos Comunicacionales.
Tiempo, Espacio y Tecnología, organizado por Claudio Manoel de Carvalho Correia, Ítala Clay de Oliveira Freitas,
Maria Emília de Oliveira Pereira Abbud y Maria Sandra Campos (2012); Comunicación: visualidades y diversidades
en la Amazonia, organizado por Netília S. de los Ángeles Seixas, Alda Cristina Costa, Luciana Miranda Costa (2013).
35 a reverenciar las múltiples conexiones de la naturaleza de la trama ecosistémica,
comprendiendo que somos parte de ella, pero que dependemos del todo en sintonía
amorosa, respetuosa, para seguir ‘siendo’, viviendo, ‘flor-y-siendo’, floreciendo!.
Sol tórrido. Yo usaba un vestido rojo estampado. Una estampa de selva. Un vestido
hindú. Siempre pensé que aquel vestido era la imagen de la selva. Ahora, allí, en el sol,
debajo del pórtico de la entrada de una Universidad centenaria, lo que me emocionaba
era el verde, era la intensidad del paisaje... lo menudo de las hojas... y la firmeza de
todo lo que había alrededor... un calor ardiente... en mis manos... margaritas. Yo estaba
acompañada de Marta, una señora de estatura baja y sonriente, que había sido designada
como mi conductora. Amable, dulce y fuerte, como son las personas de aquel lugar.
En mis brazos, había un ramo de margaritas blancas... siempre había soñado hacer
aquella foto... parar allí y ponerme al lado del pórtico que dice UFAM, DESDE 1909,
NUESTRO MAYOR PATRIMONIO. Desde crianza, siempre aprendí que la Amazonia
es el pulmón del mundo, para mí, el corazón del mundo. Nunca pensé mucho en la
diferencia entre pulmón y corazón cuando pensaba en la Amazonia... pero ciertamente
eso no importa ahora... Importa es la intensidad que siento en ese lugar y la alegría de
sentirme con la misión de distribuir flores en la Amazonia... en el mundo entero... las
mismas margaritas que me enseñaron que es posible reinventar la vida de una familia
entera, ayudar a superar las dificultades, hacer brotar una fábrica de flores en Guarantã...
florecer... flor y ser... Malu Cardinale.
Sí. La selva amazónica y mi postdoctorado en Sociedad y Cultura de la Amazonia
me llevan al encuentro con gente simple y fuerte, gente que sabe amar y cuidar y también
que sabe pelear por la vida. Gente que tiene miedo de escribir, así como yo tengo miedo
de bichos, pero gente que, como la floresta, florece todo el tiempo. A veces se intimida,
pero, tal vez por falta de opción, va encontrando una manera de conseguir, de hacer... de
suceder... y de enseñar... Entre tantas cosas, aprendí allí que llover puede ser una cosa
buena... así como estoy ‘lloviendo/llorando’ ahora, así como lloví siempre... desde niña...
floreciendo y lloviendo... floreciendo... flores y siendo Malu Cardinale...
...
Desperté en Manaos. Del balcón de mi apartamento aquí, es posible una vista
panorámica. Me quedé un tiempo sintiendo la ciudad, recordando todo el tiempo y
esfuerzo de organización del viaje. Me gusta tener éxito en mis esfuerzos de deseo de
desterritorialización. Manaos, para mí, es un destino para volver siempre... algo me
Narrativas de Viaje
Los grupos mundanos están cerca de las bandas y proceden por difusión de
prestigio, más que por referencia a centros de poder, como sucede con los
grupos sociales. [...] Las cuadrillas, las bandas son grupos del tipo rizoma,
por oposición al tipo arborescente que se concentra en órganos de poder. Es
por eso que las bandas, en general, incluso de bandidaje, o de mundanidad,
son metamorfosis de una máquina de guerra, que difiere formalmente de
cualquier aparato de Estado, o equivalente, el cual, al contrario, estructura las
sociedades centralizadas (GUATTARI; DELEUZE, 1995, p. 21).
Entonces, me siento como planta siendo arrancada del lugar, como si el movimiento
de desterritorialización fuera algo contra mi naturaleza (ecosistémica). No lo es. Yo sé
que no lo es. La naturaleza del humano es movimiento. El universo está todo el tiempo
en movimiento. No sería yo quien iba a conseguir quedarse parada. La cuestión es
que, en ese proceso, pierdo un poco el suelo, tengo que redescubrir modos de vida,
improvisar, autopoietizar, adaptarme al recorrido, desde los detalles, las minúsculas
acciones del cotidiano, como alimentarme, ir al cuarto de baño, improvisar delante
de los caminos y desafíos que encuentro en los trayectos. Tengo que estar lista
40 para improvisar. Sí, viajar es saber improvisar y desapegarse de las cristalizaciones
existentes en los territorios existenciales. Necesito vivir con menos ropas, con el sentir
falta de las personas que amo, con la disposición de convivir con extraños, de vivir
aproximaciones con ellos, de aceptar sabores y olores diferentes, de abrir el corazón y
de mirar para nuevos paisajes y experiencias.
En ese sentido, la acción de desterritorializa de deseo del viaje envuelve, a la vez,
desenterrarme de territorios conocidos y ponerme en movimiento, con paso firme y aten-
to de una peregrina nómade y guerrera. Quién vive el viaje entero e intensamente, se
ve sólo en el mundo, sin suelo, teniendo que reinventar el paso, el lazo, la caminada,
muchas veces, teniendo que lidiar con la mutación de los horarios y desafiar el cuerpo
a convivir con ‘novedades’. El guerrero nómade turista, así, necesita aprender a hacer y
deshacer la maleta, a reinventarse en relación a las ‘casas’ improvisadas de sus destinos.
Después, necesita aprender a irse de ahí, tal vez volver para un lugar conocido, que, por
su parte, también va a pasar por un proceso de reterritorialización, lo que significa que,
en el reencuentro, ese lugar también es sentido como extraño, es ‘re-visto’, revisitado y
pasa a incorporar, no sólo los recuerdos en el sujeto del turismo, sino también pedazos
de memorias materializadas en ‘objetos-recuerdo’, que traen un poco de los territorios
encontrados en esas acciones de la movimentación de la máquina de guerra del turismo.
Así, aunque resulte en muchas alegrías y placer, el turismo también es ruptura, desacopla-
miento, desterritorialización y, en ese sentido, subversión de los vínculos establecidos por
la obtención de las máquinas abstractas existenciales, así como, las dimensiones maquí-
nicas territorializadas de aparatos como el Estado o el destino de origen, por así decirlo.
Considerando la reflexión, a partir de Deleuze y Guattari (1995), es fácil percibir
la falacia de la frase “Yo no soy de aquí!”, porque ella remite a la discusión de ‘fuera
y dentro’, categorías falsas, se consideramos la trama ecosistémica inherente a los
procesos de los fenómenos analizados. Me acuerdo de una canción cantada por Jorge
Drexler, intitulada Movimiento, con el verso que dice: “Yo en el soy de aquí, pero tú
tampoco. Somos una especie en viaje. No tenemos pertenencias, sino equipaje”.
Así, en la lógica contemporánea, que nos recuerda a la visión holística, si todo
está interconectado a todo, si consideramos la dimensión de las partículas subatómicas,
partimos de la negación de la existencia de un ‘fuera y un dentro’, ya que percibimos
que es, en el movimiento de las cosas – desde las ínfimas partículas constituyentes del
átomo a los planetas –, que ellas ganan existencia. En ese sentido, tiempo y espacio
necesitan ser resignificados, así como necesitamos reconocer los desmontes de todas
las fronteras, desde las físicas, existenciales, hasta las más abstractas que existen3.
la Guerra Civil Española, pasando por la Argentina y después se fue a vivir al Brasil.
Vida humilde, de taxista, conductor, camionero, contador de historias, jugador de cartas, el
español sonriente que me llamaba de ‘retoño del abuelo’. En ese momento, lloré como un
niño, de la falta que me hacía mi abuelo, de cuando extrañaba a España, que amo y que
me hubiera gustado haberla vivido con él. Lloré también de gratitud, por estar allí delante
de uno de los monumentos más lindos del mundo, en el tradicional barrio de gitanos. Sentí
la energía del lugar y, después, bajé por los meandros del barrio, que me fueron presentados
42 por mi nuevo amigo, muy parecido con mi abuelo. También sonriente, él fue presentándome
a las personas del lugar, me llevó a tomar un café en un local del barrio, bajamos las calles
saludando a las personas, como si fuésemos moradores del lugar.
Pensé que no hay mejor manera de estar en una ciudad, del que mezclándome al
paisaje, conviviendo con seres del lugar. Comenzó a llover. Seguimos caminando. Él se dispuso
a llevarme hasta la Calle Salvador. Fue óptimo porque yo soy una persona espacialmente
perdida y, en aquella emoción derramada, como yo la llamo, sería más difícil localizarme.
Podría atrasarme y perder el vuelo. Yo no quería irme, pero la vida no me dejaba quedarme.
Llovía aún más fuerte. Me acordé de la Amazonia y de un conductor de la UFAM que me
llevó para el aeropuerto, un día de lluvia. Él me dijo: “Profesora, la señora sabe porque está
lloviendo? La Floresta está triste, porque la señora se va!”. En ese momento entendí que la
lluvia tenía mucho sentido, que ella se mezclaba con mi llanto de partida.
Pensé en mis estudios del Turismo y en el cuánto el sujeto se embriaga, se mezcla,
se transversaliza con los lugares que visita. Me acordé del libro del Yazigi, intitulado El
alma del Lugar. Granada es una ciudad amorosa, con alma propia. Su nombre corres-
ponde a la granada, un fruto símbolo del amor, con sus muchos granos, ‘granada’. Esa
amorosidad es lo que se siente en las calles, en las conversas de las personas, en el cuer-
po de la gente, en el corazón. Reflexiono que yo también soy, en cierto sentido, granada,
una concentración de semillas de amorosidad, a ser distribuida, en verso, prosa, texto,
risa, cuerpo, espíritu... de esta forma, espero también haber hecho ello en este texto, en
las narrativas reflexivas del viaje, a partir de los fragmentos especulares y autopoiéticos,
mesclando vivencia y teoría. Me voy ahora... Granada, para florecer en otros textos.
REFERÊNCIAS
2. O espelho do mundo
“Esse vasto mundo (...) é o que precisamos
para nos conhecer como deveríamos
em nossas verdadeiras inclinações”
(MONTAIGNE, 1877, p. 113)
afirma que Ewbank, apesar dos louvores dados aos Estados Unidos da América, sequer
era estadunidense, mas britânico.
Assim, volta-se ao caráter híbrido do relato, em que uma “escrita de si” se une a
um certo discurso científico, seja real ou não. Sobre isso, é preciso aproximar-se das
possibilidades que apresentam a tal “escrita de si”, para então adentrar o terreno da
veracidade dos relatos.
Em primeiro lugar, é preciso trazer o caráter não exaustivo de qualquer escrita.
Antes mesmo de trazer a compulsão arquivística que formou o ocidente, a partir da
tradição judaico-cristã do registro escrito exaustivo, é preciso trazer essa compreensão
para o microcosmo do indivíduo e afirmar categoricamente que é impossível registrar
tudo que acontece em uma vida.
O pesquisador francês Philippe Artières, pensador da autobiografia, assevera
que, apesar de sermos impelidos por uma vontade de classificar e arquivar tudo
que nos ocorre (“o anormal é o sem-papeis!”), “não arquivamos nossas vidas de
qualquer maneira; não guardamos todas as maçãs da nossa cesta pessoal; fazemos um
acordo com a realidade, manipulamos a existência: omitimos, rasuramos, riscamos,
sublinhamos, colocamos em exergo certas passagens” (ARTIÈRES, 1998, p. 11). Mais
ainda, prossegue o pesquisador que
versão.
Na correspondência que recebemos, jogamos algumas cartas diretamente
no lixo, outras são conservadas durante um certo tempo, outras enfim são
guardadas (...) O mesmo acontece com as nossas próprias cartas: guardamos
cópia de algumas, seja em razão do seu conteúdo, seja em razão do seu
destinatário.
Numa autobiografia (...) não só escolhemos alguns acontecimentos, como os
ordenamos numa narrativa; a escolha e a classificação dos acontecimentos
determinam o sentido que desejamos dar às nossas vidas. (ARTIÈRES, 1998,
p. 11)
48 Em comum, todas essas práticas de arquivamento do eu – de escrita de si –
compartilham o que se pode chamar de uma intenção autobiográfica (ARTIÈRES,
1998). E, neste rol, repleto desta intenção, também é possível encontrar os relatos de
viagem.
Compreende-se, portanto, que o relato de viagem não é uma forma absoluta
de registro, que compreende de maneira completa (quiçá imparcial, e que muitos
gostariam de denominar científica) a passagem do seu autor por um local novo. A
seleção é feita de maneira absolutamente subjetiva, baseada em critérios próprios e
únicos e, claro, balizados por uma bagagem cultural inegável.
Assim, como demonstrado nos trechos de Ewbank e Gilliss, não se deve esperar
de um relato de viagem totalidade e isenção. E, mais ainda, não se deve tampouco
esperar uma veracidade absoluta – o que, contudo, não irá danificar sua efetividade
narrativa como relato.
A historiadora brasileira Mary Anne Junqueira (2011) elabora uma discussão
metodológica sobre os relatos de viagem constatando, antes de mais nada, que cada
relato de viagem é único:
Enquanto o primeiro ponto lida com o tão falado encontro com o outro, os três
seguintes lidam com o caráter literário duro do relato, da sua função como escrita5.
Já o quinto e último ponto lida com a questão da veracidade do relato de viagem. A
5 Aqui, sugere-se a rica discussão de Vilém Flusser sobre a escrita no livro A Escrita – Há futuro para a Escrita?
em que o pensador apresenta que esse código responsável pelo suporte e transmissão do conhecimento ocidental,
“frenético e vacilante [...] oferece um profundo vislumbre na estrutura do pensamento (e do comportamento) que
é posto em linhas, ou seja, em uma estrutura de pensamento no tempo que corre do passado em direção ao futuro,
sem parar no presente” (FLUSSER, 2011, p. 20).
49 partir da historiadora Mary Louise Pratt, Junqueira (2011) afirma que no século XVIII
procuraram por profissionais do texto para burilar os seus escritos, e que nas viagens
científicas dos séculos XVIII e XIX era comum que cientistas renomados – mesmo
que ausentes da jornada – fossem convidados a contribuir com o relato final.
Sobre isso, deve-se apontar que a noção de autoria é recente (data de Cervantes,
ou seja, do século XVII, uma das primeiras disputas voltadas para a autoria de uma
obra6), além da mescla de gêneros literários presentes no relato. Junqueira diz que
os relatos respondiam mais a um anseio do público leitor do que a um critério de
veracidade, um tanto anacrônico, e que o importante a considerar era a verdade que
o relato quis construir, e não a sua “veracidade” (JUNQUEIRA, 2011, p. 53). Indo mais
a fundo nessa questão, Junqueira retira do estudioso franco Jan Borm a consideração
que
é um problema definir o relato de viagem como objeto porque este é um
“gênero composto por outros gêneros literários”. Borm sustenta que trata-
se de uma espécie de gênero híbrido, já que se nutre de outros tipos de
discursos. O crítico cita, entre os gêneros comumente encontrados nos relatos
de viagem, a ficção (romances, novelas, contos, poemas etc.), a autobiografia
(ou escrita de si), os discursos científicos, textos memorialísticos etc.
(JUNQUEIRA, 2011, p. 55).
O que importa pode não ser a origem do texto, mas o modo pelo qual as pessoas
o consideram. Se elas decidirem que se trata de literatura, então, ao que parece,
o texto será literatura, a despeito do que o seu autor tenha pensado. Nesse
sentido, podemos pensar na literatura menos como uma qualidade inerente,
ou como um conjunto de qualidades evidenciadas por certos tipos de escritos
que vão desde Beowulf até Virginia Woolf, do que como várias maneiras pelas
quais as pessoas se relacionam com a escrita (EAGLETON, 2006, p. 13, apud
SCHEMES, 2015, p. 8)
Narrativas de Viagem
3. O espectro de si
7 Sem autoria comprovada, o diário de Byrd não possui data oficial de publicação, mas aparece em diferentes
portais de adeptos de teorias da Terra oca. O diário de Byrd possui diferentes versões. Em uma delas, a raça
é apresentada como os arianni. Cf. VENTURA, A Terra Além do Polo – o diário secreto de Richard Byrd.
Disponível em: http://www.curaeascensao.com.br/curiosidades_arquivos/curiosidades74.ht ml
52 Portanto, não é uma distopia unicamente um relato de um futuro terrível,
como o romance 1984 (1949), de George Orwell (1903-1950) ou a graphic novel V de
Vingança (1988), de Alan Moore8. Muitas vezes, a distopia se apresenta como um
relato de um indivíduo preso em seu próprio território, que vê as estruturas do que
ele conhecia como normais ruírem, seja por uma praga apocalíptica, seja por um fatal
recrudescimento da sociedade à sua volta.
No livro On the road de Jack Kerouac, a distopia aparece em um Estados Unidos
da América conservador, que empurra os seus outsiders para fora, para a contínua
busca de um lugar que os acolha, que não traga frustração. Na narrativa, a inquietação,
o desejo de algo que não se sabe bem o quê ou o porquê, atuam como volante da
viagem dos personagens. Os personagens são distópicos por essência, Sal Paradise
— um suposto pseudônimo do próprio Kerouac — e Dean Moriarty — baseado em
Neal Cassady — estão sempre em uma aflitiva procura por si mesmos, à procura da
resolução de um incômodo pessoal e compartilhado que parece não ter solução, mas
que pode ser anestesiado por entorpecentes, entre eles, a própria estrada. Estar na
estrada é buscar a satisfação de um desejo estranhamente destrutivo, é perseguir
uma obsessão e, ao mesmo tempo, procurar pelo conforto do lar. O lar é a utopia
imaginada pela sociedade norte-americana de consumo em que estão inseridos, já a
estrada, é a distopia imaginada pelo desejo de algo indefinido — talvez até guinado
pelo próprio consumismo —, mas que cobra uma autodestruição. Aqui reside a maior
das inquietações, expressamente vividas por Paradise e Moriarty: como negar a casa
à procura dela?
A obra de Kerouac é um dos expoentes da “geração beat” da literatura, em que
a expressão do “eu” torna-se objeto e método literário. Com o intuito de expressarem-
se livremente, contarem suas histórias — muitas vezes autobiográficas — por meio do
registro no papel, a linguagem não é mero instrumento, é também parte da expressão do
“eu”. As interjeições permeiam o vocabulário de Moriarty, a empolgação pela descoberta
está presente até na forma em que os diálogos são travados. A história é narrada de
maneira envolvente, convidativa, sedutora até, ainda que permeie um universo muito
distante da maioria das pessoas. O leitor talvez também solte suas próprias interjeições,
ele agora faz parte do dia a dia de Sal, que escreve sem formalidades. O “eu” de Sal é
desnudado em seus relatos, mas traduzido pelo “eu” de quem o lê, satisfazendo assim
mais um desejo das escritas de si, o de ser visto, ainda que sob um outro prisma.
Assim, a distopia em que Paradise e Moriarty é a da pressão do Sonho Americano,
de ter uma casa, uma carreira, um emprego – um lugar fixo. Como o governo totalitário
de 1984 que vigia seus indivíduos e os obriga a estarem permanentemente nos seus
Narrativas de Viagem
8 Primeiramente, pensou-se em elaborar o trabalho em cima de duas obras essencialmente distópicas, mas a
sutileza e o caráter quase inverso de On the Road levou a uma alteração na escolha. No romance americano beat, a
ameaça é tão sutil e invisível que o protagonista não tem para onde fugir a não ser para dentro de si. O American
Dream é uma prisão sem grades que quase o leva à loucura. No caso das distopias de The Walking Dead, O Conto
da Aia (Margaret Atwood) e A Estrada (Cormac McCarthy) cada uma à sua maneira faz com que os personagens
se transformem para combater ativamente a ameaça visível e nomeada que os persegue. No caso de A Estrada,
primeira opção deste trabalho, a violência torna-se parte do cotidiano da sobrevivência do pai em um mundo em
que um cataclismo sem nome destruiu a vida e a civilização na Terra. Como preço a pagar, ele abre mão de tudo,
sua esposa, sua casa, e até mesmo dos nomes. Não há mais cidades, nem direções, e mesmo a grande estrada que
eles seguem, rumo ao litoral, não tem mais identificação. Em momento algum ele – bem como o narrador – se
refere ao seu filho como filho, mas eventualmente como garoto ou criança.
53 lugares de residência e trabalho, os EUA dos anos 50, lapidados pelo boom econômico
do pós-guerra do lado de dentro, e tensionados pela Guerra Fria do lado de fora,
também obrigam seus indivíduos a fixarem raízes e demonstrarem lealdade.
Portanto, botar o pé na estrada é, para Paradise e Moriarty, o mesmo que é
escrever para Winston, personagem de Orwell. Não é apenas resistência, como a
única forma de sobrevivência, mesmo que – e incluindo – leve à destruição. No caso
de On the Road, a destruição é patente no entorpecimento, característico da geração
beat, que se repete nas obras de William Burroughs (sendo a mais famosa Almoço Nu)
e de Charles Bukowski.
Ao atravessar os EUA, indo de São Francisco para Nova Iorque, passando por
Denver e Detroit, os protagonistas encontram o país em que eles nasceram, com suas
estruturas perfeitamente funcionais – os empregos, as linhas de ônibus, as festas de
Natal – mas que não lhes parecem mais familiares. Tudo ali lhes gera uma estranheza, um
incômodo, como se tudo aquilo fosse uma fantasia, ou um pesadelo. Em dado momento,
ao acordar em um quarto de hotel de beira de estrada, Paradise tem a sensação de que:
Eu era apenas outra pessoa, algum estranho, e toda minha vida era uma
vida assombrada, a vida de um fantasma. Eu estava no meio da Amérida, na
linha divisora entre o Leste da minha juventude e o Oeste do meu futuro, e
talvez seja por isso que aquilo acontece bem ali, naquele lugar, naquela tarde
vermelha inquietante (KEROUAC, 2001, p. 12).
Vê-se, portanto, que o inquietante vem dos próprios personagens, ao não sentirem
que pertencem àquele mundo. Uma inquietação interna, em que Paradise sente que
é uma farsa naquele mundo que é real de uma maneira tão terrível. Sem conseguir
se adequar a uma sociedade domesticamente perfeita, que esconde a distopia de um
sistema financeiro e bélico, os protagonistas entregam-se ao entorpecimento, ora
das drogas, ora do deslocamento. Somente assim ele consegue fugir da racionalidade
avassaladora que tenta lhes convencer que eles não pertencem àquele mundo, que eles
são insignificantes a ponto de não passarem de fantasmas, de sombras, de fracassos.
Finalmente, o caráter quase amador de Sal Paradise também é uma forma de
resistência, na medida em que, como escritor, ele abandona o desejo pelo grande
romance social americano, tradição que vinha desde nomes como F. Scott Fitzgerald. O
fluxo de consicência é um combate à imposição totalitária da “boa literatura” da “alta
cultura” que o movimento beat combatia. Mais ainda, essa escrita quase instantânea,
ligada muito mais à emoção da vivência do que à racionalização do evento, remete aos
relatos de viagem, em que
Narrativas de Viagem
Mais ainda, é somente com a certeza de que, naquele mundo cuja realidade
tornou impossível a criação de raízes como se tinha antes, que uma cidade como
Woodbury não pode existir. Não se pode mais criar laços e vínculos, não como antes,
pois foi precisamente a lógica de antes que escalonou até o apocalipse em que eles
vivem. Após a queda, não há como retornar ao que era antes, não sem esconder sob o
tapete a monstruosidade que tomou conta do mundo.
Finda Woodbury, Rick e seu bando procuram um lugar onde se esconder com
segurança, tentando abandonar o nomadismo e ter um pouco de paz, mesmo que
55 momentânea. Eles encontram uma prisão, e nela entram. É significativo esse episódio
porque demonstra como tudo que era tido como normal, numa sociedade roída pela
distopia, adquire outro significado. Identidades, poderes e instituições se transformam,
e uma nova ordem nasce.
A prisão, símbolo máximo da separação entre o bom e o mau, com o bem fora e
o mal dentro, se transforma totalmente num lugar que abriga os bons dos maus. Antes
um local abjeto e distante, a prisão torna-se (ainda que temporariamente) uma proto
sociedade em que há uma hierarquia, divisão de tarefas e até agricultura.
Woodbury e a prisão são, portanto, demonstrações de como não há como
manter o Eu no confronto com a projeção do Eu que emerge da distopia. Tudo parece
o mesmo, mas é preciso ter a força de admitir que não mais é. Como uma analogia, The
Walking Dead – e, à sua maneira, toda a geração beat – evocam a lembrança de que o
que vivemos é um incômodo, uma sociedade cujas estruturas e instituições apontam
para um futuro terrível, que se cristalizará de uma maneira terrível e fatal.
Finalmente, a linguagem utilizada na série também se prova relevante. A fuga
aparece até na maneira com que os personagens se referem aos mortos-vivos. Em
momento algum, por todas as temporadas da série, estas figuras são chamadas de
zumbis ou mesmo de mortos-vivos, pelo contrário, adquirem alcunhas que beiram
o bizarro como “caminhadores”, “rastejantes”, “corpos”, “mordedores”, “famintos”,
“espreitadores” entre outros. Evitar falar a palavra é evitar o enfrentamento da
realidade. Kerouac, por outro lado, enfrenta a língua e suas nuances, por meio de
negociações intelectuais entre os personagens e também com o leitor. O dia-a-dia de
Rick faz do público mero observador, enquanto o de Paradise, um voyeur que poderia
fazer parte daquela realidade.
Deslocar, fugir, é a única solução possível. Seja por meio das drogas, ou do
deslocamento físico, a fuga é o único caminho dentro de um território cujas estruturas
tornaram-se barreiras e, mais ainda, limites, cerceamentos. Como um rato no labirinto,
o indivíduo corre dentro de um ambiente fechado (do qual é observado do alto, muitas
vezes de forma sádica), procurando a saída. Para eles, a fuga é a expressão humana da
eterna tentativa de escapar da solidão, do desespero, da perdição, da insignificância,
da fragilidade e, finalmente, da morte: o maior e mais inquietante dos medos humanos.
Rick Grimes e Sal Paradise vivem o cotidiano como se não houvesse garantia
Narrativas de Viagem
de futuro, e talvez não haja. Qualquer que seja o motivo — zumbis, guerras, gangues
ou conservadorismo — a vivência do hoje, como uma experiência completa em si,
ratifica e rompe a sociedade de consumo norte-americana. O presente em que eles
vivem é intolerável, e a única maneira de fazê-lo é desfazendo-se do que o torna
tolerável. Paradoxalmente, para sobreviver à sociedade dos mortos-vivos, Rick
Grimes busca uma vida normal, enquanto Sal Paradise motifica-se para conseguir
viver à sociedade “normal”.
É apenas com este subterfúgio que os personagens conseguem despregar-se
do Eu inquietante que parece refleti-los no espelho com um sorriso de escárnio, o
56 sorriso daquela força ancestral que se sabe invencível, e cujo poder é capaz de roubar
até a própria essência do indivíduo, retirando as forças da sua própria identidade,
confundindo-o, anulando-o.
Desconstruindo a força terrível da sociedade de consumo, Sal Paradise e Dean
Moriarty lutam com o que podem para fugir dos moldes das respectivas distopias que
tentam absorvê-los. E, como faz bem todo andarilho ou viajante de uma narrativa
apocalíptica, ambos se despem de tudo que não é essencial. Apenas com a roupa do
corpo, algumas latas de comida e uns trocados, ambos partem em viagem, levando
apenas do que é necessário para a sobrevivência (The Walking Dead) ou para a fruição
de sua jornada (On the Road). Não obstante, a palavra também faz parte do arcabouço
material de qualquer viajante, a partir do momento em que ele ou ela transforma
vivências em relatos orais ou escritos. A palavra, dita ou escrita, é sim um registro, e
é igualmente a experiência em si. Por intermédio dos instrumentos da memória e da
linguagem, a narrativa ressignifica o olhar, tornado-se o meio e também a finalidade da
aventura vivida.
Os Estados Unidos, portanto, palco das aventuras das duas narrativas, mostra-
se um país distópico, apresentado sob dois diferentes prismas. Em The Walking
Dead isto é bastante evidente pela analogia do cenário pós-apocalíptico. Já em On
the Road, em diversos momentos, a distopia se apresenta de maneira mais sutil, nas
estereotipações desdenhosas com que Paradise e Moriarty qualificam muitios dos
personagens com quem interagem pelo mapa. O sulista que pensa e fala de um jeito
engraçado, as indígenas que não entendem a cultura do homem branco, as mulheres
sem personalidade e levemente histéricas etc. Todos estes personagens do American
Dream são tão genéricos quanto os zumbis de The Walking Dead. E assim caminha
uma distopia, com um apagamento contínuo das nuances, de obliteramento das
identidades, de forma a enquadrar as pessoas em categorias desumanas, como mortos-
vivos que apenas repetem um único comportamento possível.
Finalmente, ambas as narrativas são grandes metáforas da maneira de viver
estadunidense. Utopicamente, Os EUA são a terra da liberdade, do sonho americano,
do leite e do mel, mas, na prática, são o país do exílio, da segregação, de Donald
Trump e Steve Bannon, em que tantos estrangeiros e até mesmo cidadãos migram
dentro de suas largas fronteiras, fugindo das inquietantes e controversas forças que
parecem familiares, acolhedoras e – por quê não? – democráticas, mas que buscam
unicamente encarcerá-los em compartimentos de consumo e silêncio. Neste aspecto,
até o inferno de Dante e o de Virgílio, com seus círculos e diferentes terrenos, e
passagens ao Paraíso e à Terra, são mais plurais que os EUA de Kerouac ou Kirkman.
Narrativas de Viagem
1 Graduated in Social Communication at the University of Brasília (UnB), with a master’s degree in Social
Communication at the same University, in the research line of Image, Sound and Writing. Teacher and researcher.
Conducts research in the areas of Literary Translation, humanitarian aid, audiovisual, aging and gender studies,
focused mainly on social imaginary and its subjectivities.
2 Graduated in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), with a master’s degree in Social
Communication at the University of Brasilia (UnB), in the research line of Image, Sound and Writing. Teacher
and researcher. Works mostly at the intersections between aesthetics, phenomenology and literary journalism,
investigating the various forms of pain.
59 For time is also an indication of a journey, inasmuch as it also generates
change, foundation of any voyage, and consequently of every tale. So the pre-Socratic
Heraclitus was correct in saying that one do not bathe in the same river twice, even
if one enters at the very same place where one bathed yesterday. Because that is no
longer the same river, and you are no longer the same person. Both made a journey
that, sealed in space, traveled the irreversible distance of a day:
There are many examples of travel accounts that show the clash of so-called
native thinking in regard to the other. Carla Paulino (2016), for example, gives the
report of the English mechanic Thomas Ewbank (1792-1870) during his stay in Brazil,
to the US Navy captain James Melville Gilliss (1811-1865), of his trips to Chile.
In both narratives, it is clear how the travelers’ experience serve much more
to reinforce the opinions the authors already had about the visited places and their
inhabitants, than to build a distinctive image of that new location. If there was a
change in the way Ewbank or Gilliss reflected on the observed sites, says the author,
it was in the senses of “confirming” the low status attributed to the places visited and
the prominence held by the United States” (PAULINO, 119).
It is important to note that this is almost an imperialist thinking, given its
overwhelming power to suppress its own territorial boundaries. As an example,
Paulino claims that Ewbank, despite his praises to the United States of America, was
not even American, but British.
With all this, it is impossible to separate the writing of an individual from the
society that shaped him. In addition to other economic and cultural factors, such as
Travel Narratives
the distribution of an account and the accessibility of its language, this inseparability
further promotes the projections of these authors. The author develops this idea a
little more by relying on Edward Said (1935-2003), the Palestinian activist and writer,
and his work Culture and Imperialism (1993). She says that:
For Said, literary productions are not disconnected from the cultural, economic
and political context in which their authors are immersed. Thus, works such
61 as novels and travel literature have reproduced a certain type of discourse that
has positioned the European man and also the American in certain situations,
as well as their “Western world” and its values, as superior in relation to the
“rest” of the world, thus delimiting the domestic space in relation to other
places. (PAULINO, 2016, pp. 118-119)
Thus, one turns to the hybrid character of the story, in which a “writing of
oneself” joins a certain scientific discourse, whether real or not. On this, it is necessary
to approach the possibilities presented by such a “writing of oneself”, so to then enter
the terrain of the veracity of the accounts.
In the first place, it is necessary to bring the non-exhaustive character of any
writing. Even before bringing the archival compulsion that formed the West out
of the Judeo-Christian tradition of exhaustive written record, one must bring that
understanding into the microcosm of the individual and state categorically that it is
impossible to record everything that happens in a life.
The French researcher Philippe Artières, thinker of the autobiography as form,
says that although we are driven by a will to classify and file everything that occurs
to us (“the abnormal is the not-documented!”) – we do not file our lives carelessly; we
do not store all the apples in our personal basket; we make an agreement with reality,
we manipulate existence: we omit, erase, scratch, underline, put into exert certain
passages “(ARTIÈRES, 1998, p.11). Moreover, the researcher continues
In an intimate diary, we record only a few events, omit others; sometimes (...)
we add things or fix that first version.
In the correspondence we receive, we throw some letters directly in the trash,
others are kept for a while, others are stored (...) The same happens with our
own letters: we keep a copy of some, either because of their content, whether
by reason of their recipient.
In an autobiography (...) not only do we choose some events, we order them in
a narrative; the choice and classification of the events determines the meaning
we want to give to our lives. (ARTIÈRES, 1998, p. 11)
Thus, as demonstrated in the excerpts from Ewbank and Gilliss, one should not
expect from a trip report wholeness and exemption. And, even more so, one should
not expect absolute veracity either - which, however, will not damage its narrative
effectiveness as a narrative.
The Brazilian historian Mary Anne Junqueira (2011) elaborates a methodological
discussion about travel reports, stating, first and foremost, that each travel report is unique:
62 In approaching these sources, the historian – especially that one who analyzes
the discourse – must hold to many aspects: to confer the “place of enunciation”
and the cultural universe of the traveler; evaluate the period in which the text
was written (during or after the journey); the way the record was elaborated
(narrative, memory, letters, diary, etc.); and when the text was published, if
applicable. But, first of all, we must ask ourselves who is the writer of the
story – or who he wants to be (Junqueira, 2011, pp. 46-47)
1) the fact that travel accounts operate systematically with the notions of here
and there, even though the story’s author never has traveled “(JUNQUEIRA,
2011: 48);
2) all reporting presupposes a reader, even if this is only the writer of the
story‖ (JUNQUEIRA, 2011, page 48);
3) even if the traveler has made the voyage in his teens and writes in old age,
the text will still be considered a travelogue or “Travel memory” (JUNQUEIRA,
2011, page 49);
4) a voyage – particularly the travel account – functions as an inspiration for
other journeys since ancient times‖ (JUNQUEIRA, 2011: 49);
5) the travel literature has not been immune to the professionalization of
writing‖ (JUNQUEIRA, 2011, page 51);
While the first point deals with the so-called encounter with the other, the next
three deal with the hard literary character of the account, of its function as writing5. The
fifth and final point deals with the question of the veracity of the travel report. From
the historian Mary Louise Pratt, Junqueira (2011) states that in the eighteenth century
it was custom to look for text professionals to tweak on the writings, and that in the
scientific journeys of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was common to invite
renowned scientists – even if absent from the journey – to contribute to the final report.
On this point, it should be mentioned that the notion of authorship is a recent
one (it is under Cervantes’ time, that is, in the seventeenth century, that the first
disputes occured regarding a work’a authorshi6), and so is the mixture of literary genres
present in the story. Junqueira says that the reports responded more to a yearning of
the reading public than to a criterion of veracity, somewhat anachronistic, and that
the important thing to consider was the truth that the story wanted to construct, not
its “veracity” (Junqueira, 2011, 53). Going deeper into this question, Junqueira draws
from the Frankish scholar Jan Borm that
genre, since it feeds on other types of discourses. The critic cites fiction
5 Here we suggest the rich discussion made by Vilém Flusser about writing in the book A Escrita – Há future
para a Escrita? [The Writing - Is There a Future for Writing?] in which the thinker presents that the code responsible
for the support and transmission of Western knowledge – frantic and hesitant (...) offers a deep glimpse into the
structure of thought (and behavior) that is put into lines, that is, put in a structure of thought in time, that runs
from the past towards the future, without stopping in the present “(FLUSSER, 2011, p.20)
6 It is said that Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) wrote the second part of his Don Quixote as response to an
imitator, who under the pseudonym of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda wrote the a second apocryphal part of the
adventures of the errant knight, in 1614, nine years after the publication of the first part by Cervantes.
63 (novels, novels, short stories, poems, etc.), autobiography (or self-writing),
scientific discourses, memorial texts, etc., among the genres commonly found
in travel accounts. (JUNQUEIRA, 2011, 55)
In the same direction, Elisa Schemes (2015) extends the discussion to the field of
literature, under the auspices of the British critic Terry Eagleton, and states that the
definition of a genre – and its consequent veracity – is as complex as the definition of
what is literature itself. The author asserts that it is not possible to identify a sufficient
set of elements which, put together in a text, would define “literature”, and Eagleton
says that “literature, in the sense of a collection of works of real and inalterable value,
distinguished by certain common properties, does not exist” (EAGLETON, 2006,
p.16). And, the Marxist literary critic continues, this definition of literature is not
only unstable, as it would not be in the origin of the text or its intrinsic elements, but
in the relation that its readers establish with it:
What matters may not be the origin of the text, but the way in which people
consider it. If they decide that it is literature, then it seems that the text will
be literature, despite what its author has thought. In this sense, we may think
of literature less as an inherent quality, or as a set of qualities evidenced by
certain types of writings, ranging from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf, than to
various ways in which people relate to writing (EAGLETON, 2006, page 13,
apud SCHEMES, 2015, p.8)
Given this notion on the limitation of a story’s authorship, and the mutable
character of the genre itself, one can understand that travel accounts, in their various
possibilities, are constructs of a view, and therefore located in specific contexts.
Thus, elements of conjuncture - political, economic, social and cultural issues
- permeate the production of any travel report and, inseparably, integrate its “form”
and “content” (SCHEMES, 2015). However, this does not mean reducing the work to
its context by treating literary texts as mere reflections of reality, nor does it make
history a mere background. Citing the Brazilian literary Antonio Cândido (1918-
2017), the author states that the understanding of a work embraces both external and
internal factors.
From this understanding, one can see the colonizing or colonized reports that
come to us, reproducing stereotypes of race, religion and society (PAULINO, 2016;
SCHEMES, 2015). With this apparatus, it is possible to confront the colonialist ideology
and say to the stories, fictional or not: “but these authors are not us” (TODOROV,
2006, p. 243, emphasis added).
What happens, however, when they are?
Travel Narratives
Being all travel report a kind of representation of the encounter with the other,
in a scenario formed by previous cultural conceptions and inclinations. However,
what happens in the opposite? When the story is a representation of the encounter
with the fellow, but in a distorted setting?
64 If the “true” travel account, from the reader’s point of view, narrates the discovery
of others (TODOROV, 2006, p. 240), how does one report that there are no others but
peers? In most travel accounts there are descriptions of savages from distant regions
or representatives of non-European civilizations, Arabs, Hindus, Chinese etc., viewed
by a prism of superiority or, at the very least, alienation. But how to analyze an travel
account that did not take place in a distant region, but in the territory itself, where
there is no barbarian, but the same language is shared? At first, there will be no travel
report, because there is no feeling of otherness in relation to the beings (and lands)
evoked (TODOROV, 2006, p. 240). However, if in the presence of peers and in the
familiar territory of the nation, the reflection is distorted, there is an uncomfortable
feeling that justifies and fundament a travel account: the unsettling.
In brief terms, the unsettling emerges strongly in the Western intellectual
tradition with the short 1919 essay of the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939), in which, from an introduction to the etymological analysis of the German
term Heimlich Starting from the most superficial meaning, of what is familiar, Freud
walks through an etymological (and epistemological) tree that leads to the concept of
what is protected, hence hidden, unconscious, and therefore potentially dangerous,
“so that heimlich receives the meaning that normally has unheimlich ”(FREUD, 2010,
p. 339). Turning the term completely (from intimate to ‘what is hidden’, which comes
back to the light), Freud borrows the rich definition from the German philosopher
Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854), who says that the Unheimlich “does something
entirely new, something unexpected to us. Unheimlich would be anything that should
remain secret, hidden, but appeared” (FREUD, 2010, p. 338).
The psychoanalyst proceeds with an analysis of the term as it appear in the
short story The Sandman and in the novel The Devil’s Elixirs both by German author
E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). And it is from the latter that Freud derives a sense of
the unsettling that serves us here: that of the double. The psychoanalyst says that
regarding the Unheimlich, it is remarkable the meanings of the
double, in all its gradations and developments; that is, the emergence of
people who, by their equal appearance, must be considered identical [...], so
that one also possesses the knowledge, feelings and experiences of the other;
the identification with another person, so as to misunderstand the Self or to
put another Self in its place, that is, a duplication, division and permutation of
the Self (FREUD, 2019, p. 351)
of self and identity, associated with a force that seems “The creation of a remote and
overcome time[...] terrible, just as gods become demons after the decline of their
religion” (FREUD, 2010, p. 353-354).
The disturbing thing about the encounter with the double is, therefore, precisely
this desecration, this sense that an ancient, terrifying force from another time takes
the exact same form as the one who sees it, becoming the Self, more powerful than
65 the Self, and even more, replacing (and erasing) the Self.
This is the starting point for the analyzes of this work, which are anchored in
the loss of identity when traveling within an unsettling [unheimlich] territory, based
on a dystopia. We have chosen the book On the Road (1957) by the American Jack
Kerouack (1922-1969), the American television series The Walking Dead (2010), based
on the homonymous comics.
Before starting the analysis, a brief explanation on the dystopian character pointed
out in the travels narrated here. Dystopia is usually understood as the specular opposite
of utopia (BERRIEL, 2005, p. 4). Utopia, in turn, is a “dream”, born of an abstraction –
the fruit of a unique social and cultural configuration, a Zeitgeist – that by approaching
the real and the illusory, approaches the various travel reports from distant lands, be
it realistic accounts such as the ‘Two Trips to Brazil’ (1557), by the German voyager
Hans Staden, or Hernán Cortéz’s ‘Letters’ (1524) to King Carlos V on the Conquest of
Mexico, to other far more fanciful ones, like ‘Vril: the Power of the Coming Race’ ( 1871)
by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Admiral Richard Byrd’s alleged travel journal7.
In this way, utopia reconfigures a society in historical, cultural and political ways,
with the aim of overcoming it, usually coinciding this reconfiguration with a faraway
journey, distancing itself from the “(insatiable) gap” present in today’s society (BERRIEL,
2005, p. 5). Conversely, dystopia broadens and formalizes the negative tendencies of the
present, consolidating them into a territory often geographically closed.
It is not, therefore, a dystopia is not merely an account of a terrible future,
such as George Orwell’s (1903-1950) novel 1984 (1949) or Alan Moore’s graphic novel
1988)8. Often, dystopia presents itself as an account of an individual trapped in his
own territory, who sees the structures of what he knew as normal crumble, whether
by an apocalyptic plague, or by a fatal upsurge in society around him.
In Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, dystopia appears in a conservative United States
of America, that pushes its outsiders out on a continual search for a place that would
welcome them, that wouldn’t bring frustration. In the narrative, restlessness, the
desire for something that is not yet known, or why, act as the steering wheel of
the characters’ journey. The characters are dystopian in essence, Sal Paradise – a
supposed alias of Kerouac himself – and Dean Moriarty – based on Neal Cassady
– are always in a distressing search for themselves, looking for the resolution of a
personal and shared nuisance that seems to have no solution, but that can be numbed
with drugs, including the road itself. To be on the road is to pursue the satisfaction
7 Without proven authorship, Byrd’s diary has no official publication date, but appears in different portals
maintained by ‘hollow earth’ theorists. Byrd’s diary has different versions. In one of them, the race is presented
as the ‘Arianni’. VENTURA, The Land Beyond the Pole - Richard Byrd’s secret diary. Available in http://www.
Travel Narratives
curaeascensao.com.br/curiosidades_arquivos/curiosidades74.html
8 At first it the intention was to work on two essentially dystopian works, but the subtlety and almost inverse
character of On the Road led to a change in choice. In the American Beat novel, the threat is so subtle and invisible
that the protagonist has nowhere to flee but into himself. American Dream is a prison without bars that almost
drives him crazy. In the case of the dystopias of The Walking Dead, The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
and The Road (Cormac McCarthy), each in their own way make the characters transform themselves to actively
combat the visible and named threat that haunts them. In the case of The Road, that were the first choice of this
paper, violence becomes part of the daily survival of a father in a world where a nameless cataclysm has destroyed
life and civilization on earth. As a price to pay, he gives up everything, his wife, his house and even of the names.
There is no more cities, nor directions, and even the great road that they follow, has no longer any identification.
At no time does he – as well as the narrator – refer to his son as a son, but eventually as the boy or the child.
66 of a strangely destructive desire, to pursue an obsession while seeking the comfort
of home. Home is the utopia imagined by the American consumer society in which
they themselves are inserted, while the road is the dystopia imagined by the desire
for something indefinite – perhaps even driven by consumerism itself – but which
demands self-destruction. Herein lies the greatest of concerns, expressly experienced
by Paradise and Moriarty: how to deny the house, in search for it?
Kerouac’s work is one of the exponents of the “beat generation” in literature, in
which the expression of the “I” becomes the literary object and method. In order to express
themselves freely, to tell their stories – often autobiographical – through the recording
on paper, language is not a mere instrument, it is also part of the expression of the “I”.
Interjections permeate Moriarty’s vocabulary, the excitement of discovery is present even in
the way dialogues are locked. The story is narrated in an engaging, inviting, even seductive
way, even though it permeates a universe far removed from most people. The reader may
also make his own interjections, he is now part of Sal’s daily life, who writes without any
formalities. Sal’s “I” is denuded in his accounts, but translated by the “I” of the reader, thus
fulfilling one more desire of the writing of the self, to be seen, albeit in another light.
Thus, the dystopia in which Paradise and Moriarty find themselves the pressure
of the American Dream, of having a home, a career, a job - a fixed place. Like the
1984 totalitarian government that surveys its individuals and forces them to stay
permanently in their places of residence and work, the 1950s United States, optimized
by the postwar economic boom on the inside, and tensioned by the Cold War on the
outside, also forces their individuals to take root and show loyalty.
So getting on the road is, for Paradise and Moriarty, the same as writing for
Winston, Orwell’s character. It is not just resistance, it is the only form of survival,
even if it leads to destruction. In the case of On the Road, the destruction is evident in
the numbness characteristic of the beat generation, which is repeated in the works of
William Burroughs (most famously Naked Lunch) and Charles Bukowski.
Across the US from San Francisco to New York, through Denver and Detroit,
the protagonists encounter the country of their birth, with its perfectly functional
structures – the jobs, the bus lines, the Christmas parties – but that they don’t find
familiar anymore. Everything gives them a feeling of strangeness, a nuisance, as if it
were all a fantasy, or a nightmare. At some point, waking up in a roadside hotel room,
Paradise has the feeling that “I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole
life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost”. (KEROUAC, 2001, p. 12)9
It can be thus seen that the disquiet comes from the characters themselves, not
feeling that they belong to that world. An inner unease, where Paradise feels he is a scam
in that world that is so terribly real. Unable to adapt in a domestically perfect society
Travel Narratives
that hides the dystopia of a financial and militarized system, the protagonists indulge
themselves into numbness, sometimes by drugs, sometimes through displacement.
Only in this way they can escape the overwhelming rationality that tries to convince
them that they do not belong to that world, that they are insignificant to the point of
being ghosts, shadows, failures.
9 Translated by authors.
67 Finally, Sal Paradise’s almost amateurish character is also a form of resistance,
when he as a writer abandons the desire for the great American social romance, a tradition
coming from names like F. Scott Fitzgerald. The flow of awareness is a struggle against
the totalitarian imposition of “good literature”, of “high culture”, that the beat movement
fought against. Moreover, this almost instant writing, linked much more to the experienced
emotion than to the rationalization of the event, refers to the travel reports, in which
the typical travel writer is not a professional writer; he is someone who takes
the pen almost against his will, and because he feels he is the bearer of an
exceptional message; once the message is delivered, he rushes back to his
normal non-writer existence (TODOROV, 2006, p. 240)
Regarding the American TV series The Walking Dead (NBC, 2010), inspired
by Robert Kirkman’s homonymous comic book, contrary to Kerouac’s work – and
even surprisingly – does not reinforce, through its protagonist Rick Grimes (Andrew
Lincoln), a drive for the unsettling of the unknown through self-destruction. Here,
dystopia presents itself not as a conservative society that attacks the protagonists’
ideals, but as a mortally perverse society (BERRIEL, 2005), which devours (literally!)
the protagonists.
When a zombie apocalypse of unexplained origin (after all, what difference
would it make to know the precise origin of such an uncontrollable evil), Sheriff Rick
Grimes wakes up in a hospital after a period of coma. Gradually, he realizes the utter
ruin of society as he knew it, and goes in search of the only thing left: survival. There
are no more government, police forces, or any other institution to guarantee the
normalcy of life. Rick moves into familiar territory, clueless of what awaits him on the
turn of the road. The unknown becomes the norm. The imperative.
Moreover, normality takes the form of the undead, hungry for human flesh.
And the frightened humans flee, hide, oppressed by the consolidation of a perverse
biological rule. So no matter how zombies may be the real threat to survival, they
are just a tool to the feeling of unsettlement that comes by living in that world. Upon
awakening, Rick sees that everything remains the same, but that it has been covered
by a thin, transparent layer of death, that gets thicker and thicker as he goes on. This
morbid resemblance to the reality he once knew with the terrifying world in which
he now lives, becomes evident at times.
There are two moments of peace in the pilgrimages of Rick and his group (which
includes his son, Carl, the only link he still has with the previous world): Woodbury
and the Prison. Woodbury is a small town built by survivors that has managed to
fortify itself and maintain a visually normal life. Shops, neighborhoods, restaurants
Travel Narratives
and the sense of peace that no longer exists. Moreover, it as have a government in the
form of a self-titled man, The Governor.
Over time, Rick realizes that Woodbury’s apparent calm is unsettling, and
beneath the cloak of a seemingly calm community lies a terrible force that not only
keeps everyone happy under a mixture of terror and selfishness, but also prevents
anyone from approaching and destroying that little Eden of ancient times.
68 The Governor is a tyrant who tortures and kills prisoners, and conducts human-
zombie fights as a form of entertainment to his people. Woodbury is, Rick realizes, a
specular distortion of what was once the American society, whose mask falls off thanks
to a greater threat: the untiring threat of the undead. Only facing the certainty that
nothing else is as it seems, is it that Rick can see behind Woodbury’s mask of perfection.
Moreover, it is only within the certainty that in a world whose reality has made
it impossible to take root as before, that a city like Woodbury cannot exist. You can
no longer create bonds and links, not as before, because it was precisely the logic
of before that staggered to the apocalypse in which they now live. After the fall,
there is no turning back to what once was, not without sweeping under the rug the
monstrosity that has taken over the world.
After the end of Woodbury, Rick and his band search for a place to hide safely,
trying to abandon nomadism and have some, even if momentary, peace. They find a
prison and enter it. This episode is significant because it demonstrates how everything
that was considered normal in a society, when gnawed by dystopia takes on another
meaning. Identities, powers and institutions change, and a new order is born.
A Prison, the ultimate symbol of separation between good and evil, with the good
outside and evil within, transforms itself totally into a place that shelters the good from
the bad. Once an abject and distant place, the prison becomes (albeit temporarily) a
proto-society in which there is hierarchy, division of labor and even agriculture.
Woodbury and the prison are therefore demonstrations of how there is no way to
keep the Self in confrontation with the ‘projection of the Self’ that emerges from dystopia.
Everything looks the same, but one must have the strength to admit that it is no more. As
an analogy, The Walking Dead – and, in its own way, the entire Beat generation – evoke
the reminder that what we live is a nuisance, a society whose structures and institutions
point to a terrible future that will crystallize in a terrible and fatal way.
Finally, the language used in the series also proves itself relevant. The escape
appears even in the way the characters refer to the undead. At no time, throughout
all seasons of the series, are these figures called zombies or even the undead, on the
contrary, they get nicknames that border on the bizarre, as “walkers”, “crawlers”,
“bodies”, “biters”, “hungry”, “stalkers”, among others. To avoid speaking a word is to
avoid facing reality. Kerouac, on the other hand, confronts the English language and its
nuances by means of dialogues between characters, inviting the reader to dive deeper
into American culture and its diverse society. Rick’s daily life makes the audience a
mere observer, while Paradise’s turn it to a voyeur, who could be part of that reality.
To move, to run away, are the only possible solutions. Whether through drugs
or physical displacement, escape is the only path within a territory whose structures
Travel Narratives
have become barriers and, moreover, boundaries, entanglements. Like a rat in a maze,
the individual runs inside a closed environment (where he is observed from above,
often sadistically), looking for the way out. For them, escape is the human expression
of an eternal attempt to escape loneliness, despair, perdition, insignificance, frailty,
and finally death: the greatest and most disturbing of human fears.
69 4. Final Thoughts: The Exit From Hell
Rick Grimes and Sal Paradise live everyday as if there was no guarantee of the
future, and perhaps there is not. Whatever the reason – zombies, wars, gangs, or
conservatism – the experience of daily life as a complete experience in itself ratifies
and disrupts American consumer society. The present in which they live is intolerable,
and the only way to realize it is to get rid of what makes it tolerable. Paradoxically, to
survive the society of the undead, Rick Grimes seeks a normal life, while Sal Paradise
mortify himself to live accordingly to the “normal” society.
It is only with this subterfuge that the characters are able to let go of the
disquieting Self that seems to reflect them in the mirror with a derisive smile, the
smile of that ancestral force known to be invincible, whose power is capable of
robbing even the very essence of the Self, withdrawing the forces of its identity,
confusing it, nullifying it.
Deconstructing consumer society’s terrible force, Sal and Paradise struggle
with what they can to escape the molds of their all absorbing dystopias. And as every
wanderer or traveler in an apocalyptic narrative does so well, they both undress
of all that is not essential. Keeping only their body clothes, a few cans of food and
some change, they both set out on a trip, taking with them only what is needed
for survival (The Walking Dead) or the enjoyment of their journey (On the Road).
Nevertheless, words are also part of the material framework of any traveler, from the
moment he or she transforms experiences into oral or written accounts. The word,
spoken or written, is rather a record, and it is at the same time the experience itself.
Through the instruments of memory and language, the narrative resignifies the gaze,
becoming the means and also the purpose of the lived adventure.
The United States, therefore, stage of adventure to the two narratives, proves
to be a dystopian country, presented under two different prisms. In The Walking
Dead this is quite evident through the analogy of the post apocalyptic scenario. As
for On the Road, at various times, dystopia is more subtle in the scornful stereotypes
with which Paradise and Moriarty qualify many of the characters with whom they
interact on the map. The indigenous people who do not understand the white
man’s culture, the personalityless and slightly hysterical women, etc. All of these
American Dream characters are as generic as The Walking Dead zombies. And so a
dystopia goes on, with a continual erasure of nuances, of obliterated identities, in
order to frame people in inhuman categories, like undead that only repeat a single
possible behavior.
Finally, both narratives are great metaphors of the American way of life.
Travel Narratives
Utopically, America is the land of freedom, of the American dream, of milk and
honey, but in practice it is the country of exile, segregation, Donald Trump and Steve
Bannon, where so many foreigners and even citizens migrate within its wide frontiers,
fleeing the disquieting and controversial forces that seem familiar, welcoming and
– why not? – democratic, but that only seek to imprison them in compartments
of consumption and silence. In this respect, even Dante’s and Virgil’s hell, with its
circles and different terrains, and passages to Paradise and Earth, are more plural
70 than Kerouac’s or Kirkman’s USA. As a sigh, therefore, are the words of the Italian
Orco, which reads:
Before Me Nothing Was Created That
Was Not Eternal, and I Last Eternally.
All Hope Abandon, You Who Enter Here
(Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Hell, III, 1-9)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eduardo Ritter1
Um jovem que pega a sua mochila e parte de carona para os lugares mais remotos
da América Latina. Um jornalista que compra um passaporte falso para conseguir
entrar no Tibete pelo Nepal. Um escritor que flana despreocupadamente pelas famosas
ruas de Nova York, Londres e Paris. Um aventureiro que escala o monte Kilimanjaro
e que atravessa o Alasca até o Oceano Ártico. Esse quebra-cabeça composto por
diversos viajantes que exploram os quatro continentes, quando montado, forma a
imagem de um único jornalista e escritor chamado Airton Ortiz.
Ortiz, nascido no município de Rio Pardo-RS em 1954, tornou-se um fenômeno do
jornalismo de viagem. Seu primeiro livro com esse tipo de narrativa foi publicado quando
ele tinha 45 anos, em 1999. Desde então, não parou mais, lançando uma nova obra do
gênero por ano. Até 2019, eram 19 livros, divididos entre romances ficcionais, crônicas e
livros-reportagem. Além da obra, o que torna Ortiz um caso raro no jornalismo literário
de viagem é o fato de ele trabalhar exclusivamente com esse tipo de produção. Ao
contrário da maioria dos jornalistas literários, que escrevem seus livros nos momentos
de folga do trabalho cotidiano na redação, Ortiz vive de literatura.
Destarte, o presente texto faz uma apresentação e análise da obra de Airton
Ortiz. Inicialmente vale ressaltar que o gênero sempre chamou a atenção, não só
dos jornalistas, que querem contar as suas experiências em terras estrangeiras, mas
também do público. Não é a toa que a lista de repórteres e escritores famosos ao redor
do globo que consagraram esse tipo de narrativa é extensa: Hunter Thompson, Ernest
Hemingway, George Orwell, Erico Verissimo, Euclides da Cunha, Juremir Machado
da Silva, Bruce Chatwin, Tiziano Terzani e muitos outros. Esse estilo milenar, que
começa com Homero no século VIII a.C., e segue com Marco Polo, Camões e Pero
Narrativas de Viagem
Vaz de Caminha, até se chegar aos jornalistas contemporâneos, é um estilo que está
em prática há muito tempo na literatura. O foco neste texto, no entanto, é a obra de
Airton Ortiz, que se dedica exclusivamente ao gênero.
Para tanto, metodologicamente, a pesquisa se caracteriza por ser bibliográfica,
pois as perguntas estão direcionadas para os autores, ou seja, ela ocorre quando
1 Professor adjunto do curso de Jornalismo do Centro de Letras e Comunicação da Universidade Federal de Pe-
lotas (UFPEL). É jornalista e doutor em Comunicação Social pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande
do Sul (PUCRS) com bolsa PDSE/Capes na New York University (NYU). Atuou como jornalista em emissoras de
rádio, jornais e agências de notícia do Rio Grande do Sul. rittergaucho@hotmail.com
72 “o desejo é formular e encontrar respostas em fontes bibliográficas do campo da
educação e outros campos do saber” (TEIXEIRA, 2005, p.118). Além disso, optou-se
pela Análise de Conteúdo (AC), de Bardin (2011) e Herscovitz (2007). Inicialmente vale
lembrar que a AC é um método consagrado na área das Ciências Sociais e Humanas
que se caracteriza pela utilização de inúmeras técnicas de pesquisa para investigar
fenômenos simbólicos. “A análise de conteúdo descreve com objetividade e precisão o
que era dito sobre um determinado tema, num determinado lugar e num determinado
espaço” (HERSCOVITZ, 2007, p. 123).
Dessa forma, o capítulo divide-se em três partes principais. Inicialmente é feita
uma recuperação sobre alguns conceitos de narrativas de viagem, especialmente no
jornalismo. Posteriormente são apresentadas a vida e obra de Ortiz, elucidando ao leitor
quem é esse jornalista que consegue se dedicar exclusivamente ao gênero. Por fim, é feita
a classificação e análise da obra de Ortiz. Para tanto, os 19 livros do autor foram divididos
em três categorias: a) crônica; b) livro-reportagem; e c) narrativa de ficção.
O segundo tipo de narrativa apresentada nos livros de Ortiz é a crônica. São sete
livros desse gênero. Conforme Marques de Melo (1994), o termo crônica, no Brasil,
Narrativas de Viagem
tempos diferentes e em épocas diferentes11”. A conclusão foi que, na vida real, o autor
viveu diversas das experiências relatadas anteriormente por ele mesmo na ficção.
“Muitas das coisas que aconteceram durante a viagem já estavam no Gringo”, afirma.
Nas duas obras de ficção, Ortiz apresenta uma proposta de viagem interior
tendo como pretexto viagens exteriores realizadas pelos personagens. Para tanto,
mais uma vez, a narrativa aparece como uma arte, pois na literatura ficcional, assim
9 Disponível em: http://orebate-eduardoritter.blogspot.com/2019/05/. Acesso em 19 de maio de 2019.
10 Ibidem
11 Ibidem
82 como no jornalismo, durante a leitura o público partilha as visões de mundo expostas
pelos narradores de tais textos.
O desembarque
Após viajar pela obra de Airton Ortiz, é possível realizar esse desembarque
parcial, pois como a literatura do jornalista-escritor continua sendo produzida, ainda
acontecerão muitos embarques e desembarques. Conforme ressaltado, a obra de Ortiz
é bastante variada e o projeto literário do autor o coloca, possivelmente, como o
principal escritor de narrativas de viagens do Brasil contemporâneo. Em um cenário
em que outros autores, como Dodô Azevedo, Erico Verissimo, Flavio Alcaraz Gomes,
David Coimbra e muitos outros publicaram e publicam livros de viagem que nascem
a partir da cobertura feita para veículos de comunicação ou de viagens esporádicas,
Airton Ortiz assumiu a produção jornalística de narrativas de viagem não só como um
projeto profissional, mas também uma filosofia de vida.
Destarte, os três tipos de textos produzidos (livro-reportagem, crônica e narrativa
de ficção) também mostram o conhecimento do autor sobre as técnicas de apuração,
de escrita e de criação literária, que apresenta um amplo repertório para escrever as
suas 19 obras de narrativas de viagem, sem contar as contribuições para coletâneas.
São 19 obras únicas, em que os estilos variam, bem como as experiências relatadas
pelo autor. Por mais que viaje pelo mundo há décadas, a cada nova viagem sempre
há uma surpresa, mesmo quando o destino são lugares turísticos mundialmente
consagrados, como Nova York ou Paris. Desta forma, encerra-se o presente capítulo
deste livro ressaltando que há diversas outras possibilidades de enfoque acadêmico
para a pesquisa e análise da obra de Ortiz, e que a apresentada é apenas uma delas.
Portanto, esse desembarque é apenas uma parada rumo a um destino ainda a ser
desvendado por este e outros pesquisadores.
REFERÊNCIAS
Eduardo Ritter
A young man picking up his backpack and hitchhiking to the most remote
places in Latin America. A journalist who buys a fake passport to get into Tibet by
Nepal. A writer who walks carelessly on the famous streets of New York, London
and Paris. An adventurer who climbs Mount Kilimanjaro and traverses Alaska to the
Arctic Ocean. This jigsaw puzzle composed of several travelers exploring the four
continents, when assembled, forms the image of a single journalist and writer named
Airton Ortiz.
Ortiz, born in the municipality of Rio Pardo-RS in 1954, has become a
phenomenon of travel journalism. His first book with this kind of narrative was
published when he was 45 years old, in 1999. Since then, it has not stopped, launching
a new book of its kind every year. By 2019, there were 19 books, divided between
fictional novels, chronicles and book-reports. Besides the work, what makes Ortiz a
rare case in literary travel journalism is the fact that he works exclusively with this
type of production. Unlike most literary journalists, who write their books in the
moments of daily work, Ortiz lives with literature.
Thus, the present text makes a presentation and analysis of the work of
Airton Ortiz. Initially it is worth mentioning that the genre has always attracted the
attention, not only of the journalists, who want to tell their experiences in foreign
lands, but also of the public. It is no wonder that the list of famous reporters and
writers around the globe who have consecrated this type of narrative is extensive:
Hunter Thompson, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Erico Verissimo, Euclides da
Cunha, Juremir Machado da Silva, Bruce Chatwin, Tiziano Terzani, among others.
This millennial style, which begins with Homero in the 8th century BC, and follows
with Marco Polo, Camões and Pero Vaz de Caminha, until arriving at contemporary
journalists, form a style that has been practiced for a long time in literature. The
focus in this paper, however, is the work of Airton Ortiz, who dedicates himself
Travel Narratives
which History cares is the past, while the reality that is being objectified in Journalism
is that of the present. And when did the present become past? It is at this point that
journalism becomes a historical document as a source of research. The same is true of
journalistic travel narratives.
It is still worth mentioning that travel narrative of LJ differs from fictional works in
which his characters cross borders, as for example in the classic Don Quixote by Miguel
de Cervantes. As in history, the text, to be considered journalistic, must refer to the real,
87 to the true, to what happened. On journalistic norms, it is emphasized that: “an implicit
norm, and always present in the speech act, is the principle of veracity” (GOMES, 2011,
p.9). Of course, nothing prevents the use of techniques from literature to deal with real
events, as well as the narrative technique of creating scenes or fictional characters that
can be properly identified by the reader as an act of literary creation.
Once these conceptual notes have been made, we must highlight the distinction
of the career of Airton Ortiz, who seeks to escape from the focus given daily by
the newsrooms when referring distant regions. “Every day, vehicles despise the
accompaniment of good stories” (BELO, 2006, p.14).
Another important point of LJ’s travel books is that this genre allows the writer
not only to tell but to share lived experiences with his readers. Moreover, the evidence
of this narrative practice can not be denied from the earliest days of humanity, such
as are brought in all kinds of texts:
From the biblical texts, including the Old Testament, the travel narratives are
present in the universal literature. From Moisés crossing the Red Sea, to the
epics of Homero, there are characters who travel through cities, countries
and, years later, continents. From Marco Polo to Pero Lopes de Sousa, from
Erico Verissimo to the contemporary Airton Ortiz (RITTER, 2016, p.166).
In LJ’s travel narrative, if the reporter has written and mastered words as his or
her main weapons, the journalist who chooses to write and describe his experiences
as a traveler, in addition to writing and words, is also the possessor of emotions arising
in the psychic, caused by the physical fragmentations suffered by the geographic
alterations - historical-cultural elements. Here is the importance of the ongoing
construction of what is now called Literary Journey Journalism.
During his childhood, Airton Ortiz was an assiduous radio listener. Thus, the
future journalist initially traveled in the waves of the AM broadcasters, following the
great reports of the years 1960 and 1970. “was raised in the countryside, in the interior
of the municipality of Rio Pardo, and at that time the world came to me by the radio
[...]. And that aroused my curiosity, to know those places that the guys talked about”,
conta em reportagem produzida pelo repórter Clafe Rodrigues1, da Globo News.
Ortiz2 points out that after living in the municipality of Candelária-RS, still
in infancy, he and his family moved to Cachoeira do Sul-RS. It was there that Ortiz
had his first contacts with journalism and literature. First, in 1968, when still in
Travel Narratives
school he won his first literary prize writing about the friendship between Brazil
and Portugal. Shortly afterwards, he became inspired by speakers who spoke about
the world joining the profession, initially at Rádio Cachoeira. The connection with
journalism got stronger when he began collaborating in the sports editor of Jornal
do Povo, working as a reporter. In 1975, he moved to Porto Alegre where he would
1 Avaiable: https://globosatplay.globo.com/globonews/v/7296220/. Accessed on April 4, 2019..
2 Avaiable: http://orebate-eduardoritter.blogspot.com/2019/05/. Accessed on May 19, 2019.
88 pursue a dream of being a journalist, graduating in Journalism from the Pontifical
Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), after all Ortiz was aware that the
best way to know the world was investing in the career of reporter. “I came to the
conclusion that the only way I had to travel and get to know those places was if I were
a journalist and if someone paid me to travel3”.
Later, Ortiz received a postgraduate degree in Business Administration from
the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), in addition to deepening his
knowledge in other languages, such as English and Spanish. At that time he had
another remarkable experience working on Radio Farroupilha on the team of Flávio
Alcaraz Gomes, another reporter who published travel books as “A reporter in China”,
“Die for Israel” and “I saw: a reporter’s itineraries”.
In the print media, Ortiz founded and edited the newspaper called Tchê!, which
had as its theme the local culture, circulating in Rio Grande do Sul until the first
half of the 1980s. During this period, he also founded and created the publishing
company Tchê! published only local authors. In 1997, however, the journalist closed
the publisher’s activities to act as a reporter and freelance photographer.
Thus, in 1999, Ortiz published his first book with travel narratives: “Adventure at
the top of Africa”. From then on, he began to publish a book per year. It was from this that
Ortiz started to produce his Adventure Journalism. The author presents the definition for
this type of journalism: “It is a mixture of emotion and information. But the main idea is
to take my reader to those places where I’m as if he’s traveling with me4”.
Since then, Ortiz became a reference in the production of travel narratives in Brazil,
becoming the patron of several book fairs and literary journeys, such as the Book Fair of
Porto Alegre in 2014. However, how he can dedicate yourself exclusively to the production
of these books? Ortiz reveals that it is extremely necessary to have a long-term project
because a writer’s career is not built quickly and immediately, as well as public approval
and financial return. “It takes patience, dedication and conviction that this is what you
want5”. He reveals that the copyrighted projects are sponsored by the Zaffari supermarket
and hypermarket chain, headquartered in Rio Grande do Sul. “Since the first trip I made to
produce the first book, the trip was paid by Zaffari and since then all trips are sponsored
by Zaffari. It’s advertising money from them and they have a good return from it”, he
says. Ortiz traveled to more than 80 countries and published 19 travel narratives, as well
as children’s books and contributions to anthologies.
Following this brief presentation about the journalist and writer Airton Ortiz,
the 19 works with travel narratives produced are mentioned and categorized, taking
into account their characteristics.
Travel Narratives
In order to classify and analyze the works of Ortiz it is necessary to start with
the JL principle indicated by Vilas Boas (2008), who considers three fundamental
aspects to study this journalistic-literary genre. The former points out that narrating
3 Avaiable: https://globosatplay.globo.com/globonews/v/7296220/. Accessed on April 4, 2019.
4 Ibidem
5 Avaiable: http://orebate-eduardoritter.blogspot.com/2019/05/. Accessed on May 19, 2019.
89 is an organized and analytical art. “The narrative seems to be only a transphrasic
connotative system, a mythology, among the many that can be mixed to transform a
discourse” (BARTHES, 2009, p.14). The second is concerned with the possible readings
of a narrative, while the third addresses questions about the construction of the text.
To organize these three aspects, we chose to elaborate categories through Content
Analysis. The categorization aims, according to Bardin (2011), to provide a simplified
representation of the gross results. From this representation is made the interpretation
and analysis of the data.
Thus, Airton Ortiz’s work was divided into three broad categories: chronicles,
literary reportage, and fiction narratives. Such classification can be seen in the table
below:
The category that most appears in Ortiz’s work is the literary reportage as book.
Travel Narratives
The whole effort was then rewarded. From the summit of Kilimanjaro, 2,000
meters above cloud level, behind the black silhouette of Mauenzi peak, the sun
began to slowly rise. I instinctively shifted my sunglasses - even with degree -
because the ultraviolet radiation at that height, magnified by the reflection in
the ice, could blind me in a few minutes (ORTIZ, 1999, 201).
The second book of the genre was On Everest Road, published in 2000 and
relaunched in 2007. In this narrative, the journalist approaches his climbs in the
Himalayan ridge in Nepal. The work begins by making a historical contextualization
about the region explored. “In 1972, at the age of 22, Prithvi Narayan Shah was
crowned ruler of Gorkha, a small kingdom of Mongolian origin embedded in northern
India” (ORTIZ, 2007b, p. 28). The study of local history and culture is another striking
feature of Ortiz’s text.
Later, in 2001, it was released Paths through Tibet, which was published in an
updated edition in 2017. It is a breathtaking narrative in which Ortiz uses resources
from journalism and literature to tell the adventure that involves the purchase of false
document to enter Tibet by Nepal, because China did not issue a visa for journalists.
The challenges of getting in touch with the local culture is one of the highlights of
the work. In addition, the description of a region of difficult access gives the tone of
reportage to the narrative, as it is a place rarely visited by journalists. “There was no
doubt: we were in a country occupied by a foreign army. It seemed to be the very
message the Chinese wanted to make explicit to the local population “(ORTIZ, 2017,
p.219). We find, as in all of the author’s work, the fulfillment of one of the most
important functions of the journalist-narrator:
Travel Narratives
The second type of narrative presented in Ortiz’s books is the chronicle. There
are seven books of this genre. According to Marques de Melo (1994), the term chronic
in Brazil has a different meaning from that acquired in other countries. While in the
world journalism, in general, the chronicle is linked to the chronological account, of
historical narration, or even of reporting, in Brazil is related to a journalistic-literary
narrative linked to the actuality and daily life. “The chronicler who knows how to act
as poetic consciousness of the present is one that keeps the interest of his audience
alive and turns the chronicle into something desired by the readers” (MARQUES DE
MELO, 1994, p.155).
In the Chronicle books, Ortiz walks through seven different cities. He reveals
that it brings together all possible material to write about the cities visited. “I note
everything that happens during the trip, photo shoot, tax receipt collection, ticket
collection, ticket, bus ticket, anyway, all the material that is generated during the trip
I go collecting and storing7”.
To do so, the journalist behaves like an authentic flânuer, who walks aimlessly
through the cities. According to Frandoloso (2017, p. 121) the term emerges in the
nineteenth century to designate “a new urban experience, provided by the unbridled
growth of the great European cities”. This figure walks the streets idly searching for
the meanings of modernity. It is what Ortiz does in his travels around the world in
search of the best experience, reported in his chronicles. In general, the chapters
Travel Narratives
of these works are generally chronic about tourist spots, historic places, streets,
neighborhoods or spaces not known to the general public.
The first book in this format was Havana, first published in 2010 and updated
in a version published in 2017, when the author returned to Cuba to cover the death
of Fidel Castro in 2016. The chronicles reveal a Havana difficult to be known by the
tourist traditional. One example is Ortiz’s search for the Cuban currency, which
7 Avaiable: https://globosatplay.globo.com/globonews/v/7296220/. Accessed on April 4, 2019.
93 only circulates among the island’s residents. In addition, as in the other books, Ortiz
usually runs away from groups full of tourists, just to capture the local routine. In
Havana, after being in town for a long time, he finally manages to rent a room in a
house. Living among the natives, he captures the peculiarities of culture. “When we
wanted to criticize the government, what we did often, we spoke softly. The downstairs
neighbor was president of the Defense Committee of the Revolution in that court, he
could hear us “(ORTIZ, 2017, p.238). For each chapter of the reissued version there is
a note telling the situation of the country in 2016.
In 2011 it was Airton’s turn to publish Jerusalem. Like the other works, each
chapter is a chronicle about some particularity of the city or region, be it a place, a
custom, a street or a character. An example is when he tells about the tomb of King
David. “In a battle in the valley of Elah, thirty miles south-west of Jerusalem, when the
struggle seemed almost lost, the shorn David, a shepherd of the tribe of Judah, pulls
out a sling and strikes Goliath on the forehead” (ORTIZ, 2011, 49). The following year,
the journalist goes to another historic city: Athens. Published in 2013, there is in the
narrative a mixture between the description of historical places, the contextualization
of the history and the author’s personal experiences, which draws on one of the most
frequent characteristics of the Brazilian chronicle: the humor.
In the store, I did not stop at the details of the hat. I just put it on and went to
the mirror to see if it had ever looked beautiful as the saleswoman had assured
me. And she even had a good sense of reason. I’m serious, because I’m not
narcissistic. Poor Narcissus died admiring his reflection in the water, which I
would not do. Today there are mirrors.
But w.t.f? It’s easy to deduce, right? Popular Republic of China. Or, as we
know it in Portuguese: República Popular da China. Or rather: made in China.
I almost came back in the dump to sculpt the saleswoman. (ORTIZ, 2013, p.72).
In Paris, launched in 2014, Ortiz keeps the narrative light, descriptive, reflective,
historically contextualized and humorous. In addition, he gives some guidance to
potential travelers. An example is when the author gives tips to avoid the dangers
of crossing the road to go the Arc de Triomphe. “Knowledge and information help
not only those who are traveling, but also those who wish to make life a great and
beautiful adventure. Uninformed tourists are at risk of losing the best of the trip, if
not their own life “(ORTIZ, 2014, p.75).
The last three books of this genre also reveal streets, places and people from
historic and cosmopolitan cities: New York, London and Rome. Again there is the
mix between wandering, aimless walks and tips. “I even have one suggestion: have
a drink in the R Lounge, the Renaissance Hotel’s bar, while enjoying the neon show
Travel Narratives
below. It is not cheap. You, I do not know, but the two creators of Times Square
deserve it “(ORTIZ, 2015, p.164). In addition, in every famous or historical place, Ortiz
also recovers curiosities. An example is when you approach Soho in London. “When
the prostitutes who served the Square Mile were forced to leave the streets of the
glamorous City, they migrated to Soho and went to serve customers in cubicles with
a showcase for the sidewalk, as it still exists in Amsterdam” (ORTIZ, 2016) , p.144).
94 Another characteristic common in the chronicles of Ortiz is the description
of the architecture of the places. This is quite common in Rome, after all, historical
monuments are everywhere. About the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, he writes:
“The interior is very beautiful, almost a museum, both as regards art and the history
of popes. The beauty parade begins on the ground: the floor of the nave is a fine
example of cosmatesque of the twelfth century “(ORTIZ, 2018, p.101).
Thus, we can point out some narrative features of Ortiz's chronicles, among
them: 1) first-person narrative; 2) description of places, regions and people; 3)
historical contextualization of each place; 4) report of the author's real experiences
in contact with other people; 5) humor; 6) participation in the daily life of each
city; 7) shorter chapters than in reportage books; 8) colloquial language; 9) tips for
travelers; 10) an account of the moment that each country lives during the trip, that
is, there is a certain factuality in the narrative, as for example in the book Havana,
where many things had already changed between 2010 and 2016.
One of the literary techniques used by Ortiz in this work is called “the reader
in the text”, presented by Lodge (2011). As the title of the work indicates, there are
several texts that are exposed as letters written to third parties, in which case, it
turns the reader into a narratary. “The narratary is any evocation or substitute for
the reader of the novel within the text itself” (LODGE, 2011). This is clear in several
passages, as in the extract from the text, set out below:
8 Avaiable: http://orebate-eduardoritter.blogspot.com/2019/05/. Accessed on May 19, 2019.
95 You’re missing out on this expedition. We faced a great tragedy: my friend Bob
died in an accident in the Icefall. I spent horrible days, your friendship would
have comforted me. I needed to talk to someone who spoke Portuguese. My
pain, on its subtlest side, can not be manifested in another language (ORTIZ,
2008, p.153).
The dramatic tone permeates the whole narrative, using the literary and
journalistic technique of arousing curiosity to catch the attention of the reader.
Already in Gringo, the character makes a backpack through Latin America, going
through places previously visited by the journalist-writer. “All of Gringo’s locations
are known by me. This is my personal project of my literary work: my books will
only happen in places I know, even those of fiction”. Thus, the character lives an
adventure that involves romance, humor, experiences, contact with natives and other
backpackers, uncertainties and learning. Ortiz points out that Gringo’s difference
from the point of view of production is that the plot was created from several places
visited by him, at different times, but after the completion of the work he did exactly
the same script presented in the novel, as a way of verifying the verisimilitude
between fiction and reality. “I wanted to see if there were major changes between the
story I imagined in those places I went through at different times9”. The conclusion
was that, in real life, the author lived several of the experiences previously reported
by himself in fiction. “Many of the things that happened during the trip were already
in Gringo,” he says..
In the two works of fiction, Ortiz presents a proposal of interior travel having
as a pretext external travels carried out by the characters. For this, once again, the
narrative appears as an art, because in fiction literature, as in journalism, during the
reading the public shares the visions of the world exposed by the narrators.
The landing
After traveling through the work of Airton Ortiz, it is possible to make this
partial landing, because as the literature of the journalist-writer continues to be
produced, there will still be many shipments and landings. As pointed out, Ortiz’s
work is quite varied and the author’s literary project places him, possibly, as the
leading writer of travel narratives in contemporary Brazil. In a scenario in which
other authors, such as Dodô Azevedo, Erico Verissimo, Flavio Alcaraz Gomes, David
Coimbra and many others have published travel books that are born from the cover
made for vehicles of communication or of sporadic trips, Airton Ortiz assumed the
journalistic production of travel narratives not only as a professional project, but
Travel Narratives
REFERENCES
1 Doutora e mestre em Geografia, na área de concentração: Organização do Espaço, pelo Programa de Pós-
-Graduação em Geografia da UFMG. Bacharel em Turismo pela UFMG.
99 Na contemporaneidade, mudanças reverberam nas características da crônica
jornalística vinculada a certa tradição de cronistas brasileiros que se firmou na
segunda metade do século XX — como, por exemplo, Rubem Braga, Clarice Lispector,
Paulo Mendes Campos. Observa-se intensa transformação nas condições mediáticas
resultantes de avanços tecnológicos que redimensionaram as características dos
meios de comunicação de massa e, por consequência, do espaço destinado à crônica.
A presença massiva da informação afasta o espaço anteriormente reservado à
subjetividade como caminho expressivo para uma narrativa comprometida com
outra forma de comunicação com o público. A crônica jornalística sofre impactos
cuja compreensão está em processo, dada a velocidade com a qual a internet e os
meios digitais transformam a lógica orientadora das relações comunicacionais entre
imprensa e sociedade. O que se pode dizer é que a crônica não é mais a mesma. O que
dizer sobre a crônica de viagem?
A crônica, como outros gêneros narrativos, está relacionada à literatura híbrida
reconhecida como de viagem, que reúne textos de diversos tipos — cartas, relatórios,
diários, entrevistas, romances, monografias etnográficas, cadernos de anotações
pessoais, guias turísticos, romances, dentre outros. Pode ser compreendida com uma
das modalidades narrativas que representam a viagem como modo de conhecer e
de relatar espaços e lugares longínquos, remotos ou compreendidos como exóticos.
As crônicas, que circularam junto a outros textos difundidos no ápice da literatura
de viagem, entre os séculos XVI e XIX (CRISTÓVÃO, 1999), contribuíram para
a criação e a difusão de um imaginário das viagens cuja dinamização se deu com
grande intensidade como os avanços nos meios de comunicação e transportes e a
popularização das viagens turísticas. Uma transformação profunda redimensionou
o teor testemunhal em textos do tipo crônica de viagem. A difusão de imagens,
informações sobre lugares e culturas foi intensificada, retirando, ou relativizando, a
exclusividade dos relatos até então recepcionados e produzidos majoriariamente sob
a aura da verdade e como testemunhos autênticos.
Nos dias atuais, os textos narrativos do tipo crônica centrados no tema viagem
sofrem uma recolocação, tanto com relação à função de autenticidade e descrição
como herança das crônicas da Era dos Descobrimentos e época do ápice da literatura
de viagem, quanto como referência de viagens raras, em função da popularização do
turismo (CASTRO, 2013). Os avanços tecnológicos impactaram a criação e difusão
de imagens, informações e conhecimentos relacionados aos espaços naturais, às
diversas culturas e aos pontos de atração turística em função da singularidade que
representam como patrimônio da humanidade, ou por outras razões, e, também,
Narrativas de Viagem
[…] filha do jornal e da era da máquina, onde tudo acaba tão depressa. Ela não
foi feita originalmente para o livro, mas para essa publicação efêmera que se
compra num dia e no dia seguinte é usada para embrulhar um par de sapatos ou
forrar o chão da cozinha. Por se abrigar nesse veículo transitório, o seu intuito
não é o dos escritores que pensam em “ficar”, isto é, permanecer na lembrança
e na admiração da posteridade; e a sua perspectiva não é a dos que escrevem do
alto da montanha, mas do simples rés-do-chão. (CANDIDO, 2003, p. 89)
2 A diversidade é considerável e, além dos consagrados guias de viagem, como Michelin e Quatro Rodas, sobressa-
Narrativas de Viagem
em livros do tipo manual. Alguns exemplos: Viajante chic: dicas de viagem por Glória Kalil; Confissões de um turista
profissional: tudo o que você queria saber sobre viagens e que os guias jamais vão contar; Sozinha mundo afora: dicas
para sair pelo mundo em sua própria companhia, escrito por Mari Campos. São publicações numerosas vendidas ao
lado de livros no estilo jornalismo de viagem, como, por exemplo, 300 dias de bicicleta: 22 mil km de emoções pelas
Américas, escrito por Sven Schmid, e outros em tom memorialista como Viagens para sempre serem lembradas.
3 Outros títulos aproximam-se mais do ensaio e das experimentações, como Uma semana no aeroporto, do filó-
sofo e escritor Alain de Botton. O Diário de viagem, de Albert Camus, é um exemplo de texto de viagem de outras
épocas que pode ser eventualmente encontrado no mercado editorial contemporâneo. Já a Odisseia, de Homero,
por exemplo, é um título republicado frequentemente.
4 Os maiores jornais do Brasil possuem cadernos de turismo distribuídos de modo diverso na versão impressa e,
na versão virtual, distribuídos em seções. Por exemplo: O Globo: Boa viagem; Folha de São Paulo: Folha Turismo;
jornal O Tempo: O Tempo Turismo; Estadão: Viagem. Com relação às revistas especializadas, é possível citar Via-
gem e Turismo, publicada pela Editora Abril.
104 apresentam-se como viajantes experimentados, mas raramente produzem reflexões
afastadas do discurso pragmático.
Viaje na viagem, de Ricardo Freire5, um dos precursores do movimento blogueiro
na modalidade viagem no Brasil (SANTOS, 2014), é um site interconectado com um
blog voltado a questões práticas:
Sempre que organizamos uma viagem, buscamos informações que nos ajudem
a viajar melhor, a curtir totalmente o destino e a não cair em roubadas. Dicas
locais, off-turísticas e eventos especiais também fazem parte, usualmente, dos
tópicos que procuramos nessa fase de planejamento […] ( FREIRE, 2017)
pessoa, já que o olhar do cronista seria como o filtro capaz de captar o detalhe e, a
partir dele, falar sobre o mundo percorrido (percursos, aspectos culturais, estranhezas,
curiosidades), ao mesmo tempo em que fala de si próprio, é rara em meios de
comunicação convencionais (jornais e revistas impressos) e eletrônicos (sites, blogs).
5 Blog “Viaje na viagem”. Desenvolvido por Ricardo Freire. Copyright © 2017 Organizações Bóia Conteúdo Di-
gital. Apresenta dicas e informações sobre viagens. Disponível em: <https://www.viajenaviagem.com/>. Acesso
em: 15 maio. 2019.
6 Comunidade “Rede Brasileira de Blogueiros de Viagem – RBBV”. Desenvolvido por Rede Brasileira de Bloguei-
ros de Viagem – RBBV. Copyright © 2017 Rede Brasileira de Blogueiros de Viagem – RBBV. Apresenta publicações
de blogueiros de viagem associados. Disponível em: <http://www.rbbv.com.br/
105 A despretensão na narração que dosaria lirismo com o humor para transformar o
detalhe em poesia, como reflete Marcelo Moutinho7 sobre a crônica brasileira, é cada
vez mais rara. Contudo, a criação de relatos de viagem, de características semelhantes à
crônica, em redes sociais, produzidos com interesses não necessariamente comerciais,
mas artísticos, culturais e sociais são um sinal de vitalidade desse tipo de representação.
A produção informal e criativa de textos na internet é compreendida como instância
profícua de crônicas na atualidade, tal como reflete Marcelo Moutinho8.
O contexto das viagens contemporâneas indica outras relações entre autor e
leitor que divergem do tempo em que o narrador-viajante relatava territórios e culturas
desconhecidos. Hoje, o fazer do cronista é de outra condição, pois se baseia em um
imaginário dinâmico ligado às viagens. César Guimarães (1997) discute mudanças na
função do espaço em narrativas de viagem contemporâneas e destaca duas tendências:
narrativas em que a percepção espacial é integrada à experiência de viagem como
algo passível de constituir um sentido mais amplo; obras em que a questão espacial é
suprimida e a construção de sentido para a viagem não representa importância crucial9.
“A viagem como tempo de aprendizagem para compreender o mundo, este sonho,
já não é para nós hoje pensável” (WIM WENDERS, apud GUIMARÃES, 1997) — a
reflexão de Wim Wenders refere-se à impossibilidade da experiência ser sintetizada
por um narrador e, consequentemente, transmitida, como em outros momentos tenha
sido possível ou, ao menos, sonhado. Essa dificuldade de constituir sentido para a
experiência estaria relacionada ao excesso de imagens, fragmentação da experiência
de mundo, cotidiano urbano de uma sociedade em que os mecanismos de controle são
disseminados, que é informatizada, burocratizada, racionalizada.
É interessante pensar a reflexão trazida por Giorgio Agamben (2008), que se
refere à impossibilidade do homem moderno em traduzir em experiência. De acordo
com o autor, estaríamos cada vez menos hábeis em traduzir em experiência, ou seja,
em olhar de modo generoso as vivências de maneira a buscar uma elaboração para
elas, de transformar a “mixórdia de eventos” (AGAMBEN, 2008, p. 21) em algo que
tenha um sentido que transcende o óbvio. O viajante, como indivíduo contemporâneo,
estaria limitado na possibilidade de construir um saber em relação às suas vivências
e, consequentemente, vivendo uma forte ameaça de inconsciência sobre o que a
experiência particular e coletiva representa.
Quando Walter Benjamin (1987, p.114) sugeriu que “as ações da experiência
estão em baixa”, ou que estamos “mais pobres em experiências”, ele referiu-
se também a certa ameaça com relação à diversidade de pensamentos, modos de
Narrativas de Viagem
7 PORTAL EBC – TV BRASIL. Crônicas do cotidiano com Marcelo Coutinho. EBC/TV Brasil, 23 maio 2017. Dis-
ponível em: <http://tvbrasil.ebc.com.br/marcelo-moutinho-fala-sobre-cronicas-do-cotidiano-no-trilha-de-letras>.
Acesso em: 9 out. 2017.
8 PORTAL EBC – TV BRASIL. Crônicas do cotidiano com Marcelo Coutinho. EBC/TV Brasil, 23 maio 2017. Dis-
ponível em: <http://tvbrasil.ebc.com.br/marcelo-moutinho-fala-sobre-cronicas-do-cotidiano-no-trilha-de-letras>.
Acesso em: 9 out. 2017.
9 O livro Passaporte, de Fernando Bonassi, é uma narrativa de viagem marcada pela concisão e pela aceleração na
temporalidade da narração e pela fragmentação da identidade do narrador. Tal fragmentação aponta para o que sugere
César Guimarães, com relação à separação de atividades antigamente vinculadas: o olhar, a experiência e a narração.
106 mundial contaminou as sociedades nela envolvidas direta ou indiretamente,
afetando-as profundamente, na medida em que o conflito armado, a inflação e a
fome desenharam um quadro de degradação humana e social progressiva, o que
constituiu um verdadeiro trauma coletivo.
Walter Benjamin destacou que a baixa das ações da experiência estava relacionada
às feridas da guerra que resultaram em mazelas, tais como a incomunicabilidade. Os
soldados voltavam silenciosos porque a guerra representou um grande desafio ao
poder comunicativo da experiência. Não haveria como extrair sabedoria da vivência
nos campos de batalha, nem como vinculá-la à memória coletiva, à cultura, às tradições.
Assim, o fato das pessoas estarem mais pobres em experiências comunicáveis, se
relaciona à perda de força da sabedoria.
Em um famoso e aludido texto — O narrador: considerações sobre a obra de
Nikolai Leskov — Walter Benjamin (1987) refletiu sobre o fim da arte de narrar.
Se, tradicionalmente, a tradução em experiência contava com a narrativa que, tal
como uma arte, se nutria da experiência que circula de boca em boca, o advento e a
valorização da informação, e, de modo geral, do próprio periodismo, tornou a arte de
narrar cada vez mais rara:
organizar alguns aspectos do mundo contemporâneo. Talvez, por isso, a narrativa siga
como campo importante para a qualificação ética em que se estimam, se avaliam e se
julgam comportamentos e identidades, como reflete Ricoeur (RICOEUR, 1994).
Hoje em dia, a informação exerce um papel em relação à dinamização
das viagens, mas por si só ela é insuficiente para a construção de sentido de uma
viagem. O compartilhamento de relatos de viagem, que estariam entre a crônica, o
diário e o ensaio, em redes sociais e blogs desvinculados de objetivos profssionais e
mercadológicos, indica uma latência. O desejo comum aos sujeitos de associarem a
107 viagem a uma experiência para a reflexão sobre si mesmo, para a busca de respostas
e de uma visão sobre o mundo em sua diversidade.
Reflexões finais
experiências. Essa tensão representaria algo para os viajantes que narram, como um
tipo de proteção contra o estilhaçamento de experiência.
Seja por meio da leitura ou da escrita — ambas atividades vinculadas ao ato de
narrar —, podemos arriscar e apostar que a crônica de viagem ainda convém. Não
somente é conveniente, mas é ligada à necessidade do indivíduo moderno de buscar
sentido e coerência por meio da narração e essa busca de sentido é, no fundo, uma
recusa da coisificação da vida, é um modo de erguer-se e de superar uma alienação
crescente (SARLO, 2007).
108 REFERÊNCIAS
ANDRADE, Mário de. O turista aprendiz. 2. ed. São Paulo: Duas Cidades, 1983. [1976].
BENJAMIN, Walter. Experiência e pobreza. In: BENJAMIN, Walter. Magia e técnica,
arte e política. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1987. p. 114-119.
BENJAMIN, Walter. O narrador: considerações sobre a obra de Nikolai Leskov. In:
BENJAMIN, Walter. Magia e técnica, arte e política. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1987.
p. 197-221.
Blog “Viaje na viagem”. Desenvolvido por Ricardo Freire. Copyright © 2017
Organizações Bóia Conteúdo Digital. Apresenta dicas e informações sobre viagens.
Disponível em: <https://www.viajenaviagem.com/>. Acesso em: 9 out. 2017.
BONASSI, Fernando. Passaporte. São Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2001.
BOSI, Alfredo. História Concisa da Literatura Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Cultrix,
1994.
BOTTON, Alain de. A arte de viajar. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2003.
________________. Uma semana no aeroporto. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Rocco,
2010.
BERGER, Peter L.; LUCKMANN, Thomas. Modernidade, pluralismo e crise de
sentido: a orientação do homem moderno. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2004.
CAMPOS, Mari. Sozinha mundo afora: dicas para sair pelo mundo em sua própria
companhia. Campinas, SP: Verus editora, 2011.
CAMUS, Albert. Diário de viagem. São Paulo: Editora Record, 1997.
CANDIDO, Antonio. A vida ao rés-do-chão. In: CANDIDO, Antonio (org.). A crônica:
o gênero, sua fixação e suas transformações no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora da UNICAMP;
Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Casa Rui Barbosa, 1992, p. 13-22.
CASTRO, Júlia Fonseca de.; HISSA, Cássio Eduardo Viana. Uma leitura das viagens
contemporâneas: a questão do testemunho nas narrativas de viagem. 2013. 159
f., enc. Dissertação (Mestrado) – Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal de
Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte. 2013.
CASTRO, Roberto. Viagens para serem sempre lembradas. Franca, SP: Editora
Mauá, 2012.
Comunidade “Rede Brasileira de Blogueiros de Viagem – RBBV”. Desenvolvido por
Narrativas de Viagem
tema común para los cronistas, que ganaron más espacio en el siglo XX. Algunos de
ellos se han hecho famosos por publicar textos de viajes en revistas y periódicos, como
señala Figueiredo (2010): Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson, Eça de Queiroz, y los
brasileños Gonçalves Dias, Mário de Andrade y Cecília Meireles.
1 Doctorado y Máster en Geografía, en el área de concentración: Organización del Espacio, por el Programa de
Posgrado en Geografía de la UFMG. Licenciada en Turismo por la UFMG.
2 La traducción libre sería “un chaval sin dirección”.
112 En la época contemporánea, los cambios repercuten en las características de
la crónica periodística vinculada a cierta tradición de cronistas brasileños que se
estableció en la segunda mitad del siglo XX, como Rubem Braga, Clarice Lispector
y Paulo Mendes Campos. Hay un cambio intenso en las condiciones de los medios
que resultan de los avances tecnológicos que han redimensionado las características
de los medios de comunicación y, en consecuencia, el espacio destinado a la crónica.
La presencia masiva de información elimina el espacio previamente reservado para
la subjetividad como un camino expresivo para una narrativa comprometida con
otra forma de comunicación con el público. La crónica periodística sufre impactos
cuya comprensión está en proceso, dada la velocidad con que Internet y los medios
digitales transforman la lógica de las relaciones de comunicación entre la prensa y la
sociedad. Lo que se puede decir es que la crónica ya no es la misma. ¿Qué decir de las
crónicas de viaje?
Crónica, al igual que otros géneros narrativos, está relacionada con la literatura
híbrida reconocida como viaje, que reúne textos de diversos tipos: cartas, informes,
diarios, entrevistas, novelas, monografías etnográficas, cuadernos personales, guías
turísticos, novelas, entre otros. Puede entenderse con una de las modalidades narrativas
que representan el viaje como una forma de conocer y reportar espacios y lugares
lejanos, remotos o entendidos como exóticos. Las crónicas, que circularon junto con
otros textos difundidos en el vértice de la literatura de viajes, entre los siglos XVI y
XIX (CRISTÓVÃO, 1999), contribuyeron a la creación y difusión de un imaginario de
los viajes cuya dinamización se produjo con gran intensidad así como los avances
en los medios de comunicación, en el transporte y en la popularización de los viajes
turísticos. Una transformación profunda redimensionó el contenido testimonial en
textos de estilo crónica de viaje, ya que la difusión de imágenes, información sobre
lugares y culturas se intensificó, retiró, o relativizó, la exclusividad de las narrativas
hasta entonces recibidas y producidas en su mayor parte bajo el aura de verdad y
como testimonios auténticos.
Hoy en día, los textos narrativos del tipo crónica centrados en el tema de viaje
se reemplazan, tanto con respecto a la función de la autenticidad y descripción como
herencia de las crónicas de la Era del Descubrimiento, época auge de la literatura
de viajes, como cuanto a la referencia de viajes raros, debido a la popularización
del turismo (CASTRO, 2013). Los avances tecnológicos han impactado la creación
y difusión de imágenes, información y conocimiento relacionados con los espacios
naturales, las diversas culturas y los puntos de atracción turística debido a la
singularidad que representan como patrimonio de la humanidad, o por otras razones,
así como las condiciones. de la experiencia de los viajeros ordinarios. Además de
Narrativas de Viaje
El género crónica está relacionado con kronos, palabra griega para el tiempo
secuencial, cronológico. Como género, la crónica sería un tipo de relato secuencial de
eventos asociados con textos informativos producidos con un carácter documental. Los
orígenes del género se refieren a esta literatura informativa llamada crónica histórica,
pero poco a poco se ha perdido esta dimensión documental. Otra característica
asociada al tiempo se mantuvo en el género de crónica: el vínculo con la temporalidad
de la vida cotidiana, debido a su asociación con el periódico diario.
La crónica no siempre ha tenido prestigio entre otros géneros, entendiéndose
como un género menor de acuerdo con una perspectiva jerárquica que determinaría los
niveles de calidad literaria. Para Antonio Candido (2003), este no sería un género más
grande, con la misma grandeza y brillantez de otros, como la novela, sino un género
menor. Esta característica, sin embargo, le da un aspecto importante: ‘Gracias a Dios’,
sería el caso de decir, porque de esa manera se acerca más a nosotros “(CANDIDO,
2003, p.89)3. Los cronistas están cerca de la vida cotidiana, la vida banal, ya que la
crónica sería:
[…] filha do jornal e da era da máquina, onde tudo acaba tão depressa. Ela
não foi feita originalmente para o livro, mas para essa publicação efêmera
que se compra num dia e no dia seguinte é usada para embrulhar um par de
sapatos ou forrar o chão da cozinha. Por se abrigar nesse veículo transitório,
o seu intuito não é o dos escritores que pensam em “ficar”, isto é, permanecer
na lembrança e na admiração da posteridade; e a sua perspectiva não é a dos
que escrevem do alto da montanha, mas do simples rés-do-chão. (CANDIDO,
2003, p. 89)4
hecho desde la perspectiva del suelo, de cuerpo a cuerpo, hecho de asuntos cotidianos.
La comparación de Antonio Candido, de la crónica como un género escrito por quienes
3 Traducción libre de la autora de ‘Graças a Deus’, seria o caso de dizer, porque sendo assim ela fica mais perto
de nós” (CANDIDO, 2003, p. 89)
4 Hija del periódico y la era de la máquina, donde todo acaba tan rápido. Originalmente no se hizo para el libro,
pero para esa publicación efímera, un día y el siguiente se usa para envolver un par de zapatos o forrar el piso de la
cocina. Al refugiarse en este vehículo transitorio, su intención no es la de los escritores que piensan en “quedarse”,
es decir, permanecer en la memoria y admiración de la posteridad; y su perspectiva no es la de quienes escriben
desde la cima de la montaña, sino desde la sencilla planta baja. (traducción libre de la autora)
114 están en la planta baja, es también una alusión a su relación con el folleto, un texto que se
publicó en una sección al pie de la página, es decir, en la parte inferior del periódico.
Género híbrido, de origen documental-informativo y periodístico, este texto
comunicativo ganó espacio en los periódicos, en el espacio del folleto, al final de la
página del periódico que reservaba el lugar para el entretenimiento y las miscelánea
(MEYER, 1992). El espacio destinado a la crónica la ha marcado como un género de
extensión limitada, ya que estaba relacionada con el espacio disponible en el periódico
y de corto alcance, para ser leído en el día o en el momento de la supervivencia del
material del periódico. Otra característica del género, que puede entenderse con una
contingencia enunciativa (REIS, 2011), está relacionada con los asuntos cotidianos,
ya que el cronista tendría la función de comentar eventos de noticias diarias o, luego,
a un tema variado desarrollado desde una asociación simple (MORAES, 2004) y un
enfoque subjetivo, a menudo escrito en primera persona.
Antônio Prata (2016) señala que la crónica que se hace actualmente se denomina
columna, pero que el espacio en el que publica no es exactamente una columna como
un cuadro vertical, típico de las columnas de opinión, ya que es un espacio horizontal
al que suele llamar “losa”. Como un buen cronista, el autor utiliza el humor para
repensar el lugar de la crónica en el espacio del periódico, utilizando una metáfora
contraria a la de la base, pero manteniendo las características notables del género: la
simplicidad y la falta de refinamiento en la narración.
“La crónica es ante todo un espacio destinado a la crónica”5, afirma Antônio Prata
(2016), en ejercicio de reflexión sobre la crónica contemporánea, refiriéndose a la fuerte
correlación entre la formación del género y el espacio del periódico que la ha abrigado
a lo largo de muchas décadas. A su vez, el autor Humberto Werneck (2012) relativiza
la relación entre crónica y periodismo, entendiendo el periódico y la revista como
anfitriones del género en un momento en que había espacio para un texto más subjetivo
porque no había demasiada información y noticias como existen hoy. Para el autor, la
reconfiguración de los medios no implicaría un riesgo de debilitar la crónica como género
narrativo ya generalizado y, en cierto sentido, es optimista sobre la versatilidad del género
que considera un híbrido entre información y poesía, entre periodismo y literatura.
En Brasil, este género, que se ha desarrollado junto con temas diversificados y
secundarios en relación con las principales noticias, ha resultado en una tradición o
un nuevo tipo de crónica, según Charles Kiefer (KIEFER, 2010, p.69), una crónica que
combina la épica con lo lírico, a partir de una reunión del periodismo con la literatura
o, como señala Coutinho (1994), un género resultante de la fusión de la literatura y
del periodismo. Esta crónica brasileña, que se ha convertido en clásica, estaría en
Narrativas de Viaje
una transformación radical, ya que los medios intrínsecamente relacionados con ella
están en la fase de transición.
Discutir la crónica de viaje como una faceta de la crónica, nos lleva a pensar
en una producción textual intensa identificada como crónica histórica, ya que Brasil
fue interés de viajeros de diferentes nacionalidades. En el universo de la literatura de
viajes de Brasil, en la cual Brasil sería un objeto de representación / documentación,
7 La diversidad es considerable y, además de las conocidas guías de viaje, como Michelin y Quatro Rodas, destacan
los libros tipo manuales. Algunos ejemplos: Viajante chic: dicas de viagem por Glória Kalil; Confissões de um turista
Narrativas de Viaje
profissional: tudo o que você queria saber sobre viagens e que os guias jamais vão contar; Sozinha mundo afora:
dicas para sair pelo mundo em sua própria companhia, escrito por Mari Campos. Numerosas publicaciones se
venden junto con libros de estilo de viaje, 300 dias de bicicleta: 22 mil km de emoções pelas Américas, escrito por
Sven Schmid, y otros em tono de memoria como Viagens para sempre serem lembradas.
8 Otros títulos se acercan a los ensayos y ensayos, como Uma semana no aeroporto, del filósofo y escritor Alain
de Botton, O Diário de viagem, de Albert Camus es un ejemplo de texto de viaje de otras épocas que eventu-
almente se puede encontrar en el mercado editorial contemporáneo. Odisseia, de Homero, por ejemplo, es un
título a menudo reeditado.
9 Los periódicos más grandes de Brasil tienen publicaciones de turismo distribuidas de manera diferente en la
versión impresa y, en la versión virtual, distribuidos en secciones. Por ejemplo: O Globo: Boa viagem; Folha de São
Paulo: Folha Turismo; jornal O Tempo: O Tempo Turismo; Estadão: Viagem. Con respecto a las revistas especiali-
zadas, es posible citar Viagem e Turismo, publicada pela Editora Abril.
117 La columna del periódico y de la revista del género turismo y de viajes, que
reserva espacio para textos similares a las crónicas, en general está conectada al blog
o al perfil de red social del columnista. Por lo tanto, otra forma de buscar la crónica
de viaje contemporánea es a través de la navegación web, que permite el encuentro
de las crónicas (así llamadas) en blogs de viajes que parecen estar reconfiguradas hoy
en día y distantes de las revistas electrónicas producidas por viajeros independientes
en otras épocas. En general, los textos presentes en los blogs de hoy giran en torno a
los clichés de sugerencias de viaje, de guiones ya probados por viajeros que escriben
en primera persona y se presentan como viajeros experimentados, pero que rara vez
producen reflexiones fuera del discurso pragmático.
Viaje na Viagem, de Ricardo Freire10, uno de los precursores del movimiento de
bloggers de viajes en Brasil (SANTOS, 2014), es un sitio web interconectado con un
blog centrado en temas prácticos:
Sempre que organizamos uma viagem, buscamos informações que nos ajudem
a viajar melhor, a curtir totalmente o destino e a não cair em roubadas. Dicas
locais, off-turísticas e eventos especiais também fazem parte, usualmente, dos
tópicos que procuramos nessa fase de planejamento […] ( FREIRE, 2017)
textos tendrían poca similitud, y carecerían de poesía, subjetividad, crítica, modestia. Las
crónicas son escasas incluso en los blogs de viajes, transformadas en nuevos paraísos
de mercadotecnia y publicidad para el mercado turístico, como ya habían previsto los
10 Blog “Viaje na viagem”. Desarrolado por Ricardo Freire. Copyright © 2017 Organizações Bóia Conteúdo Di-
gital. Informaciones sobre viajes. Disponible en: <https://www.viajenaviagem.com/>. Acceso en: 15 maio. 2019.
11 Comunidad “Rede Brasileira de Blogueiros de Viagem – RBBV”. Desarrolado por Rede Brasileira de Blogueiros
de Viagem – RBBV. Copyright © 2017 Rede Brasileira de Blogueiros de Viagem – RBBV. Presenta publiaciones de
bloggers de viaje asociados. Disponible en: <http://www.rbbv.com.br/
118 pioneros de los blogs en Brasil, desarrollados por Caroline de Brito Santos (2015).
La crónica de los viaje como texto corto, preferiblemente escrito en primera
persona, ya que la apariencia del cronista sería como el filtro capaz de capturar
los detalles y, a partir de ellos, hablar sobre el mundo recorrido (caminos, aspectos
culturales, rarezas, curiosidades), aunque se habla de sí mismo, es raro en los medios
convencionales (periódicos y revistas impresos) y electrónicos (sitios web, blogs). La
modestia en la narración que traería lirismo con humor para transformar los detalles
en poesía, como reflexiona Marcelo Moutinho12 sobre la crónica brasileña, es cada vez
más rara. Sin embargo, la creación de narrativas de viaje, similares a la crónica, en
redes sociales producidas con intereses no necesariamente comerciales, pero artísticos,
culturales y sociales son un signo de vitalidad de este tipo de representación. La
producción informal y creativa de textos en Internet se entiende como una instancia
rentable de las crónicas de hoy, como lo refleja Marcelo Moutinho13.
El contexto de los viajes contemporáneos indica otras relaciones autor-lector
que divergen de la época en que el narrador-viajero informaba territorios y culturas
desconocidos. Hoy en día, la actividad del cronista es de otra condición, ya que se
basa en una imagen dinámica vinculada al viaje. César Guimarães (1997) discute
los cambios en la función del espacio en las narrativas contemporáneas de viajes
y destaca dos tendencias: narrativas en las que la percepción espacial se integra en
la experiencia del viaje como algo capaz de constituir un significado más amplio;
trabajos en los que se suprime la cuestión espacial y, así, la construcción de sentido
para el viaje no tiene importancia crucial.
"A viagem como tempo de aprendizagem para compreender o mundo, este
sonho, já não é para nós hoje pensável” (WIM WENDERS, apud GUIMARÃES, 1997)14.
La reflexión de Wim Wenders se refiere a la imposibilidad de que la experiencia sea
sintetizada por un narrador y en consecuencia, transmitida, como en otras ocasiones
fue posible o al menos soñado. Esta dificultad de dar sentido a la experiencia estaría
relacionada con el exceso de imágenes, la fragmentación de la experiencia mundial,
la vida cotidiana urbana de una sociedad en la que se difunden los mecanismos de
control, que es informatizado, burocratizado, racionalizado.
Es interesante pensar en la reflexión traída por Giorgio Agamben (2008), que
se refiere a la imposibilidad del hombre moderno de traducir en experiencia. Según
el autor, cada vez tendríamos menos posibilidades de traducir en experiencia, es decir,
mirar con generosidad las experiencias para buscar una elaboración para estas, para
transformar la “mezcla de eventos” (AGAMBEN, 2008, pág. 21) en algo que tiene
un significado que trasciende lo obvio. El viajero, como individuo contemporáneo,
Narrativas de Viaje
12 PORTAL EBC – TV BRASIL. Crônicas do cotidiano com Marcelo Coutinho. EBC/TV Brasil, 23 maio 2017. Dis-
poníble en: <http://tvbrasil.ebc.com.br/marcelo-moutinho-fala-sobre-cronicas-do-cotidiano-no-trilha-de-letras>.
Acceso en: 9 oct. 2017.
13 PORTAL EBC – TV BRASIL. Crônicas do cotidiano com Marcelo Coutinho. EBC/TV Brasil, 23 maio 2017. Dis-
poníble en: <http://tvbrasil.ebc.com.br/marcelo-moutinho-fala-sobre-cronicas-do-cotidiano-no-trilha-de-letras>.
Acceso en: 9 out. 2017.
14 “El viaje como un tiempo para aprender a comprender el mundo, este sueño ya no es para nosotros hoy en
día” (traducción libre de la autora).
119 que representa la experiencia particular y colectiva.
Cuando Walter Benjamin sugirió que “las acciones de la experiencia están caídas”
(BENJAMIN, 1987, pág. 114) o que somos “más pobres en experiencia” (BENJAMIN
1987, 114), también se refirió a una cierta amenaza. Con respecto a la diversidad de
pensamientos, modos de expresión, formas de vida. Se refirió a una crisis histórica
de pérdida de un significado más amplio que gobernaba la conciencia de los sujetos.
Para el autor, la Primera Guerra Mundial contaminó directa o indirectamente a las
sociedades involucradas en ella, afectándolas profundamente, ya que el conflicto
armado, la inflación y el hambre crearon una imagen de la degradación humana y
social progresiva, que constituía un verdadero trauma colectivo.
Walter Benjamin señaló que las víctimas de la experiencia estaban relacionadas
con las heridas de la guerra que resultaron en enfermedades como la incomunicación.
Los soldados regresaron tranquilos porque la guerra representaba un gran desafío
para el poder comunicativo de la experiencia. No habría manera de extraer la sabiduría
de vivir en los campos de batalla, ni de vincularla a la memoria colectiva, a la cultura,
a las tradiciones. Por lo tanto, el hecho de que las personas sean más pobres en
experiencias transmisibles está relacionado con la pérdida de la fuerza de la sabiduría.
En un texto famoso y aludido - El narrador: consideraciones sobre la obra de
Nikolai Leskov - Walter Benjamin (1987) reflexionó sobre el fin del arte de la narración.
Si la traducción de la experiencia se basó tradicionalmente en la narrativa que, como
un arte, se basó en la experiencia que circula de boca en boca, el advenimiento y la
valorización de la información y, en general, el periodismo mismo. El arte de narrar
cada vez más raro.
Reflexiones finales
REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
ANDRADE, Mário de. O turista aprendiz. 2. ed. São Paulo: Duas Cidades, 1983.
[1976].
BENJAMIN, Walter. Experiência e pobreza. In: BENJAMIN, Walter. Magia e técnica,
arte e política. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1987. p. 114-119.
BENJAMIN, Walter. O narrador: considerações sobre a obra de Nikolai Leskov. In:
BENJAMIN, Walter. Magia e técnica, arte e política. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1987.
p. 197-221.
Blog “Viaje na viagem”. Desenvolvido por Ricardo Freire. Copyright © 2017
Organizações Bóia Conteúdo Digital. Apresenta dicas e informações sobre viagens.
Disponível em: <https://www.viajenaviagem.com/>. Acesso em: 9 out. 2017.
BONASSI, Fernando. Passaporte. São Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2001.
BOSI, Alfredo. História Concisa da Literatura Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Cultrix, 1994.
BOTTON, Alain de. A arte de viajar. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2003.
________________. Uma semana no aeroporto. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Rocco, 2010.
BERGER, Peter L.; LUCKMANN, Thomas. Modernidade, pluralismo e crise de
sentido: a orientação do homem moderno. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2004.
CAMPOS, Mari. Sozinha mundo afora: dicas para sair pelo mundo em sua própria
companhia. Campinas, SP: Verus editora, 2011.
CAMUS, Albert. Diário de viagem. São Paulo: Editora Record, 1997.
CANDIDO, Antonio. A vida ao rés-do-chão. In: CANDIDO, Antonio (org.). A crônica:
o gênero, sua fixação e suas transformações no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora da UNICAMP;
Narrativas de Viaje
O livro Passeio à minha terra, de Salvador José Correia Coelho (1860) é uma
raridade bibliográfica e constitui um precioso registro sobre a Província do Paraná, a
partir da narração de uma jornada efetuada em 1844 pelo autor e dois companheiros2.
As impressões dos dois meses de viagem (ida e volta, de São Paulo capital da Província,
à cidade da Lapa, então Vila Nova do Príncipe) encontram-se registradas no livro e
são integradas à cosmovisão romântica, à cuja luz seu discurso é plasmado. Convém
lembrar que, ao longo do século XIX, o fascínio por viajar dá origem a uma volumosa
literatura durante o Romantismo.
Por outro lado, grande era a influência da literatura europeia nos meios
acadêmicos brasileiros, o que justifica o gênero e o próprio título do livro em estudo.
Observa-se que, tendo estudado direito em São Paulo, o autor procura demonstrar
seu conhecimento da literatura clássica. Além disso, ele marca fortemente seu texto
com elementos da literatura lusitana, que aparece no livro como referência cultural
explícita, bem ao gosto da época.
Este trabalho propõe-se a analisar Passeio à minha terra sob a perspectiva
da intertextualidade, salientando nele a impregnação da literatura portuguesa. Estamos
cientes de que a exacerbada citação de autores portugueses no livro em questão deve ser
equacionada, cuidadosamente, para que não se passe ao perigoso terreno das influências.
A distância temporal obriga o discurso a uma série de transformações e a intertextualidade
que se objetiva estudar não pode perdê-la de vista.
Um gênero limítrofe
Por outro lado, o escritor romântico está sempre em uma viagem egótica, em
busca de um mergulho no seu eu interior. Tentar registrar qualquer visão ou consciência
de instantes do passado faz com que a memória aguce a sensação da transitoriedade
e distorça as perspectivas, num processo anamórfico. Todorov considera que ‘relato
impressionista’ é a denominação mais indicada para os relatos de viagem de estilo
romântico, uma vez que o vocábulo expressa como o viajante se contenta em nos
comunicar suas impressões, sem procurar nos ensinar alguma coisa.
No estilo do texto do narrador paranaense apresentam-se inegáveis reverberações
do ideário do Romantismo, com todas as suas tentativas de evasão e escapismo através
da busca interior, para o cultivo de sensações mais refinadas e excêntricas, muitas
vezes em termos de um ideal inacessível.
Destarte, de acordo com Walter Benjamin, quem viaja é potencialmente um
bom narrador, pois tem muito o que contar, geralmente acrescentando elementos
subjetivos e afetivos à narrativa. Contudo, o autor pontua que no início do século XX,
a consolidação do romance e a notícia jornalística afetam negativamente a tradição da
narrativa, que vem da oralidade, do ato de contar uma história, na esteira da epopeia.
“[...] Se a arte da narrativa é hoje rara, a difusão da informação é decisivamente
responsável por esse declínio. [...] Em outras palavras: quase nada do que acontece
está a serviço da narrativa, e quase tudo está a serviço da informação. Metade da arte
narrativa está em evitar explicações” (BENJAMIN, 1994, p. 203).
Considerando a argumentação benjaminiana, o relato de viagem como gênero
limítrofe entre literatura e jornalismo pode ser uma alternativa para passar a
informação sem perder a liberdade da narração oral, valorizando, assim, não apenas a
Narrativas de Viagem
No vasto plano entro o oceano, rio verde, Uma e Ribeira ergue a montanha
– Juréa - a sua negra massa, cujos dois pontos culminantes, banhados na
base pelas vagas do mar, são vistos ao longe navegando-se o Uma: parece a
sentinela perdida da costa inóspita que guarda um tesouro (...) Desse posto
ela espreita silenciosa e ávida o navegante. (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 37)
Eu disse: “esse sítio pareceu-me triste”; assim sempre aparece ao Homem; ele
transporta os objetos externos à atualidade psicológica, e vê fora o que está
130 no interno;(...) O mundo é o funeral que desfila junto à casa do festim: de um
lado há lágrimas e do outro ouvem-se risadas: é Job desesperado que escuta
o Sir Hasexim da escritura santa! – pobre homem! Não te conheces e queres
apreender o objetivo, és tu o cego que intenta ver; - miserável criatura! Tu
dizes que é força crer alguma coisa e eu penso que deves crer uma única
realidade – a dúvida! (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p.37)
Chora pois, malfadado, porque o chorar é um modo do teu existir; chora, porque
a separação longa dos que se amam, dos que se estremecem mutuamente,
é por sem dúvida o cálice da amargura que cumpre exaurir até as fezes!
(CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 8)
Seu sistema imagístico, algumas vezes, consegue alçar-se acima dos clichês e
dos lugares comuns, como por exemplo, nessa imagem da lágrima: “A água cresce,
treme: furtiva e silenciosa baga desce pelo sulco que a mão do infortúnio rompeu no
rosto...” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 8) A maioria das figuras de linguagem, porém,
revela uma profunda impregnação dos modelos românticos e até neoclássicos.
O estilo oscila entre o erudito e o sentimental. Algumas vezes, uma dicção “nobre” se
impõe, como por exemplo quando canta os elementos nacionais e faz aproximações retóricas
com o mundo grego. Outras vezes, o sentimentalismo romântico derrama-se pelas páginas,
133 como no trecho: “Transpondo o sítio nacional e glorioso, um dos viajantes alongando os
olhos úmidos de lágrimas para as montanhas [...]” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 12)
da cor da neve, como da cobreada e da que tinge a asa do corvo; a matéria não revela;
queremos a tradução fiel da ideia típica.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p.19)
Tais expressões metalinguísticas, entre outras colocações de caráter estético que
aparecem no livro analisado, revelam uma nova faceta do seu estilo: a preocupação
com o literário em si. Não são conceitos sistematizados ou ordenados no decorrer da
narrativa; mas disseminados por todo o texto, o que permitiria estudo à parte sobre a
poética do autor.
Por outro lado, em direção ao pensamento mais erudito, Correia Coelho não
134 se furta a digressões de caráter filosófico-existencial. Nelas percebe-se claramente
uma cosmovisão romântica aliada a uma assimilação das mais diversas correntes
do pensamento filosófico da época. Um exemplo permite verificar esta assimilação:
“Infelizmente toda ideia, toda medida, ainda as mais justas e razoáveis, caindo
sob o domínio da inteligência humana, participam da índole desta, cujo elemento
constitutivo é a imperfeição, e por consequência demonstra nossa nihilidade.”
(CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 54). O nihilismo é uma visão cética radical em relação
às interpretações da realidade e que aniquila valores e convicções; perante tal postura
existencial tudo perde o sentido e a vida fica suspensa no nada, perfeitamente
consciente de sua condição precária.
Apesar da cosmovisão nihilista acima observada, constatamos que, em outros
momentos da narrativa, o caráter bucólico e o tom sentimentalmente exacerbado de
sua linguagem, fazem do texto um relato intencionalmente sincero, vivo e realista,
porque fruto das próprias experiências do autor.
Seu passeio é motivado por aquele desejo de fixar as impressões de novas esferas
e paisagens e transmiti-las como “reportagens” do mundo de sua época. Nesse sentido,
o livro pode ser identificado à crônica diária, que vicejou durante a segunda metade
do século XIX, em um Brasil que iniciava sua apreciação por matérias de interesse
jornalístico. “Com a consolidação do jornalismo no século XIX, muitos jornalistas-
escritores publicam em livros-reportagens o excedente de seu material de reportagem
ou reflexões sobre suas próprias viagens” (MARTINEZ, 2016, p.80). Vale lembrar,
ainda, que o termo diário define um gênero cuja característica principal é o relato de
acontecimentos cotidianos. Por isso, o vocábulo passou a ser título de muitos jornais e
gazetas, como acontece até hoje. Nesse sentido, a análise da obra de Correia Coelho nos
permitiria tecer reflexões sobre narrativa jornalística de viagem, considerando esse tipo
de narrativa como documento histórico, mas este já seria tema para outro artigo.
camonianos têm analogias evidentes com a fala introdutória de Menina e Moça, obra
publicada em 1554 por Bernardim, que tende a exprimir uma filosofia segundo a qual
o que confere à vida humana o seu mais alto valor é o empenhamento amoroso. As
reverberações líricas do trovador lusitano prolongam-se na literatura portuguesa até
Almeida Garrett, como assinalam Antônio José Saraiva e Oscar Lopes (1976, p.229),
chegando a ecoar, até mesmo, em Fernando Pessoa,
A preocupação com o fazer literário, que é expressa não só em trechos de autoria
própria, quanto nas inúmeras citações de outros autores, vem revelar uma faceta do estilo
135 individual de Correia Coelho, conforme demonstramos na análise aqui apresentada. Da
mesma forma, seu texto não pode ser lido sem que se leve em consideração o estilo
romântico, período em que a obra foi gestada e posteriormente publicada.
A narrativa aqui analisada transita entre o tom informativo característico
da literatura de viagens e o lirismo da saudade de quem revê seu lugar de origem.
Mantendo-se dentro da tradição herdada do relato de viajantes estrangeiros, o
autor paranaense inova ao demonstrar intimidade com o espaço descrito. Seu texto
de 1860 antecede em 30 anos a Revolução Federalista, sendo que a viagem relatada
aconteceu 2 décadas antes, o que vem contribuir para que o país tenha, pelo menos,
noção da existência do Paraná. Indo além do valor da própria representação efetuada
por escrito, talvez o maior mérito do livro esteja vinculado à documentação, por ser
publicado em um momento de absoluta escassez de registros sobre a Província. Ao
documentar uma viagem inédita por regiões até hoje pouco conhecidas, a obra tem
seu lugar assegurado na literatura sobre o Paraná em sua fase de formação.
REFERÊNCIAS
1970.
PENA, Felipe. Jornalismo Literário. São Paulo: Contexto, 2006.
RIBEIRO, Bernardim, Obras completas. Lisboa, Sá da Costa, 1950-59. 2 v.
TODOROV, Tzvetan. A viagem e seu relato. Revista Letras. São Paulo, 2006. p. 231-
244
WEINHARDT, M. O Paraná no discurso literário. Revista Letras, Curitiba: UFPR, n.
48, 1997. p. 77-93.
136 PASSEIO À MINHA TERRA:
THE FIRST TRAVEL NARRATIVE
WRITTEN BY A PARANAENSE
The book Passeio à minha terra, by Salvador José Correia Coelho (1860), is
a bibliographical rarity and constitutes a precious record of Paraná Province, after
the narration of a journey completed in 1844, by the writer and two fellows.2 The
two months of travel impressions (departure and return, from São Paulo to the City
of Lapa – at that time called Vila Nova do Príncipe) are registered in the book and
are integrated to the romantic wide vision, through which his discourse is made. It
is relevant to mention that, during 19th century, the excitement for traveling starts a
large number of literature production during the Romantic Period.
On the other hand, the influence of European Literature among the Brazilian academic
ambiance was great, which explains the genre and this book title itself. As the book writer had
studied Law in São Paulo, he aims to show his Classical Literature knowledge. Furthermore,
he marks deeply his text with elements of Lusitanian Literature, which appears in the
narrative as an explicit cultural reference, following that historical period tendencies.
This paper aims to analyze Passeio à minha terra under the perspective
of inter-textual theory, pointing out the impregnation of Portuguese Literature. We
are conscious that the massive citation of Portuguese authors in the book has to be
carefully equated, in order not to be turned to the dangerous field of influences. The
temporal distance obliges the discourse to a large number of transformations and the
inter-textual mark that is aimed to study cannot loose its focus on it.
A Periphery Genre
Tzvetan Todorov considers that report and travel are mutually implicated.
According to the writer, the report also sustain itself on changing, which can happen
on space for configuring time passing, whereas the physical act of shifting implicates
the inner changing;
Travel Narratives
[...] everything is travel, but has to be of an everything without identity. The travel
transcends all categories, including of that of shifting, of the same and the other,
because since the more remote Antiquity are accumulated travels of discovery,
1 Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Communication and Languages at UTP. Coordinates the Research
Line Film and Audiovisual Studies. GP Researcher: GRUDES, UTP / CNPq; Communication, Image and Contem-
paneity -CIC, UTP / CNPq. She is the scientific editor of INTERIN. e-mail: denise.guimaraes@utp.br
2 The two fellows of whom are known just the initials, are, according to Professor Newton Carneiro in an in-
troductory note to the book’s 2nd. edition, the future Counselor Jesuíno Marcondes de Oliveira and the future
Baccalaureate José Lourenço de Sá Ribas.
137 unknown explorations, and returning travels, re-appropriation of the familiar: The
Argonauts are great travelers, but Ulysses also is one. (TODOROV, 2006, p. 231)
The task of defining the limits between Literature and Journalism reveals itself
arduous because, since its origins, the two genres were related, having both the
written word as fundamental raw material for the communication and expression
of ideas. Going farther from the simple mixture between the two genres, the travel
report shows its proper characteristics, being considered a particular genre, although
it is placed between the chronicle and the narrative literature, and with several shades
that give it some specifications.
Linking itself to the report novel, the travel report had its own peak during the
ages of great discoveries, by the importance of giving details about the new regions
and by navigating through unexplored seas. Even before the possibility to identify a
Brazilian Literature, numerous travelers and chroniclers’ narratives were registered,
among the named Informative Literature, in which could be included navigation
diaries and descriptive treatises. In these circumstances, our first text of the genre
would be the Pero Vaz de Caminha’s Letter. In this sequence, it was followed by the
narratives that described these travels, with much emphasis in the first contacts with
Brazilian land, and its native peoples. The works written by Jesuits emphasizes as
examples of theses kind of texts, prodigals in picturesque descriptions of our flora and
fauna. During the first centuries of Portuguese colonization, these “literary” works
were praised and still are read today by their historical interest.
During the first centuries of our colonization, we considered relevant to
accentuate the exotic basis’ records, etymologically connected to an outside look; the
Brazilian things were exotic, strange and inedited to Europeans that arrived here, and
that were observing for the first time.
In case of Salvador José Correia Coelho’s work, we have a different context.
Soon about the beginning of 19th century, being the writer a Brazilian, from Parana
Province, that aims to document his own trip’s details, in his daily routine, he made
a choice for a romanced form, and also a decision for showing knowledge about the
places where he was visiting.
In an article about the literary discourse in Parana, Marilene Weinhardt points
out the rejection from Correia Coelho about the name politically given to the ancient
province.
Becoming close to the report when he reaches Curitiba, Correia Coelho talks
about the late condition of “head district” of the city, for giving information
of legal order about the elevation to the province category, fact that happened
between the travel time and the written one, regretting: ‘I don’t find reason
Travel Narratives
in the changing this law brought, calling the province with the name Parana’.’
(WEINHARDT, 1997, p. 78)
narration and not objective description, but even travel, a mark, therefore, and
external circumstances to the subject matter. (TODOROV, 2006, P. 240)
One of the romantic marks in Portugal, is the work written by Almeida Garrett.
His book Viagens na minha terra, published in Lisbon, 1846, represents a typical
example of the Romantic versant: the travel literature. More than a coincidence, the
approach of the Brazilian book to the Garrett’s novel reveals a profound impregnation
of Portuguese Literature, to be studied in the work Passeio à minha terra.
In many segments of the garrettian’s work we have the clear dimension of the
140 nationalism that also impregnates Correia Coelho’s book. The traveler aims to
value the aspects of national landscape, rich in evocative contents, visiting them
as if in a pilgrimage.
This literary versant linked to the travel’s theme inclines itself sometimes to
exotic, sometimes to nationalism. If, by one side the search for the exotic reflects to
evasionism, on the other hand, the romantic travel through the nation’s inner reflects
another search: the quest for the national sources and the national space cult, as
expressed in Juréa Mountain allegorical description done by the writer paranaense:
On the vast plan I enter the ocean, green river, Uma and Ribeira rises the
mountain – Juréa – its dark mass, which the two highest points, drenched
in its basis by the sea waves, are seen far away sailing the Uma: it seems
the lost wild coast sentinel that guards a treasure (...) From this position it
spies silently and avid the sailor. (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 37)
solitude. In this poem, Pre-romantic themes as longing for bygone days can be
identified, besides European romantic topics.
Remembering the three Portuguese writers, we detach some common
themes in Correia Coelho’s work:
1st. – The Sense of Pilgrimage –
The writer identifies himself to the pilgrim: “[...] such the traveler condition,
141 firmed in his idiomatic phrase, all he sees is transitory.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968,
p 3); considering that the book ends with the explanation about the theme: “As the
tired pilgrim, I waist the word, clean the sandals dust and enlarge the eyes to the
regions that I leave there illustrated.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 86)
2nd. – The Natural Human Kindness –
Referring to those coastal men that do not know the robbery and the
murder, the writer expresses his trust on them and reaffirm the good wild myth:
“On board of his boat I slept tranquil, dream golden dreams and at yours awaken
will find a friendly smile on the lips of those who conducts you to the desired
port.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p . 44)
3rd. – The Exile Sentiment –
The exile is a recidivistic theme in the beginning of the Brazilian Literature,
since when Gonçalves de Magalhães published Suspiros poéticos e Saudades,
in 1836. The topic increased with the emergence of Primeiros cantos (1846), by
Gonçalves Dias, in which he finds the well known “Canção do exílio”. In this
seminal book, as in all romantic period, the exile is treated under a sentimental
concept, a product of the distance between the subject and nation. Correia Coelho
lived in this historical period and also explore the theme in his travel narrative,
as in the example: “The suit, the missed, the heart but there stayed in the nation!
The love from birthplace is instinctive, domain and only from the heart and we
cannot resign it.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p.57)
Besides the thematic convergence, it is in the lyric that the relation
between the three Portuguese authors and the Brazilian gains more evidence.
In his book’s segment, the writer from Paraná said: “[...] undoubtedly, were the
great poets these Portuguese and Italian swans, but I believe that only with his
ability, without this love stimulation, never would be inspired of so beautiful and
ardent verses. The night shows the star in the sky, love reveals the poet in the
soul.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 25)
There is a consensus from the critics that the more vibrant steps of the
poem “Camões”, published by Garrett in 1825, they were the invocation of the
missing and the paraphrase of a Job’s Psalm that the liturgy makes to sing by
the deads’ work. All those thematic elements that might speak in a “heir line”:
Bernardim Ribeiro and his troubadour’s lyric (16th century); Camões and the
devotion of the epic genre in our language (16th century); and Almeida Garrett,
one of Portugal’s romantics (19th century).
Except for the proper qualities, in Salvador J.C. Coelho there are moments
that allow an approach to this tradition, unless two segments.
Travel Narratives
I said: “this site looked sad to me”; therefore always appears to the man; he
transports the external objects to the psychological present time, and sees
outside what it is inside; (…) The world is the funeral that marches close to
feasting house: from one side there are tears and from the other laughs are
listened: it is the desperate Job who listens Sir Hasexim of Holly Scripture!
142 – poor man! Do not know himself and wants to learn the objective, you are
the blind who intends to see; – miserable creature! You say that is strength to
believe in something and I think that you must believe in a unique reality – a
doubt! (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p.37)
The contingence of reviewing people that occupy our hearts makes tremble
a tear in the eyes; [...] eloquent and sublime miniature that resumes a real
life drama. The missing crisis so and, as a sadness angel, settle itself on the
miserable victim’s chest, in such ears seems to sob: ‘There they died, finally, and
there stayed, / To the desired nation not return.’ (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 7)
Notice that the camoenian verses citations will occur several times in the
paranaense writer’s book. The segment previously mentioned continues with an
invocation of the lament, in that exaggerated lyric proper to romantic poets, for
concluding like this:
Cry then, cursed, because the lament is a way of your existence; cry, because
the long separation of those who love themselves, of those that tremble
themselves mutually, it is to put undoubtedly the bowl of affliction that has to
exaust until feces! (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 8)
Again it is lamented the presence of the three Portuguese authors in the work
of the writer from Paraná. Besides, in this way, it is relevant to remind that, effectively,
the missing theme and the separation is a component proper to, Bernardim Ribeiro’s
lyric, being successively recovered by Camões and Garrett.
placed to literary game and from the text in general, among the more different
medias. In consequence, we remember that Antoine Compagnon calls attention
to the fact that “to write, therefore, is always to rewrite, no different from the
mention. The citation, thanks to metonymic confusions of what presides, is reading
and writing links the act of reading to writing. To read or to write is to configure an
act of citation.” (COMPAGNON, 1996, p.31)
143 However, on approaching a Brazilian text from 1860, we are conscious of the
inherent care about the inter-textual concept applied in those days. With the ardent
desire of producing “good writing”, the writer connects excessively to European
standards of that age, which results mainly in an ancient rhetoric, infected by academic
scholarship and plenty of citations.
In the book studied, the 3rd. chapter reveals itself structurally a problem,
because a great number of citations and comments about European authors that
appeared in it. In this case, the accumulation of inter-textual symbolic exchanges is
possible to fail because of excessive citations, signalizing the path for digressions that
can confuse the reader, and break the narrative’s coherence. Lets take a look on how
this digressive style is structured:
a) Beginning: Description of Santos, biography of its historical important
people, departure of Santos.
b) Crossing the Piassabussu River, meeting with a horrible woman, verses’
citation from the First Canto of Garrett’s D. Branca. (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 18).
Garrettian verses are followed by a philosophical digression about what is a woman.
c) Departure, nocturne travel, digression about the meditation and the
inspiration, fitting of a long poem that he reveals being of a travel romantic fellow:
“romantic, no doubt, because it is an ancient melancholic song, which reminds of
Avalor’s sadness in Bernardim Ribeiro’s “Saudades”. (CORREIA COELHO, 1968,
p.19) A settled poem presents thematic analogies and stylistic with the work of the
mentioned troubadour, fact that the own writer signalizes.
d) Considerations about the rustic canto; fitting of a rustic ding-dong; comments
about it; fitting of another ding-dong; erudite comments (cites Ovid, Voltaire, Homer,
Ossian, Vico, Montaigne, among others).
e) Digression about the poetry (cites Aristotle, Horace, Boileau).
f) Critical comment over Bernardim Ribeiro’s “Saudades”, inter-connection of
Ovid’s verses, comments about Bernardim’s life, emphasizing him as a pilgrim.
g) Setting Canto IX of Garrett’s poem “Camões”, establishing the identity with
the poem with Bernardim’s life.
h) Discussing about the love’s impulse in the poet’s inspiration, the writer cites
Western Literature great lovers: Dante and Beatriz, Petrarca and Laura, Camões and
Natércia, Tasso and Eleonor.
i) Eulogy to Camões (life and work).
j) Eulogy to Almeida Garrett.
k) New comment over Camões.
Travel Narratives
Sometimes, his imagery system can be placed above all stereotypes and common
places, as for example, in this drop’s image: “The water rises, trembles: fortuity
Travel Narratives
and silent drop sink by the wrinkle that the misfortune hand broke on the face...”
(CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 8) However, the majority of language figures reveals a
deep impregnation of romantic models, and even neoclassical.
The style oscillates between the erudite and the sentimental. Sometimes, a
“noble” diction is imposed, as for the example when sings the national elements and
make rhetorical approximations with the Greek world. In other moments, the romantic
sentimentality sprays itself by on several pages, like this segment: “Transcending the
145 national and glorious site, one of the travelers enlarging the humid drop eyes to the
mountains [...]” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 12)
The rustic chant is monotonous and sentimental [...] his song is melancholic,
such a one instrument is the five cords viola finger played simultaneously. The
singing treats almost exclusively about love; and for many times, the thinking
is poetic and the verse harmonious; serving this … as a prove: ‘I wanted, she
wanted;/ I asked for, she did not give;/ I returned, she leaved;/ I leaved, she
cried’ (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p.22)
So stressed are the comments about the popular literature that Correia Coelho
ends revealing a certain peculiar poetic. This could be sketched like this:
- Poetry is linked to the sentiment, in opposition to reason: “The poetry is the
flower that expands itself on high region sentiment, wilts and is extinct into the ice of
reason.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 23)
- Poetry was a primitive language: “The poetry is spontaneous; shows itself in the
primitive language of not already cultivated peoples; by it they begin the expression
of his thought: give testimony to the Bible, Homer, Ossian; the poetry is the stammer
of peoples for the constitution of prose.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 22)
- Love reveals the poet; only love can inspire “the most beautiful verses.”
(CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 25)
- Poetry is a divine rapture and can exist even in prose: “and the verses, even
the well turned, could not contain a poetic vestige.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p. 22)
- The beauty does not depend on substance but on the idea: “The beauty is
beauty as under the snow color, and as under the copper one, and even of the color
that tinges the crow’s wing, the substance does not reveal; we want the faithful
translation of the typical idea.” (CORREIA COELHO, 1968, p.19)
Travel Narratives
REFERENCES
TODOROV, Tzvetan. A viagem e seu relato. Revista Letras. São Paulo, 2006. p. 231-244
WEINHARDT, M. O Paraná no discurso literário. Revista Letras, Curitiba: UFPR, n.
48, 1997. p. 77-93.
148 EUCLIDES DA CUNHA E MÁRIO
DE ANDRADE: DOIS MODOS DE VIAJAR
E NARRAR A AMAZÔNIA
Paulo Nunes1
Vânia Torres Costa2
encontro com as índias Icamiabas, as guerreiras Amazonas, que após violento confronto
com os espanhóis conseguiram expulsá-los (CARVAJAL; ROJAS; ACUÑA, 1941).
Narrativas como essa, somadas a tantas outras, vão solidificando uma certa
memória nacional como ‘discurso fundador’ do Norte do Brasil, ao ser gerador de
outros discursos, “instituindo em seu conjunto um complexo de formações discursivas,
uma região de sentidos, um sítio de significância que configura um processo de
identificação para uma cultura, uma raça, uma nacionalidade” (ORLANDI, 1993, p. 24).
Trata-se de um reservatório de memórias coletivas, atuais, antigas e comemorativas
150 que coexistem e que vão ressignificando os restos do passado (BARBOSA, 2007). Esses
diários de viagem, que trazem ao presente textos e imagens, são riquíssimos para
estudos e pesquisas que tem a intenção de desvendar tais olhares de estrangeiros e
brasileiros sobre as sociedades e povos que historicamente vem habitando a Amazônia.
Na atualidade, vários autores vem se debruçando a um levantamento mais
geral desses textos em forma de diários, como Gondim (2007) e Meirelles Filho (2009).
Segundo este último, de 1500 a 1930 foram registradas 42 expedições na Amazônia
em busca de aventuras, riquezas e pesquisas. Dentre essas, o autor cita as viagens de
Euclides (1905) e Mário (1927). Em comum, na maioria das viagens, ele registra os
grupos grandes comandados por um líder e a invisibilidade dos serviçais que tornavam
possíveis os deslocamentos: as populações locais de indígenas que trabalhavam como
remeiros, cozinheiros, soldados, guias e pilotos.
Até o século XVIII, as narrativas limitavam-se à escrita e às gravuras de
desenhistas profissionais. Só no século XIX aparecem os registros fotográficos a partir
da expedição de Augusto Biard (MEIRELLES FILHO; MARTINS, 2019). Esses relatos,
disponibilizados após as viagens, vem construindo uma ideia de Amazônia enquanto
memória acadêmica e letrada, institucionalizada e autorizada oficialmente frente às
narrativas orais e tradicionais dos povos originários, que não foram registradas e se
perderam. A visão eurocêntrica, com seus discursos da colonialidade3, é o que temos
nesses diários de campo.
Esses viajantes, a maioria vinda a mando de outros países, principalmente da
Europa, é autorizada pelo governo brasileiro a desbravar a Amazônia e levar daqui o
que quisessem, como exemplares da flora, da fauna e até índios. Os diários de viagem
propõem escrituras sobre o novo, mas esse novo é apropriado pelos narradores como
modo de evidenciar e dar visibilidade às diferenças encontradas: “não é só o mundo
antigo que se projeta assim sobre o novo: é o mundo de casa que se anexa pacificamente
sobre os descobrimentos ultramarinos. Utilizar a analogia é familiarizar o exótico
(GONDIM, 2007, p. 50).
Foi só em 1616, período de vigência da União Ibérica, que Portugal conseguiu
tomar posse da região, com a fundação de Santa Maria de Belém do Grão-Pará, hoje
Belém do Pará, o primeiro povoado do Norte do Brasil. A expedição de Pedro Teixeira,
que subiu o Amazonas entre 1637-1639 a mando de Lisboa, fez o reconhecimento
oficial da área a ser conquistada, de fato, pelos portugueses.
Mas foi no século XIX que a Amazônia se tornou o paraíso dos naturalistas
(SCHWARCZ, 1993). Euclides da Cunha, que leu essas narrativas de viagem e as
Narrativas de Viagem
menciona em seus ensaios, registra essa corrida dos cientistas à região: “é de toda a
América a paragem mais perlustrada dos sábios e é a menos conhecida” (CUNHA, 1909,
p. 4). As coletas eram feitas pelos expedicionários e os materiais eram despachados
para a Europa. A grandiosidade e a exuberância dos rios e da floresta eram comumente
relatadas, assim como as diferenças com relação à Europa eram realçadas: “prendia-
nos sempre a majestosa exuberância desta terra equatorial, que em toda extensão,
às matas de Belém do Pará ou às ilhas baixas do arquipélago circunstante, novas
3 Colonialidade do poder e do saber: “a ignorância colonialista consiste na recusa do conhecimento do outro
como igual e na sua conversão em objeto” (SANTOS, 2004).
151 maravilhas nos oferecia” (MARTIUS; SPIX, 1960, p. 333).
Em 1866 temos o registro da primeira instituição de pesquisa da região – a
Associação Filomática do Pará, hoje Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, referência
em pesquisas amazônicas nacional e internacionalmente. O zoólogo suíço Emilio
Goeldi “procurou fazer do Museu uma reprodução fiel das instituições congêneres
europeias” (SCHWARCZ, 1993, p. 85). O arqueólogo e naturalista mineiro Domingos
Soares Ferreira Penna, um dos fundadores do Museu, viajando pela região, observou
a melancolia dos índios e a necessidade de integrá-los à sociedade e à civilização.
Ferreira Pena registra a existência de uma população reduzida em relação ao
território e os hábitos ‘primitivos’: “não se deve esquecer que entre as causas que
retardam o seu desenvolvimento é força contar, em primeiro lugar, os hábitos anti-
higiênicos do povo e, em segundo lugar, as condições desfavoráveis do solo e do
clima”4. Para Márcio Souza, são os cientistas que constroem o mito da Amazônia
como um vazio demográfico, hostil aos homens civilizados, com nativos primitivos,
sem vida política ou cultural. “É a Amazônia terra sem história, que tem permitido
toda sorte de intromissão e arbitrariedade” (SOUZA, 2001, p. 101-102).
O naturalista inglês Henry Bates, que viveu na Amazônia entre 1848 e 1859,
coletava amostras da fauna e enviava a Londres. Em suas narrativas de viagem, registra
a presença de ‘soldados indolentes’, ‘negros carregando à cabeça talhas de barro
vermelho’, ‘índios de aspecto tristonho, com os filhos nus escanchados nos quadris’ e
‘várias outras amostras da vida multicolor do lugar’. E acrescenta: “do lado de fora das
portas, viam-se grupos tomando fresco: pessoas de todos os tons de pele, europeus,
negros e índios, mas principalmente uma mistura incerta dos três” (BATES, 1944, p. 33).
São os viajantes do século XIX que divulgam na Europa os potenciais da
borracha, há muito usada pelos índios da Amazônia e pelos portugueses na fabricação
de botas e garrafas.
Na memória coletiva é o período da Belle Époque. É o boom da borracha,
quando a região ganha destaque no cenário nacional e internacional. Por outro lado,
a exploração da borracha foi observada por Euclides da Cunha (1909, p. 9) como
atividade desumana: “de feito, o seringueiro - e não designamos o patrão opulento,
senão o freguês jungido à gleba das ‘estradas’ -, o seringueiro realiza uma tremenda
anomalia: é o homem que trabalha para escravizar-se”.
Nesse período, imigrantes nacionais e estrangeiros são estimulados pelo governo
brasileiro a vir trabalhar na Amazônia para garantir a ocupação do vasto território e
abrir novas frentes de trabalho. A Amazônia passa a existir como fronteira econômica
Narrativas de Viagem
importante e assim se constitui para a memória nacional oficial. Nesse início de século
XX, é que chegam à Amazônia Euclides da Cunha e, posteriormente, Mário de Andrade.
Narrar e viajar. Viajar e narrar. Aqui esses dois verbos não serão conjugados,
mas constituem a face dupla de uma mesma moeda. O ato de narrar nos humaniza e
4 CONSELHO ESTADUAL DE CULTURA. Obras completas de Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna. Belém, 1973.
2v. (Coleção Cultura Paraense, Série Inácio Moura). v.1. p.310.
152 nos constitui socialmente. Bakhtin (2006, p. 113) afirma que “o ato de fala, ou, mais
exatamente, seu produto, a enunciação, não pode de forma alguma ser considerado como
individual no sentido estrito do termo; não pode ser explicado a partir das condições
psicofisiológicas do sujeito falante. A enunciação é de natureza social”. Seguindo esse
raciocínio, precisamos situar Euclides e Mário nessa ‘viagem jornalístico-literária’
(MARTINEZ, 2012) das narrativas de viagem. Ambos são sudestinos, vem dos maiores
estados brasileiros em direção à região que historicamente viveu apartada do Brasil,
a Amazônia. Euclides nasce no Rio de Janeiro em 1866 e Mário de Andrade em 1893,
em São Paulo.
Seguimos nessa reflexão para perceber como Euclides e Mário produziram suas
verdades. Viajar, em se tratando de quem nos ocupamos, possibilita uma discussão
acerca de alteridade. Ao tratar da questão das viagens de Colombo, Todorov (1993, p.
3-4) institui alguns conceitos que nos serão muito úteis. O primeiro é o “sentimento
radical de estranheza” dos europeus em relação aos americanos5, e o segundo é o
conceito de “outro exterior”, aquele que o eu, num processo de tensão e poder, não se
reconhece pertencente a um dado grupo social e vê o outro como exótico6.
Sem dúvida, a relação Eu versus Outro é algo recorrente nos textos dos
dois autores aqui tratados; tensões que os viajantes registram por meio de suas
observações em relação à cultura amazônica – e seu ethos. Acerca disso, vale recorrer
a Octavio Paz (1996), que, em Signos em Rotação afirma: “a experiência da outridade
abrange as duas notas extremas de um ritmo de separação e reunião, presente em
todas as manifestações do ser, desde as físicas até as biológicas” (PAZ, 1996, p.109).
As identidades humanas, portanto, constituem-se em conhecimento e consciência
do Outro que lhe é dessemelhante ou incomum, o que Paz denomina de ‘outridade’.
Portanto, ler os registros de nossos viajantes significa também mergulhar nas tensões
que permeiam o Eu e o Outro.
Tzvetan Todorov (1993) reflete a respeito das viagens e suas descobertas, algo
que de algum modo pode ser aplicado aos deslocamentos de Euclides da Cunha e
Mário de Andrade. Afirma o teórico:
5 O sentimento radical de estranheza configurado no ‘encontro’ de europeus com os americanos pode ser aplicado
ao contato de Euclides da Cunha com a floresta amazônica, como veremos mais adiante.
6 Tais ideias são defendidas no ensaio “A conquista da América”. Todorov aponta que nenhum processo de
conquista foi tão radical quanto a chegada dos europeus, liderados por Colombo, às Américas; ganância,
incompreensão e intolerância possibilitaram, segundo Todorov, o maior holocausto da história da humanidade.
153 ‘inumana’, porque é dispersiva e etnocêntrica. Mas há que se problematizar que as
narrativas não podem ser compreendidas de modo pontual, desconectadas do tempo
e do espaço.
Quando descobrimos modos de contar histórias, demos saltos para o convívio
em sociedade. Ricoeur (1994) nos diz que o texto configura o que na ação humana já
figura. A narrativa produz o homem e seus mundos e os conecta a outros homens e
mundos. Ordena os fatos, os hierarquiza e tece a vida por meio da escritura, na qual
os sujeitos são inseridos e ‘acomodados’ tal qual o gosto do narrador.
de civilização’ num ambiente onde para o viajante até mesmo as pessoas parecem
deslocadas: “o homem, ali, é ainda um intruso impertinente. Chegou sem ser esperado
nem querido – quando a natureza ainda estava arrumando o seu mais vasto e luxuosa
salão. E encontrou uma opulenta desordem (...)” (CUNHA, 1999, p. 02).
À vista de Euclides, o rio e a floresta compõem um cenário grandioso e ao
mesmo tempo frustrante, mas, diferentemente dos europeus – Wallace, Humbolt,
entre outros –, o brasileiro sente-se desapontado diante do cenário amazônico, pois,
afinal, o quadro presentificado in loco não traz semelhança com o que fora imaginado,
decepciona o Euclides viajante. Seu foco é direcionado para as ambivalências da
154 colonialidade, tal qual Anibal Quijano aponta: está em questão a oposição entre
homem x natureza, esta última uma adversária dos amazônidas. A natureza é ‘volúvel
e revolta’ paralisando os ‘homens errantes’ que vivem uma permanente “agitação
tumultuária e estéril” (CUNHA, 1999, p.12).
Há, no entanto, algo que merece atenção, é quando o enunciador de À Margem
da História denuncia a predominância da horizontalidade sobre a verticalidade, como a
reclamar da falta de ocupação do espaço amazônico, colonizando-o, o que equivaleria
dizer a exercer o domínio sobre a natureza. A Amazônia é, na visão do narrador
euclidiano, uma fronteira a ser ocupada pelo Estado brasileiro. Leiamos:
Cunha adere a uma espécie de ‘horizontalidade visual’ que marca sua relação
de visitação à bacia do grande rio. E assim sendo, o olhar do viajante, estranho à
cotidianidade do ethos amazônico, reclama da monotonia do cenário, reivindica-lhe
movimento e presença humana, sentimento que é uma predisposição à ‘mesmidade’,
ao ‘igual’, que, afinal, afasta-se da ideia de viagem tanto como “sentimento radical
de estranheza” quanto à ideia-conceito de “outro exterior”, que não se reconhece no
grupo social amazônida e vê o Outro como exótico (TODOROV, 1993).
Euclides é enfático em seus argumentos, afinal ele esteve ‘lá’ e viu tudo de
perto. Geertz (2005, p.29), ao falar sobre a prática dos antropólogos em contato com
grupos pesquisados, reflete sobre os textos que escrevem resultantes dessas viagens e
imersões: “os etnógrafos precisam convencer-nos (...) não apenas de que eles mesmos
‘estiveram lá’, mas ainda (...) de que, se houvéssemos estado lá, teríamos visto o que
viram, sentido o que sentiram e concluído o que concluíram”.
Porque aponta recorrentemente a melancolia amazônica, Euclides será
refutado por outros narradores viajantes, dentre eles, Mário de Andrade. O autor de
Macunaíma, em suas incursões pelo rio Amazonas, enxerga virtudes na monotonia:
“o [rio] Amazonas prova decisivamente que a monotonia é um dos elementos mais
grandiosos do sublime. É incontestável que Dante [o autor de A Divina comédia] e
o Amazonas são igualmente monótonos; pra gente gozar um bocado e perceber a
Narrativas de Viagem
palavra “aprendiz”, que lhe completa o título (significa “aquele que aprende uma arte
ou ofício”), fecha-se o projeto programático da obra. A ideia de “recreio” na viagem
do nosso turista aprendiz, é cabível a partir do princípio latino dulce et utile (doce e
útil), o que significa que o diário da excursão resultante configura literatura que ao
mesmo tempo que agrada instrui, seduz e educa; é a ludicidade que decorre do “doce
7 Dadas as diversas influências e linhas de ação do’ espírito do tempo’ marcado pela renovação estética e cultural,
é mais coerente falar-se em Modernismos, ao invés de um Modernismo que tem são Paulo como balizador do
cânone histórico-literário nacional. O movimento de renovação no Pará, ligado por exemplo, a Bruno de Menezes
e a Academia o Peixe Frito, dialogou mais fortemente com o grupo pernambucano de Joaquim Inojosa.
156 aprender”, de que está atravessada a escrita do Turista Aprendiz.
Mário, narrador-viajante, é aquele que, em 1927, “aprende a arte ou oficio” de
etnógrafo8, promove o registro descritivo da cultura material e imaterial dos espaços
por onde passa, e deste modo, torna-se um pesquisador social da cultura brasileira.
Investigador despojado? Os projetos em que Mário de Andrade está envolvido estavam
demarcados por um ‘espírito do tempo’ de renovação estética no início do século XX.
Afinal parte da ‘inteligência brasileira’ almejava superar a monarquia agrária que
se coadunava à estética passadista, corporificada pela literatura parnasiana. Neste
projeto de descoberta dos Brasis contidos no Brasil, via-se a evidente a preocupação
com a memória social do Brasil, levantamento, registro e catalogação.
O Turista Aprendiz não pode ser lido separadamente de um projeto estético, e
por que não dizer, político? de Mário de Andrade. Este livro configura-se como um
contraponto com À Margem da História, de Euclides da Cunha. Embora O Turista...
caracteriza-se pelos aspectos seguintes: a) O alargamento das fronteiras interculturais
do Brasil; b) O entrelaçamento dos mecanismos enunciativos – narrativa, diário de
viagem, fotografia e desenho – internos da obra marioandradina; c) O diálogo com
programas político-estéticos dos modernistas; d) A refiguração da Amazônia por meio
de um exercício de alteridade de um enunciador não amazônico; e) A desmontagem da
lusitanidade grafolinguística, pela escrita de inovador português brasileiro. Tudo isso
vai ao encontro do alargamento das fronteiras interculturais do Brasil, empreendida
pelos primeiros modernistas brasileiros, que investiram num entrecruzamento de vozes,
que fez da Amazônia, naquele momento, um espaço privilegiado. Mário escreve sobre
a ideia de ressiginificar os Brasis do Brasil, a partir do que ele observara no mercado do
Ver-O-Peso:
Belém me entusiasma cada vez mais. O mercado hoje esteve fantástico de tão
acolhedor. Só aquela sensação do munguzá... sentada no chão, era uma blusa
branca branca numa preta preta que levantando pra nós os dentes os olhos e
as angélicas da trunfa, tudo branco, oferecia com o braço estendido preto uma
cuia envernizada preta donde saía a fumaça branquinha (...) Tenho gozado por
demais. Belém foi feita pra mim e caibo nela que nem mão de dentro da luva
(...) Em Belém o calorão dilata os esqueletos e meu corpo ficou exatamente do
tamanho de minha alma... - 23 de maio (ANDRADE, 2002, p. 64).
8 Aquele que pratica a etnografia, Segundo o dicionário Houaiss é o “estudo descritivo das diversas etnias, de
suas características antropológicas, sociais etc”; ou ainda “o registro descritivo da cultura material de um deter-
minado povo”.
157 Por fim, vê-se a ‘desmontagem’ da lusitanidade grafolinguística, graças à
escritura de um português brasileiro de perfil literário. Na ideia ‘tomada emprestada’
tanto de Oswald de Andrade quanto de Manuel Bandeira, Mário reinventa a língua
literária, que tem em Macunaíma, seu livro mais festejado, a mais radical proposta
de enunciação. Este exercício criativo de linguagem, que mistura oralidade e escrita,
apartadas escrita lusitana, está presente nesta forma arrevesada de narrar em O
Turista Aprendiz:
Hoje a lancha Tucunaré nos levou pra almoçar longe no Caripi. O furo de
Barcarena estava sarapintado de velas. Dizem que é habitadíssimo porém não
se enxerga casa, a caboclada desse furo desde a guerra do Paraguai que ergueu
seus lares no escondido, temendo mais recrutamento. Só de vez em quando
um caule de miriti jogado perpendicularmente à margem se entremostra
num refego das ramas arrastando as saias n’água. Aquilo serve de ponte para
desembarque e ali vive tapuio” (ANDRADE, 2002, p. 66).
Considerações finais
a um grupo social, no caso a Amazônia e seus sujeitos. Dai porque, Euclides da Cunha
vê o outro como exótico, diferente de si.
Mário de Andrade, com objetivos opostos aos de Cunha, percorre os mesmos
caminhos e paisagens, mas seu olhar, configurado em seus textos, nos mostra outra
Amazônia, porto de novidades e possibilidades a ser tratado em seus futuros projetos
culturais e literários, como se verá, por exemplo, na reescrita do romance Macunaíma,
que mudará de feição após a viagem à Amazônia. Músico e escritor da linha de frente
do Modernismo paulistano, ele se propõe a virar do avesso as produções canônicas
158 voltadas a reiterar o ‘discurso fundador’ sobre o Brasil, e o faz com a ousadia que lhe
era possível. Mário está imbuído na predisposição de desvelar os Brasis contidos no
Brasil; ele sente o burburinho das ruas, conhece e convive com pessoas, ouve-lhe as
suas histórias, enfim, não se poupa de pesquisar as ribanceiras da Amazônia.
Como problematiza Todorov em sua interrogativa, “um relato de viagem não
é, em si mesmo, o ponto de partida, e não somente o ponto de chegada, de uma nova
viagem?” O que fizemos aqui, nós ‘viajantes de duas escritas’ sobre a Amazônia, não
foi mais que elucidar que as narrativas de viagens de Euclides da Cunha e Mário de
Andrade proporcionam ao leitor um ponto de partida, quanto ao porto de chegada...
Bem, isso é lá outra história, outras narrativas a serem escritas.
REFERÊNCIAS
Paulo Nunes 1
Vânia Torres Costa2
This text reflections’ are yet to be finished since the path, movement and
consequential register made by two renowned travellers to the Amazon are quite
extensive. As insinuated by the title, we discuss Euclides da Cunha and Mário de
Andrade’s trips to the North region of Brazil. We compare two perspectives and
understandings about the world and, as a result, distinctive ways of planning, running
and narrating trips. In addition to that, we should also consider how these trips were
narrated by the travellers.
Although polysemic, the concept of ‘travel narratives’ is hereby understood as a
text genre intertwined to the act of travelling. This implies movement and a consequential
texture and ordering of occurred events. It is related to different areas of knowledge such
as literature, journalism, anthropology, scientific expeditions and tourism.
We intend to reflect upon these narratives as registers of the past. Such as their
trips, these texts were planned and intended. Also, they were offered in a way to
make someone see and believe in what Mário de Andrade and Euclides da Cunha
experienced in their incursions and wanted to register and keep not only in their
memories but also wished to make public.
In both narratives the Amazon is watched, savored, and discoursely produced
1 PhD in Letters (PUC-Minas), Master in Literary Theory (UFPA). Professor at the University of Amazonia (UNA-
MA); He has a degree in Letters, and a postgraduate degree in Communication, Languages and Culture. He is one
of the coordinators of the Interinstitutional Study Group (UNAMA / UFPA) Narramazônia: contemporary narrati-
ves of the Paraense Amazon, and one of the coordinators of the Fried Fish Academy project: interfaces journalism
and literature. He is also one of the coordinators of the interinstitutional project (CUMA-UEPA and PPGCLC
Travel Narratives
- UNAMA) Poetic Epistles between the novelist Dalcídio Jurandir and Maria de Belém Menezes; Curator of the
Moronguetá project collection, linked to the Landi Forum (FAU-UFPA); integrates the research group Makunaíma:
Literature in Latin America (PPGLetras-UFPA)
2 PhD in Communication from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Master in Development Planning from
the Center for Advanced Amazonian Studies (NAEA) - Federal University of Pará (UFPA). Graduated in Commu-
nication - Journalism (UFPA). She is currently adjunct professor and deputy coordinator of the Faculty of Commu-
nication of the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), where she coordinates the project “Belém-Bra-Gança Railroad:
subjects, memories and communicational interactions in the Paraense Amazon”. She is one of the coordinators of
the Narramazônia project - a study and research group on Contemporary Narratives in the Paraense Amazon - a
partnership between UNAMA (PPGCLC) and UFPA (PPGCOM).
161 from the readings and textures of these travelers. Later, they are referenced as two
major Brazilian writers at the 20th century. Therefore, as Foucault (2006) points out,
these literary works are dated in time and carry a status determined by the speaker’s
perspective: “the author’s name works to characterize the discourse way of being”
(FOUCAULT, 2006, p 274, our translation). We should consider the authors’ credibility
to say what they to understand the ‘sovereignty of the signifier’.
At their time, Mário de Andrade and Euclides da Cunha followed the paths of
many other travellers that moved through the Amazon rivers and forests seeking
new sensations and adventures. All of them wanted to witness new findings and to
see for themselves the legendary Eldorado as well as its myths, people and cities. The
search for what is new and different moves every traveller and is at stake here. The
reason for any movement is the expectation to live new experiences that could bring
practical results accordingly to the traveller’s interests, which can be verbal and non-
verbal narratives or even material collection.
That is how we will look into the storytelling of these two travellers in the
‘Amazon experience’. We will deal with the register of two intellectuals with very
different backgrounds and perspectives about the world. However, they have
something in common: at their own way, they are responsible for expressing their
world view and to represent a Brazil that is still unknown to the majority of their
readers. Each in their particular way, they are both influenced by projects that try to
value the Brazilian national identity.
Our discussion is based on a posthumous publication of Euclides da Cunha: The
Amazon: Land Without History [À Margem da História], an essay collection originally
published a month after his death in 1909; as well as on Mário de Andrade’s travel
journal in The Apprentice Tourist [O turista aprendiz]. In the process of breaking
down the narratives (MOTTA, 2013) to understand them we will also dialogue with
Todorov (1993), problematizing texts in which there is insertion and visibility of the
Other narrated as speech acts.
The Spanish were the first to navigate the Amazon waters in the beginning
of the America's conquest, in the end of the 15th century. In the official history of
the region, the Spanish Francisco Orellana was the first European to sail through
the Amazon river, in 1540. He would have climbed down the Andean Mountains
after leading bloody attacks against the Inca people in Peru. Even in this 'first' travel
narrative, we can already witness the cronist figure in the presence of Friar Gaspar
Travel Narratives
de Carvajal. He reports the encounter with the indigenous women Icamiabas, the
Amazon female warriors, who managed to fight off the Spanish after a violent
combat. (CARVAJAL; ROJAS; ACUÑA, 1941).
Since it generates other speeches, narratives as such and many others create a
national memory as the North of Brazil 'founding discourse’. “Altogether creating a
complex of discursive formations, meaning regions and significance frameworks that
originate a identification process towards a culture, race or nationality (ORLANDI,
162 1993, p. 24, our translation). It is a reservoir of collective, current, old, celebrative
memories that coexist and resignify fragments of the past (BARBOSA, 2007). These
trip journals that bring to the present text and image are extremely rich for studying
and researching such foreigner and Brazilian view regarding the people and the
societies who originally have been living in the Amazon.
Currently, many authors dedicate their efforts into a more general survey about
these texts presented as diaries, such as Gondim (2007) and Meirelles Filhos (2009).
According to the latter, 42 expeditions to the Amazon in search for adventure, wealth
and research have been registered from 1500 to 1930. The author mentions the trips
of Cunha (1905) and Andrade (1927) among them. What most trips have in common
is a large group conducted by a leader as well as the servants' invisibility: the local
indigenous people who made the movement possible by working as oarsmen, cooks,
soldiers, guides and pilots.
Until the 18th century, the narratives were limited to the writing and engraving of
professional artists. Only in the 19th century photographic records from Augusto Biard’s
expedition showed up (MEIRELLES FILHO; MARTINS, 2019). Through time, these trip
reports have been building a scholar and intellectual, institutionalized and officially
authorized Amazon memory. They oppose from the oral and traditional narratives of the
native people, which were not recorded and therefore have been lost. That way, there is
an Eurocentric view as well as its coloniality3 speeches in these field diaries.
Most of these travellers come from other countries, especially from Europe,
and they are authorized by the Brazilian government to delve into the Amazon and
take out whatever they wanted, as samples of fauna and flora or even indigenous
people. The trip journals suggest writings about the new, but this novelty is
appropriated by the narrators to evidentiate and shed light to the differences found:
“it is not only a projection of the old world into the new: it is the home universe
being peacefully attached to the overseas findings. To use some analogies is to make
the exotic familiar (GONDIM, 2007, p. 50, our translation).
It was only in 1616, during the Iberian Union, that Portugal was able to take
possession of the region, by founding Santa Maria de Belém do Grão-Pará, nowadays
Belém do Pará, the first settlement in the North of Brazil. It was Pedro Teixeira’s
expedition, which sailed up the Amazon river between 1637-1639 by orders of Lisbon,
that made the official recognition of the area to be actually conquered by the Portuguese.
During the 19th century the Amazon became the naturalists’ paradise
(SCHWARCZ, 1993). Euclides da Cunha, who read those travel narratives and
mentions them in his essays, registers the scientists race to the region: “the wise’s
most perused enclave is American and yet is the least known” (CUNHA, 1909, p.
Travel Narratives
territory and to open new work front. The Amazon then is considered an important
economic border and is presented in the official national memory like that. In the
beginning of the 20th century first Euclides da Cunha and then Mário de Andrade
arrive at the Amazon.
4 CONSELHO ESTADUAL DE CULTURA. Obras completas de Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna. Belém, 1973. 2v.
(Coleção Cultura Paraense, Série Inácio Moura). v.1. p.310.
164 Hoist the sails: the beginning of the journey
To narrate and to travel. To travel and to narrate. These two verbs here conjugated
should be understood as the double face of a single coin. The act of narrating socially
builds who we are. Bakhtin (2006, p. 113, our translation) states that “the speech act, or
even more, its product, the narrative, cannot in any way be individually considered; it
cannot be explained from the psychophysiological conditions of the speaking subject.
To narrate is part of the social nature”.
According to this thought, we need to place Cunha and Andrade in this ‘literate-
journalistic trip’ (MARTINEZ, 2012, our translation) of travel narratives. Both are
from the Southeast region of Brazil. They come from the two biggest states of the
country to the Amazon, a region that historically lived apart from Brazil. Cunha was
born in Rio de Janeiro in 1866 and Mário de Andrade was born in 1893 in São Paulo.
We need to draw upon this thought to understand how Cunha and Andrade
produced their truths. Considering those who we are studying, the act of travelling
allows a discussion about alterity. In face of Colombo’s trips, Todorov (1993, p. 3-4)
presents a few concepts that should also be useful to us. The first of them is the
European “impression of irreducible strangeness” towards the native americans5. The
second one is the concept of “external other”. In a process of tension and power the
self does not recognize himself as belonging to a specific social group and therefore
sees the other as exotic6.
For sure, the relationship between the Self against the Other is recurring in
the work of both authors here presented; tensions the travellers register through
their observations regarding the Amazon culture — and its ethos. About that, it is
worth mentioning Signs in Rotation from Octavio Paz (1996), in which we read:
“the otherness experience covers two extreme notes of a separation and reunion
rhythm, which are present in every aspects of the being, from the physical ones to
the biological ones” (PAZ, 1996, p.109, our translation). Therefore, human identities
are built on knowledge and consciousness of the Other. The “otherness experience”
mentioned by Paz happens because the Other is unlike or uncommon. That said, to
read the records of our travellers also means to dive into the tensions between the
Self and the Other.
Tzvetan Todorov (1993) reflects about the trips and its findings, what can
somehow be applied to the movements of Euclides da Cunha and Mário de Andrade.
The academic states that:
One can discover others in oneself and realize that one is not an homogeneous
substance neither radically different from everything else that is not oneself.
Travel Narratives
Thus, each one of the others is also a self, a subject like I am. Only according to
my point of view, in which everyone else is there and I am here, it is possible
5 The impression of irreducible strangeness that happens at the ‘encounter’ of Europeans and native americans
can be applied to the contact between Euclides da Cunha and the Amazon forest as we will see forward.
6 Such ideas are presented in the essay “The conquest of America”. Todorov points out that no other conquest
process was so brutal as the arrival of the Europeans leaded by Colombo into the Americas; greed, misunderstanding
and intolerance led to the biggest holocaust in human history, according to Todorov.
165 to separate and distinguish them from me. Or from a social group to which we
do not belong (...) (TODOROV, 1993, p.3, our translation)7.
The clarification of this conflicted relationship between the Self and the Other
is unveiled by Todorov (1993, p. 3, our translation), who warns us of a position not
always easy to be adopted. However, as he points out, the ‘Self [is] an Other (...), each
one of the others is also a self’. Thus, according to Todorov, the idea of an orthodox
delimitation that separates social groups is ‘inhumane’, since it is dispersive and
ethnocentric. However, we should bare in mind that narratives cannot be understood
from an isolated perspective, unattached from their time and space.
When we found ways to tell stories we improved life in society. Ricoeur (1994)
tells us that the text configures what already figures in the human action. The narrative
produces the man and his worlds and connects them to other men and other worlds.
It puts facts into order and hierarchies. It weaves life through texture, in which the
subjects are inserted and ‘accommodated’ according to the narrator's wil.
7 In Portuguese: “Pode-se descobrir os outros em si mesmo, e perceber que não se é uma substância homogênea,
e radicalmente diferente de tudo o que não é si mesmo; eu é um outro. Mas cada um dos outros é um eu também,
sujeito como eu. Somente meu ponto de vista, segundo o qual todos estão lá e eu estou aqui, pode realmente separá-
los e distingui-los de mim. Ou então como um grupo social ao qual não pertencemos (...)” (TODOROV, 1993, p.3).
8 In Portuguese: ‘gizar’, ‘idealizar aforrado, ‘opulenta desordem’.
166 the active everyday life in Rio de Janeiro, it is even more distinctive is his complaint of a
‘lack of civilization’, in an environment where it felt to the traveller that even the people
did not belong: “the man there is yet a petulant intruder. They came without being
invited or desired — when nature was still tidying up its most vast and luxurious room.
And so they found a magnificent disorder (...)” (CUNHA, 1999, p. 02, our translation).
To Cunha, the river and the forest constitute a scenery both great and frustrating.
Differently from the Europeans — Wallace, Humbolt and others —, the Brazilian is
disappointed by the Amazon scene, afterall, what sees in loco is not similar to what he
imagined and therefore lets down the traveller in him. As pointed by Anibal Quijano
he is more interested in the ambivalences of the coloniality: there is the opposition
between men against nature, the latter being an opponent the the Amazonian people.
The nature is ‘fickle and uprising’ and paralyze the ‘wandering men’ who live in a
constant “tumultuous and sterile agitation” (CUNHA, 1999, p.12, our translation).
However, there is something worth noting: the narrator in Land Without
History reports the existence of horizontality over verticality, as if complaining about
the lack of occupation of the Amazon space, colonizing it, which can be compared to
dominating the nature. The narrator believes the Amazon is a border to be crossed
and occupied by the Brazilian Government. As we read:
from these trips and immersions: “ethnographers must convince us (...) not only that
they have ‘been there’ themselves but also (...) that if we were to be there, we would
have seen what they saw, felt what they felt and concluded what they concluded”.
9 In Portuguese: “[A Amazônia] é, sem dúvida, o maior quadro da Terra; porém chatamente rebatido num plano
horizontal que mal alevantam de uma banda, à feição dos restos de uma enorme moldura que se quebrou (...) e
como lhe falta a linha vertical, preexcelente na movimentação da paisagem, em poucas horas o observador cede
às fadigas de monotonia inaturável e sente que o seu olhar, inexplicavelmente, se abrevia nos sem-fins daqueles
horizontes vazios e indefinidos como os dos mares” (CUNHA, 1999, p. 1-2).
167 Since he constantly mentions the Amazonian melancholy, Cunha is contested
by other traveller-narrators, including Mário de Andrade. During his break through
the Amazon river, Macunaíma’s author sees virtue in monotony: “the Amazon [river]
definitely proves that monotony is one of the greatest elements of anything sublime.
Undoubtedly, Dante [who wrote Divine Comedy] and the Amazon are equally
monotonous; in order for us to enjoy a little and notice the variety of these sublime
monotonies (ANDRADE, 202, p. 60, our translation).
In Land Without History, Euclides da Cunha adopts a narrator’s way recurring
in the 18th and 19th centuries: the traveller-military-narrator. In telling his stories, this
kind of narrator is predisposed to a disconnection and favorable to the civilizational
occupation of the visited place. That would be the “external other” from Todorov, the
one who does not allow the author’s Self to dialogue with those he encounter in a
way to understand their subjectivity and life experiences; he only sees them as exotic
in a way to reject them as lead characters in possible local stories.
The journalist Cunha even adopts an acid tone in describing men working in
inhumane conditions, victimizing them, as when he observes the rubber tappers: At
first it seems to us a vulgar case of a civil who gets barbarized, in a astonishing
retreatment in which the higher characteristics of the activity primitive forms are
erased from him” (CUNHA, 1999, p. 48, our translation)10.
Cunha sees a ‘formidable irony’ in these workers who face the ‘devil-like
paradise of the rubber trees’ and their enslaving working conditions. He makes
importante accusations regarding the rubber tappers exploitation by their employers
and that should be praised; on the other hand, Cunha sees only needs and deficiencies
both in the ‘nature lack of completude’ and in its ‘original rawness’. There is no room
for beauty, there is no admiration towards what he gets to know; although in contact
with the region, he closes himself up to admiration and knowledge. To him, the
Amazon is limited to a locus of absences and needs.
While Cunha comes to the Amazon in an official mission of the Comissão
Demarcadora de Limites [Borders Delimitation Commission] of the Brazilian
Government, Mário de Andrade ‘invites himself’ to the trip and to the Amazon when
he joins the small group of the ‘coffee baroness’, Ms. Olivia Guedes Penteado from
São Paulo. As we know, this trip is part of a project from the political and aesthetic
movement that later would be known as Modernism, which significantly shapes
Brazilian thought in the 20th century11.
According to Meirelles Filho (2009, p. 194, our translation), Mário de Andrade’s
trip lasts three months (from May to August, 1927). He leaves Rio de Janeiro and goes
through the Brazilian coast until Belém, where he arrives a week later. After that, he
Travel Narratives
and his group head to Iquitos, Manaus, Porto Velho. “At each spot the the steamboat
stops to load wood or to cut grass to feed the herd, Andrade seizes to know the farms,
10 In Portuguese: “a princípio figura-se-nos um caso vulgar de civilizado que se barbariza, num recuo espantoso
em que lhe apagam os caracteres superiores das formas primitivas da atividade” (CUNHA, 1999, p. 48).
11 Considering the many influences and actions of the ‘spirit of the age’ to seek a cultural and aesthetic renewal,
it is more appropriate to discuss Modernisms instead of a single with São Paulo as the national historic-literate
archive. In the state of Pará, for example, the renewal movement in the figure of Bruno de Menezes and the
Academia o Peixe Frito strongly exchanged with Joaquim Inojosa’s group from the state of Pernambuco.
168 the rubber and cacao plantations, the extraction of pau rosa, the villages (...)”.
Resourceful, Andrade collects, saves and registers different aspects of what he
finds in his path during the trip we here discuss. That is valuable to us: he does not
use the cartesian logic in his storytelling and actually invests in a poetic writing,
in a fluent style, as if writing an informal trip journal. The Apprentice Tourist is
his posthumous book, published in 1976, about 30 years after his death. This travel
narrative offers unique aspects and remains original until today.
Excited, Andrade describes the first part of his travel records in The Apprentice
Tourist: “travelling through the Amazonas state until Peru, through Madeira river until
Bolivia and through the Marajó islands until it is enough”. Before we discuss the book
it is important to reflect upon its title. He uses the signifier ‘tourist’ (which is preceded
by the article ‘the’). According to the Portuguese language Houaiss dictionary, one
of the meanings of ‘tourist’ is “recreational trip, excursion”. It is used in addition to
the word “apprentice” (which means “the one who learns an art or craft”) to enclose
the intended meaning of the work. The “recreational” aspect in this tourist’s trip is
acceptable from the latin principle dulce et utile (sweet and useful). It means that the
resulting excursion journal is literature at the same time that is pleasant, instructful,
seductive and educational. The writing of The Apprentice Tourist is deeply marked by
the ludic aspect that results from a “it is sweet to learn” idea.
Andrade, the traveller-narrator, is the one who in 1927 “learns an art or craft”
to become an ethnographer12. He advances the descriptive record of the material
and immaterial culture from the places he visited and becomes a social researcher
of the Brazilian culture. Was he an adventurous investigator? The projects in which
Mário de Andrade was involved were moved by a ‘spirit of the age’ to seek aesthetic
renewal in the beginning of the 20th century. Afterall, part of the ‘Brazilian thinkers’
aimed to surpass the agricultural monarchy, which agreed with an archaic aesthetic
exemplified in the Parnassian literature. The concern about Brazilian social memory,
its collecting, recording and classification, was clear in this project that aimed to
discover of the many Brazis that exist in Brazil.
The Apprentice Tourist cannot be read apart from Andrade’s aesthetic as well as
political project. This book opposes Euclides da Cunha’s Land Without History. The
Apprentice Tourist is characterized by the following aspects: a) the expansion of Brazilian
intercultural borders; b) the intertwinement of different storytelling mechanisms —
narrative, trip journals, photograph and drawings — commonly found in Mário de
Andrade’s work; c) the dialogue with the political-aesthetical modernists programs; d)
a new Amazon picture possible by the alterity of a a non-Amazonian narrator; e) the
Lusitanian graphic-linguistic dismantle by the innovative Brazilian Portuguese writing.
Travel Narratives
All that agrees with the expansion of Brazilian intercultural borders, undertaken by
the first Brazilian modernists. They invested in intertwined voices, which made the
Amazon a privileged space at that time. Observing the Ver-O-Peso market, in Belém,
Andrade writes about the idea of adding new meanings the the many Brazis he found:
12 The one who practices ethnography. According to the Houaiss dictionary, it is the “descriptive study of the
many ethnies, its anthropologic and social characteristics”; also “the descriptive record of the material culture of
a particular people”.
169 Belém excites me more and more. Today, the market was incredibly welcoming.
The munguzá experience alone… sitting on the floor, there was a white white shirt
on a black black woman who lift her teeth her eyes and the angelica flowers on
her turban to us, all white, offering with a black stretched arm a black varnished
bowl from which a really white smoke scaped (...) I have been enjoying myself
so much. Belém was made for me and I fit in it as well as a hand in a glove (...) In
Belém the boiling weather swells skeletons and finally my body is the exact same
size as my soul… May 23rd (ANDRADE, 2002, p. 64, our translation)13.
June 2nd: board life. Afternoon in Parintins with the talkative mayor. Offered
us a township book, how many books already!, how many reports! A very
intriguing crucifix at the church (...) In Parintins the only one who did not went
by the door and by the window to see us was the girl who died precisely today,
stabbed by love. At night, vowing, the guariba’s14 scream was heard. It is a dark
humanly cry that left us extremely uncomfortable (ANDRADE, 2002, p.75-6)15.
At last, we can see the ‘dismantle’ of the Lusitanian graphic-linguistic, because of
a literary Brazilian Portuguese writing. In a ‘borrowed’ idea from Oswald de Andrade
and Manuel Bandeira, Andrade reinvents the literary language. In Macunaíma, his
most acknowledged book, we can see the most radical storytelling proposition. This
creative linguistic exercise, that mixes orality and writing apart from the Lusitanian
writing, is also seen in The Apprentice Tourist and its unusual storytelling.
Today the Tucunaré motorboat took us to have lunch far away in the Caripi.
The Barcarena canal was spotted with candles. They say it is highly habited
however it is not possible to see houses; since the Paraguai war the people in
this canal built up their homes in hiding places afraid of a new recruitment.
Only once in a while a miriti16 stem perpendicularly thrown to the shore can
barely be seen bent in itself gently caressing the waters. It works as a bridge
and indicates there lives a tapuio17” (ANDRADE, 2002, p. 66, our translation)18.
da municipalidade, quanto livro já!, quanto relatório! Um crucifixo muito curioso na igreja (...) Em Parintins só
não saiu na porta e na janela pra nos ver a moça que morreu justamente hoje, apunhalada pelo amor. De noite,
vogando, se escutou o berro das guaribas. É um lamento humano, tenebroso, que nos deixou sem graça nenhuma”
(ANDRADE, 2002, p.75-6).
16 TN: palm tree that lives near swamps in tropical areas.
17 TN: indigenous person or someone with indigenous descendance.
18 In Portuguese: “Hoje a lancha Tucunaré nos levou pra almoçar longe no Caripi. O furo de Barcarena estava
sarapintado de velas. Dizem que é habitadíssimo porém não se enxerga casa, a caboclada desse furo desde a guerra
do Paraguai que ergueu seus lares no escondido, temendo mais recrutamento. Só de vez em quando um caule de
miriti jogado perpendicularmente à margem se entremostra num refego das ramas arrastando as saias n’água.
Aquilo serve de ponte para desembarque e ali vive tapuio” (ANDRADE, 2002, p. 66).
170 the aesthetic revolution thinking system then in vogue. They result from a re-
descoverying of the many Brazis that exist in Brazil project conducted by Andrade
and his peers. Travelling through the Amazon is part of a series of records in that
matter. Photographs, drawings, texts, recordings. That is when the ‘harlequin poet’19
ingrains himself with the Amazonian colors and gibbers.
Final Considerations
point of arrival… Well, that is already a different story, to another narrative yet to
be written.
19 In Portuguese: ‘poeta arlequinal’. TN: in reference to Harlequin, ‘arlequinal’ is a word seen in other Andrade’s
works. It is usually associated to being “resourceful”, “fragmented”, “multifaceted”.
171 REFERENCES
Fonte: https://vimeo.com/4481018
3 Em uma tradução livre: “Quando o significado adquire um corpo e entra em relações históricas, se inicia
imediatamente a terceiridade das regras que definem as condições de acesso ao sentido, isto é, as condições de sua
circulação”.
4 Disponível em: [https://vimeo.com/4481018] Acesso em: [24 de maio de 2019]
5 Livre tradução de: “A visual account of the local culture, the challenges faced there, and a sampling of the cycle
touring lifestyle”.
176 Para que isso fosse possível, foi necessário, em um primeiro momento, que
as imagens fossem capturadas por uma câmera, à revelia de isso ter sido feito por
David Achtemichuk ou Linden Hume. Ao serem gravadas as imagens, um excerto
do tempo foi congelado; ou seja, aqueles momentos, antes transitórios, tornaram-
se autônomos, passaram a existir à revelia do momento em que foram apreendidos.
Depois, quando foram submetidos a processos de edição, sofreram uma estruturação
narrativa, que chamamos genericamente de edição, por meio da qual passaram a
instaurar integibilidade, a “fazer sentido”, mas agora como uma narrativa diferente.
Transformaram-se, assim, em uma história distinta da que se viveu, ainda que
alinhada tematicamente, igualmente com “começo, meio e fim”, mas criada a partir da
interposição de uma tecnologia entre os ciclistas e o vivido. Quando as imagens e sons
são transformados em filmes, e este veiculados em um site como o Vímeo, ganham
persistência, condição para que sejam acessadas pelas pessoas, cicloturistas ou não,
transformando e sendo transformados neste movimento.
É neste ponto que começamos a encontrar sentido no axioma (SOSTER, 2016,
2017, 2018) segundo o qual “as bicicletas transformam, geralmente para melhor, as
pessoas”. Mas, também, onde se observa mais claramente o papel que os dispositivos
técnicos cumprem nessa relação. Algumas pistas discursivas sobre o papel ocupado
pelos dispositivos técnicos nas narrativas de bicicleta podem ser encontradas em relatos
dessa natureza. O livro “Transpatagônia: pumas não comem ciclistas” (CAVALLARI,
2015), um clássico do gênero, é um dos exemplos que explicitam estas operações,
que são da ordem das gramáticas de produção. No capítulo 7, e diante da decisão,
tomada ainda quando da etapa de planejamento, de escrever um livro e produzir um
filme sobre a expedição à Patagônia, Cavallari oferece pistas do papel ocupado pelos
dispositivos em sua viagem. É o que sugere o trecho abaixo:
Decidi então pela ‘Power Shot G12 da Canon. Essa câmara proporciona uma
excelente flexibilidade e desempenho com níveis de controle profissionais
e suporte para vários acessórios. Com design clássico, ela foi concebida
para proporcionar um desempenho superior, capaz de ir ao encontro das
necessidades tanto de profissionais quanto de entusiastas da fotografia, meu
caso. (MAGALHÃES, 2012, p. 40)
Narrativas reconfiguradas
“(...) as ‘viagens’ (tanto no sentido estrito da palavra quanto metafórico, como ação
potencializadora da sabedoria individual) caracterizadas como ‘experiência’ para o
escritor”. Ou seja, em uma perspectiva de tempo moderna, nos moldes de Benjamin
(2012), ainda que em uma ambiência midiatizada, à medida que estes modelos de
narrativa trazem, com o narrado, a perspectiva da transformação pessoal, o que se dá
pelo relato da experiência do vivido, como se fazia nas sociedades dos meios, e não
pelo afastamento deste:
178 O narrador de Benjamin faz parte da correia de transmissão desse saber
concreto, no qual se auferem conselhos, ensinamentos éticos e práticos. Esse
tipo de narrativa constitui a base comunicativa do grupo social, portanto,
as formas primordiais de transmissão do ethos comunitário, ou seja, de
tradições e modos de ser. Sua temporalidade é necessariamente lenta, já
que a interiorização harmônica das experiências demanda, para o ouvinte,
o intervalo prudente entre os relatos; para o narrador, o próprio acúmulo
temporal como critério de sabedoria. (SODRÉ, 2000, p. 180)
novos contornos. Mais que o autor de uma narrativa, este narrador toma para si o
protagonismo da narrativa e acaba interferindo nas escolhas do primeiro narrador, a
quem era subsumido até então, e do terceiro narrador.
Forças reconfiguradas
Foi o que constatamos, ainda que em outro contexto, quando analisamos, pela
primeira vez, o fenômeno em questão (SOSTER, 2014). Por este viés, e tomando como
179 ponto de partida o esquema desenvolvido por Motta (2013) para pensar a disputa de
vozes narrativas (primeiro narrador > segundo narrador > terceiro narrador), o que
se observa, com os atravessamentos e interposições provocados pela processualidade
da midiatização, é uma reordenação da disputa de forças no interior dos dispositivos.
O segundo narrador passa a ter, por este viés, mais poder (ou liberdade, se
preferirmos) que o primeiro e o terceiros narradores. Ou seja: primeiro narrador <
segundo narrador > terceiro narrador. E é por isso que é ele, pensando em um livro,
por exemplo, e não a editora, ou o editor, quem escolhe desde o nome da obra, sua
forma, tonalidade, angulação e estrutura discursiva até a materialização do que se
quer efetivamente dizer, neste caso, que as bicicletas transformam, geralmente para
melhor, as pessoas.
Necessário observar, por outro lado, que a emergência de um narrador midiatizado
não se confunde com a existência de um quarto extrato narrativo, que chamamos de
Quarto Narrador. Os dois se integram na mesma perspectiva epistemológica, segundo
a qual a processualidade da midiatização não apenas reconfigura a disputa de vozes
narrativas no âmbito do dispositivo como também permite a emergência de um
quarto extrato narrativo (SOSTER, 2016, 2017). Compreender isso implica subsumir
que o sistema existe graças aos diálogos correferenciais entre os dispositivos dos
quais são formados. Mas se diferenciam, na medida em que o primeiro diz respeito
às operações internas dos dispositivos, enquanto que o segundo, do sistema em que
estes se inserem, o que pode ser pensado pelo viés do alinhamento temático e dos
processos de correferenciação entre os dispositivos.
As escolhas do segundo narrador são visíveis por meio de pistas discursivas
deixadas na superfície dos relatos. Além da auto-referência e da escrita em primeira
pessoa, a tendência, nesse tipo de texto, à revelia do estilo utilizado, é convergir,
tematicamente, em direção a um ponto em comum: as transformações provocadas
pelas viagens realizadas. É dizer, por outras palavras, que o excerto é muito semelhante,
no ponto de vista da angulação e da tonalidade, de trechos encontrados em relatos
desta natureza, à revelia da linguagem que se utilizem. Nele, Danilo Perrotti Machado
(2015) escreveu, após ter viajado por três anos ao redor do mundo que:
Cada grão de areia de todos os desertos do mundo agora faziam parte de mim,
as brisas e os ventos entraram em meus poros e no meu DNA. Cada gota dos
rios do mundo por onde passei também estavam entranhados nos meus genes
e no meu ser. Voltei para o Brasil, levado pela mãe terra, através das águas e
do maior rio do planeta. Entrei através de um pulo no rio, um mergulho para
dentro de minha alma, onde a luz e a escuridão estavam à flor da pele. (...)
Narrativas de Viagem
Dito de outra forma, os “três anos, três meses e três dias” (PERROTTI, 2015, p.
18) que durou a viagem do ciclista; tudo o que viu, sentiu e viveu ao longo de 59 países
percorridos em 50 mil quilômetros pedalados, são estruturados, ao longo e ao final da
aventura, em forma de palavras, frases, períodos, páginas e capítulos que reiteram, a todo
180 momento, o verdadeiro significado disso tudo em sua vida: a transformação pessoal.
Não por acaso, o sentimento de pertencer, conforme o excerto grifado acima, agora,
de volta pra casa, como parte do planeta, e não apenas alguém de passagem, conforme
sentia-se antes de tudo se iniciar: “O que me assustava, de fato, era a possibilidade de
levar uma vida que não valia a pena ser vivida” (PERROTTI, 2015, p. 13).
É algo semelhante ao que encontramos no livro Avenida das Américas, de
Carlos André Ferreira (2003), que narra a cicloviagem que o autor fez, ainda na
década de 1990, desde Los Angeles, nos Estados Unidos, até o Brasil, quando tinha
21 anos. Segundo suas próprias palavras, foram 14 fronteiras, 15 países, 83 cidades,
23 semanas, 163 dias e milhares de quilômetros percorridos.
É o que aprendemos com Antonio Olinto Ferreira, que, em 1993, pedalou 46.620
km, em três anos e meio, tornando-se, dessa forma, mais um ciclista a dar a volta ao
mundo de bicicleta.
6 Consideramos a bicicleta uma tecnologia branda à medida que, não obstante os avanços tecnológicos que vem
sofrendo desde sua invenção e sua popularização, não é poluente e seu uso provoca pouco impacto ambiental, na
comparação com veículos motorizados, por exemplo.
7 Orgânico aqui compreendido como o que remete ao desenvolvimento natural de algo.
8 Em uma tradução livre do autor: “A natureza não é linear, nada é simples, a ordem se oculta atrás da desordem,
o aleatório está sempre em ação, o imprevisível deve ser compreendido”.
181 Que mundo estranho! Só porque acreditara e realizara um sonho me
tornara, de alguma forma, uma pessoa especial. Sabia que, no fundo, todas
as pessoas têm o poder de realizar suas ambições e serem senhores de seus
próprios destinos conforme suas missões na terra. Sabia que isso não era
nada extraordinário. Nunca tive a intenção de realizar nada extravagante,
só tentava seguir meu caminho. Parece que o homem se distanciou muito de
sua capacidade de concluir projetos e de repente o que havia feito, realizar
um sonho, era algo notável. (...) Talvez realizar tenha sido mesmo
minha maior façanha. Por outro lado, minha viagem interior trouxe
autoconhecimento o bastante para dar-me a certeza de que tenho a
capacidade de realizar meus sonhos, isso talvez tenha sido o que de
melhor aprendi em minha viagem. (OLINTO FERREIRA, 2012, p. 242)
Ao redor do mundo
9 http://mochilaebike.org/
10 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjK_6o4JAwe7Ecx7Rl26kqA
11 https://www.facebook.com/avlammel?ref=br_rs
12 https://medium.com/mochilaebike-fotos/livro-de-fotografias-7c475fd25e36
13 http://mochilaebike.org/sobre.php
14 http://twitter.com/aldolammel
15 http://instagram.com/aldolammel
16 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLseCxrn4VPolnJ9FLq42peGW5BSBOC6oW
17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkLV6YKOUsE
18 http://mochilaebike.org/roteiro-e-cronograma.php
19 https://www.swarmapp.com/
182 de uma viagem mais econômica, longa, cultural e divertida”20.
O tom é sempre coloquial, aventureiro, voltado para a descoberta do novo.
No entanto, à medida que o tempo passa, e a viagem avança, as narrativas de
Lammel vão se sofisticando. Mais que referenciar o que está ocorrendo, o
cicloturista, por meio de sua página no Facebook21, anuncia, por exemplo, a
criação de um aplicativo22 cujo objetivo é facilitar o diálogo com as pessoas que
o acompanham via celular, vlog, websérie, diário, manual, roteiro, estatísticas e
redes sociais. Também promove pesquisa23, por meio do Google Docs, para saber
quantos cicloturistas, ao redor do mundo, estão viajando tendo como inspiração
sua experiência. Ficamos sabendo disso tudo via redes sociais, à medida que a
experiência é compartilhada on line.
Uma vez de volta ao Brasil, o sonho de protagonizar uma grande aventura,
superando limites e medos por meio de uma volta ao mundo de bicicleta, adquire
outras nuanças. Transforma-se em uma narrativa estruturada e de contornos
bem definidos, não mais ocasional, à revelia da sorte; mas com começo, meio e
fim. Nela, o narrador, na condição de protagonista do vivido, não apenas narra
sua experiência, mas, também, define o sentido geral dela. Isso ocorria antes, é
verdade, mas, não de forma tão estruturada; busca-se, agora, um sentido mais
amplo. Temos acesso, assim, logo no alto da página, à direita, via plataforma
Youtube, à websérie produzida ao longo da cicloviagem. O texto ao lado do link
esclarece seu propósito:
uma transcendência, que, por sua vez, “(...) emana uma forma nada convencional e
profundamente original de se contar uma história de viagem”.
FONTE: https://aldolammel.com/mochilaebike
FONTE: https://aldolammel.com/mochilaebike
FONTE: https://aldolammel.com/mochilaebike
Considerações interpretativas
Por este viés, as percepções do que se viveu a) adquirem autonomia quando são
capturadas por dispositivos técnicos, b) passam a persistir no tempo quando são
armazenadas, e, resultado da soma de a) + b) passam a estabelecer transformações
a partir das simbioses que emergem a partir do momento em que são editadas e
passam a estabelecer relações.
Com isso, e por meio de complexas operações discursivas, tem-se, ao fim, a
emergência também das narrativas de bicicleta à condição de dispositivos por meio
dos quais a possibilidade de se transformar a vida para melhor tem lugar. Isso se
185 torna possível quando passam a ser concebidas como interações multivocais e
plurifacetadas, formadas a partir de aspectos tecnológicos (as câmaras, gravadores
e cadernos, por exemplo), as relações sociais (o que se vive ao longo das viagens),
mas, também, e igualmente importante, os sistemas de representações envolvidos
nestas relações (os códigos utilizados nos processos de enunciação dos dispositivos)
(FERREIRA-a, 20016, 2013, 2006).
É dizer, com Gomes (2017), uma vez mais, que a midiatização se posiciona,
neste contexto, como uma importante chave hermenêutica para a compreensão da
realidade, o que nos permite afirmar que a mídia se coloca como um lugar por meio
do qual se pode tanto compreender o mundo em que vivemos (GOMES, 2017, p. 78)
como estruturá-lo. Compreender significa ter acesso a uma forma diferenciada de
inteligibilidade; estruturar, com o reconhecer o lugar que essa relação passa a ocupar
em nossas vidas. E as narrativas de bicicleta, uma vez midiatizadas, nos moldes do que
tentamos descrever aqui, parecem-nos um bom exemplo de como isso se dá.
REFERÊNCIAS
BALANDIER, Georges. El desorden. La teoria del caos y las ciências sociales. Elogio
da fecundidade del movimiento. Barcelona, Espanha: Gedisa Editorial, 1993.
BERGON, Henri. A evolução criadora. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2005.
BENJAMIN. Walter. Magia e técnica, arte e política. Ensaios sobre a literatura e
história da cultura. Obras escolhidas I. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 2012.
BRAGA, José Luiz. Circuitos versus campos sociais. In: JANOTTI JÚNIOR, Jader;
MATTOS, Maria A
ngela; JACKS, Nilda. Mediatização & midiatização. Salvador: EDUFBA; Brasília:
Compós, 2012.
CAVALLARI, Guilherme. Transpatagônia: pumas não comem ciclistas. São Paulo:
Kalapalo, 2015)
ECO, Umberto. Lector in fabula: narratologia. Objetiva: São Paulo, 2012.
FERREIRA, Carlos André. Avenida das américas: uma viagem de bicicleta pela
américa latina. Rio de Janeiro (RJ): Nau Editora, 2003.
FERREIRA-a, Jairo. Adaptação, disrupção e regulação em dispositivos midiáticos.
Narrativas de Viagem
interpose themselves, but also when the act of “recording what do they experienced”
becomes as important as living, which suggests a transformation in the interactional
processes of reference, in the mold of Braga (2012), also in this field of human experience.
through perception and memory at the very moment they are performed; once stored
in technical devices, come to exist in the absence of the flow of natural time and begin
to transform into media phenomena.
The captured moments will become persistent, allowing historical relationships
to be established when, in addition to being maintained for the duration of the
memory card from the point of view of durability, they are published in a device that
supports images – a site, for example, whether or not they have been altered by editing
189 programs. Discursively structured, in this way, they become, potentially, narratives,
in the mold of Motta (2013), that is, as structuring mechanisms of intelligibility.
The sum of those conditions - autonomy and persistence - is what will
allow relationships to be established, transformed and being transformed in this
path. “Cuando el sentido cobra cuerpo y entra em relaciones históricas, se plantea
imediatamente, la terceridad de las reglas que definen las condiciones de acceso ao
sentido, es decir, las condiciones de su circulación3”. (VERON, 2013 p. 148-149). It is a
triadic relationship, in the nomenclature of Peirce (2015), it that takes place from the
dialogue between the three axes, reconfiguring meanings in this relation.
At 9’19, through a platform of free access, the Vímeo, it is told a cycle journey of
4,500 km that its Canadian author, Vancouver David Achtemichuk, and his girlfriend,
Linden Hume, did for Tibet in 2007. It was about, according to them, “A visual account
of the local culture, the challenges faced there, and a sampling of the cycle touring
lifestyle.” You can access the video in many ways - URL, keywords etc., invariably via
the internet connection, and run it on computers that have minimal settings for it.
Not aware of this, every time we watch the video, we listen to the narration, pay
attention to the images, or, indirectly, reflect, or talk about its content with someone,
something becomes related in ourselves, but also in the narrative itself, if we consider
that its meaning is updated whenever it is perceived by someone. (ECO, 2012). By
this bias, it will always be what to become in the “relationship with”, which implies a
frequent updating of meanings by the time the video exists and circulates.
Source: https://vimeo.com/4481018
3 In a free translation: “When meaning acquires a body and enters into historical relations, it begins immediately
the thirdness of the rules that define the conditions of access to meaning, that is, the conditions of its circulation.”
4 Available at: [https://vimeo.com/4481018] Last access: [May 24th 2019]
190 For this to be possible, it was necessary, at first, that the images were captured
by a camera, it doesn’t matter if it was done by David Achtemichuk or Linden Hume.
When the images were recorded, a frame from the time was frozen; that is, those
moments, previously transient ones, became autonomous, they came to exist in the
absence of the moment in which they were seized. Then, when they were submitted to
editing processes, they underwent a narrative structuration, which we call generically
of edition, through which they began to establish integricity, to “make sense”, but
now as a different narrative.
They thus became a different story than the one that was lived, although
aligned thematically, equally with “beginning, middle and end”, but created from the
interposition of a technology between the cyclists and the experienced. When the
images and sounds are transformed into films, and these are transmitted in a site like
the Vímeo, they gain persistence, condition for them to be accessed by people, cyclists
or not, transforming and being transformed in this movement.
It is at this point that we begin to find meaning in the axiom (SOSTER, 2016, 2017,
2018) according to which “bicycles usually make people better”. But also, where the
role of technical devices in this relationship is most clearly observed. Some discursive
clues about the role of technical devices in bicycle narratives can be found in reports
of this nature. The book “Transpatagonia: Cougars do not eat cyclists” (CAVALLARI,
2015), a classic of the genre, is one of the examples that explain these operations,
which are of the order of production grammars. In Chapter 7, and in the face of the
decision, which is taken from the planning stage, to write a book and produce a film
about the expedition to Patagonia, Cavallari offers clues to the role occupied by the
devices in their journey. This is what the following passage suggests:
Cyclist Aurélio Magalhães, author of the book “Norway by Bike” (2012), did
something similar. Before deciding which photographic equipment he would take
with him for his cycle touring, he advised himself with a technician, mainly thinking
about being overweight if he would take professional equipment with him:
191
I then decided on the Canon Power Shot G12. This camera provides excellent
flexibility and performance with professional control levels and support
for various accessories. With its classic design, it was developed to deliver
superior performance, capable of meeting the needs of both professionals and
photography enthusiasts, in my case. (MAGALHÃES, 2012, p. 40)
In the case of Alexandre Costa Nascimento, who in 2013 pedaled his bicycle
about 12,000 kilometers across the African continent, from Cairo to Cape Town, the
care for the mediatization of the trip was even more evident.
They are textual strategies that the narrators explain the care taken in order to
organize the narrative experiences, giving them meaning and some desired intention.
Through this information, they help to corroborate the perspective that bicycles
effectively transform people, beginning with the protagonists of the narratives, and
that, for this, technical resources are needed. In other words, the narrator somehow
knows that, with the relational interposition of technical devices between cyclists
and their actions, these narratives have access to the media discursiveness and thus
gain other amplitudes. Motta (2012, p. 28): “People’s life experiences are increasingly
mediated (my emphasis), they take more and more contact with the outside world
through virtual and discursive representations of reality” (MOTTA, 2012). , 28).
Reconfigured Narratives
It should be noted that we are talking about metamorphoses that take place
in narrative structures that value seminally, and here in the dialogue with Sodré
(2009: 187), “(...) ‘journeys’ (both in the strict sense of the word and metaphorical,
as a intensifying action of individual wisdom) characterized as ‘experience’ for the
writer. “ That is in a perspective of modern time, in the mold of Benjamin (2012),
although in a mediated environment, as these models of narrative bring, with the
narrated, the perspective of personal transformation, which is given by the story of
the experience of the lived, as it was done in the societies of the means, and not by
the distance of this one:
in which advice, ethical and practical teachings are gained. This type of
narrative constitutes the communicative base of the social group, therefore, the
primordial forms of transmission of the community ethos, that is, of traditions
and ways of being. Its temporality is necessarily slow, since the harmonious
internalization of experiences demands, for the listener, the prudent interval
between the stories; for the narrator, the temporal accumulation itself as a
criterion of wisdom. (SODRÉ, 2000, p. 180)
192 It is not what we find, paradoxically, in the postmodern narrator; this, explains
Santiago (2002), is:
(…) the one who wants to extract from himself the action narrated, in an
attitude like a reporter or spectator. He narrates the action as a spectacle he
witnesses (literally or not) of the audience, the grandstand or an armchair in
the living room or in the library; he does not narrate while acting. (SANTIAGO,
2002, P. 45)
Reconfigured Forces
This is what we notice, although in another context, when we first analyzed the
phenomenon in question (SOSTER, 2014). From this point of view, and taking as a
Travel Narratives
starting point the scheme developed by Motta (2013) to think the dispute of narrative
voices (first narrator> second narrator> third narrator), what is observed, with the
crossings and interpositions provoked by the processuality of the mediatization, is a
reordering of the struggle of forces within the devices.
The second narrator has, through this bias, more power (or freedom, if we
prefer) than the first and third narrators. That is: first narrator <second narrator>
third narrator. And that is why it is he, thinking of a book, for example, and not
193 the publisher, or the editor, who chooses from the title of the work, its form, tone,
angulation and discursive structure until the materialization of what he is effectively
looking to say, in this case, that bicycles make generally people better.
It is necessary to observe, on the other hand, that the emergence of a mediatized
narrator is not related with the existence of a fourth narrative extract, which we call
the Fourth Narrator. The two are integrated in the same epistemological perspective,
according to which the process of mediatization not only reconfigures the dispute of
narrative voices within the scope of the device, but also allows the emergence of a
fourth narrative extract (SOSTER, 2016, 2017). Understanding this implies subsuming
that the system exists thanks to the dialogues between the devices of which they are
formed. But they differ as the former relates to the internal operations of the devices,
while the latter of the system in which they are inserted, which can be thought by the
bias of the thematic alignment and the processes of co-reference between the devices.
The choices of the second narrator are visible through discursive clues left on
the surface of the reports. In addition to self-reference and first-person writing, the
tendency, in this type of text, in disregard of the style used, is to converge, thematically,
towards a common point: the transformations provoked by the trips made. That is
to say, in other words, that the excerpt is very similar, in the point of view of the
angulation and the tonality, of passages found in reports of this nature, in the absence
of the language used. In it, Danilo Perrotti Machado (2015) wrote, after traveling for
three years around the world:
Every grain of sand from all the deserts of the world was now part of me,
the breezes and the winds entered my pores and my DNA. Every drop of the
rivers of the world I passed through was also entangled in my genes and my
being. I returned to Brazil, taken by mother earth, through the waters and
the largest river on the planet. I jumped into the river, plunged into my soul,
where light and darkness were in the prime of the skin. (...) A subtlety took
over my being and I felt the simple essence of being alive, of being just
a drop in the great river of life, where I was part of the whole and the
whole was part of me (our emphasis). (PERROTTI, 2015, p. 319)
Putting it in another way, the “three years, three months and three days”
(PERROTTI, 2015, p.18) that lasted the cyclist’s trip; all that you have seen, felt and
experienced through 59 countries covered in 50 thousand kilometers of pedaling,
are structured, throughout and at the end of the adventure, in the form of words,
phrases, periods, pages and chapters that reiterate, the true meaning of it all in your
life: personal transformation. Not by chance, the feeling of belonging, as the excerpt
spelled above, now, back home, as part of the planet, and not just someone in passing,
as felt before everything begins: “What frightened me, in fact, it was the possibility of
Travel Narratives
leading a life that was not worth living “(Perrtti, 2015, p.13).
It is similar to what we find in Carlos André Ferreira’s book Avenida das
Américas (2003), which tells the story of the cycle that the author made in the 1990s,
from Los Angeles, in the United States, to Brazil, when he was 21 years. According to
his own words, there were 14 borders, 15 countries, 83 cities, 23 weeks, 163 days and
thousands of kilometers traveled.
194 The endless miles made me develop patience (a little more, at least),
the solo journey taught me tolerance, which is put myself in somebody
shoes. Alone in unfamiliar places, I depended more than ever on others, I
had to learn to listen, to pay attention so that they would not pass me by.
Sleeping every day in a different bed, I practiced, and, most of all, I developed
the flexibility and power of adaptation, qualities innate to man but so little
exercised in modern life. (FERREIRA, 2003, p. 8)
What a strange world! Just because I had believed and realized a dream and this
had made me somehow a special person. I knew that, deep down, all people have
the power to realize their ambitions and master their own destiny according to
their missions on earth. I knew this was nothing extraordinary. I never intended
to do anything extravagant, just tried to follow my path. It seems that the man
has distanced himself a lot from his ability to complete projects and suddenly
what he had done, to realize a dream, was something remarkable. (...) Maybe
performing was really my biggest feat. On the other hand, my inner
journey has brought me self-knowledge enough to make me certain
that I have the ability to realize my dreams, this may have been the best
Narrativas de Viagem
Let us take a final example, even before the necessary interpretive considerations.
5 We consider the bike a soft technology as, despite the technological advances that have been suffering since its
invention, and its popularization, it is not polluting and its use causes little environmental impact, in comparison
with motor vehicles, for example.
6 Organic here understood with what refers to the natural development of something.
7 In a free translation: “Nature is not linear, nothing is simple, the order is hidden behind disorder, random is
always in action, the unpredictable must be understood.”
195 Around the world
10 https://www.facebook.com/avlammel?ref=br_rs
11 https://medium.com/mochilaebike-fotos/livro-de-fotografias-7c475fd25e36
12 http://mochilaebike.org/sobre.php
13 http://twitter.com/aldolammel
14 http://instagram.com/aldolammel
15 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLseCxrn4VPolnJ9FLq42peGW5BSBOC6oW
16 http://mochilaebike.org/roteiro-e-cronograma.php
17 https://www.swarmapp.com/
18 Available at: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4nXN_P9xKs] Last access: [17 de julho de 2017]
19 https://www.facebook.com/avlammel?ref=br_rs
20 http://mochilaebike.org
21 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSct21X8ALNJRIST25N_3GB0usv5Gln9hs3ro-g7iWPTec1sgw/
viewform
196 is transformed into a structured narrative with well-defined shapes, no longer
occasional, in the absence of luck; but with beginning, middle and end. In it, the
narrator, as protagonist of the experienced, narrates not only his experiences, but
also defines the general meaning of it. This happened before, it is true, but not so
structured; we are looking for a broader sense. We have access, right at the top of
the page, to the right, via the Youtube platform, to the web series produced along the
cycle route. The text next to the link clarifies its purpose:
(...) the independent web series Mochila & Bike documents the adventure
of a middle-class Brazilian who does not speak other languages, but
wants to see the world in a very particular way. Originally created for
the internet, and later taken to pay-TV, Mochila & Bike presents us a solitary
and cycling adventure over 1,135 days in 33 countries. More than accents,
cultures and zoeira, Backpack & Bike emanates an unconventional
and deeply original way of telling a travel story. A trip on how to have
fun to the max with almost nothing. (...)22.
The emphasis represent significant clues: the web series is “independent”; who
takes care of it is Aldo Lammel himself, who assumes for himself the place of (second)
narrator, through the use of free platforms, Youtube. We are informed that the web
series is idealized, produced and told by a “(...) middle-class Brazilian who does not
speak other languages, but wants to see the world in a very particular way” ) by
himself and in a bicycle adventure (...) “. It suggests that there is a transcendence,
which, that by itself, “emanates an unconventional and deeply original way of telling
a travel story.”
Source: https://aldolammel.com/mochilaebike
Travel Narratives
Below, in an equally didactic way, the web series is offered in seasons, each
season with a specific link, in a total of three and listed in order of event:
Source: https://aldolammel.com/mochilaebike
At the bottom of the screen, tips and trivia about equipment used; about the
script, and offer of a manual to be used in adventures like this etc.
Source: https://aldolammel.com/mochilaebike
The example allows us to infer that the process of mediatization, in its relation
with the bicycle narratives, provoked a reconfiguration in the dispute of narrative
Travel Narratives
voices in the scope of the devices, as we are drawing attention in this chapter. The
most visible face of this movement is the protagonism assumed by the second narrator
in this context, which not only narrates the lived as organizes it, what can only be
thinking of an environment of a nature rhizomatic rather than axiomatic and at a
time marked by emergencies and decentralization. The narrative strategy, in the end,
is to say that this is the world in the way he came to understand it, which was only
198 possible after transforming the experience into a media phenomenon and organizing
it narratively.
Interpretive Considerations
The reflection we propose here suggests that thinking about cycling through this
bias implies subsuming that the affectations provoked by the process of mediatization in
bicycle narratives end up causing the very notion of transcendence to suffer the injunc-
tions of mediatization as it becomes a media phenomenon. It is not a matter of saying
that it is “dehumanizing”, but that it changes from the moment we arrive at it through a
technical device. By this bias, the perceptions of what is experienced a) acquire autono-
my when captured by technical devices, b) they persist in time when they are stored, and,
as a result of the sum of a) + b) begin to establish transformations from the symbioses
that emerge from the moment they are edited and begin to establish relationships.
With this, and through complex discursive operations, one also has the emergence
of bicycle narratives to the condition of devices through which the possibility of
transforming life for the better takes place. This becomes possible when they are
conceived as multivocal and multi-faceted interactions, formed from technological
aspects (cameras, recorders and notebooks, for example), social relations (what is
lived during the trips), but also, and equally important, the representation systems
involved in these relations (the codes used in the enunciation processes of the devices)
(FERREIRA-a, 20016, 2013, 2006).
That is to say, with Gomes (2017), once again, that mediatization is positioned,
in this context, as an important hermeneutical key to the understanding of reality,
which allows us to affirm that the media places itself as a place through which one can
both understand the world in which we live (Gomes, 2017, 78) and how to structure it.
Understanding means having access to a differentiated form of intelligibility; structure,
recognizing the place that this relationship happens to occupy in our lives. And the
bicycle narratives, once mediated, as we try to describe here, seem to us to be a good
example of how this happens.
REFERENCES
BALANDIER, Georges. El desorden. La teoria del caos y las ciências sociales. Elogio
da fecundidade del movimiento. Barcelona, Espanha: Gedisa Editorial, 1993.
BERGON, Henri. A evolução criadora. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2005.
BENJAMIN. Walter. Magia e técnica, arte e política. Ensaios sobre a literatura e
Travel Narratives
Diogo Azoubel1
sentia virem a ser a visualidade histórica, dados sobre a Dandi March, três registros
fotográficos autorais e uma breve análise desse corpus criado.
O convite à viagem
[...] conduzir nossos olhos pela(s) história(s), criar (ou permitir fazê-lo) elos
temporais, conexões com o que cada leitor traz dentro de si. Mais do que
ilustrá-la, carrega consigo uma narrativa única que dá a conhecer, inclusive,
pelo que está fora de sua superfície (AZOUBEL, 2019, p. 104).
Isso significa que a partir da visualidade histórica podem se operar formas para
iniciar o ciclo do conhecimento no trânsito daquilo que foi, é e virá a ser, narrativas
múltiplas sobrepostas e em movimento, em uma espécie de composição além do gesto.
Assim, no caso específico dos três registros apresentados adiante, mais do que discuti-
los esteticamente (o que, sim, é um caminho possível), a ideia é posicioná-los de forma
coerente com o evento ao qual remetem, abordar traços talvez não tão óbvios em uma
primeira leitura. Traços, portanto, daquilo que nos move em direção ao consumo de
narrativas de viagem.
Narrativas de Viagem
4 O que, certamente, inclui os fatores que alicerçam e os atos que antecedem o momento do click.
207 cidades” (MODERNELL, 2007, p. 106). Se o marinheiro comove, o camponês busca
pelo distinto a partir de seus relatos no desejo também de aprendizado e aplicação
do que fora aprendido.
Sobre os ambientes exóticos, tratam-se tanto o mais daqueles que se
diferenciam, distanciam da vivência ordinária cotidiana e, portanto, variáveis. Sem
fórmula específica – embora possam ser vendidos acompanhados de qualificatórios
múltiplos –, espera-se que toquem “‘cordas’ profundas nos autores e leitores”, explica
Martinez pelas palavras de Carl Jung (1875-1961), permitindo assim que o processo de
identificação se desenrole.
5 Além dos artigos que tenho produzido sobre o assunto, sugiro a leitura dos escritos de Erivam Morais de
Oliveira para aprofundamento da questão.
6 Sobre o assunto, recomendo a leitura de KOSSOY, Boris. Realidades e ficções na trama fotográfica. Ateliê
Editora: Cotia, 2002.
208 Se, como explica Modernell, as narrativas de viagem reúnem “relatos pessoais
que constituíram uma experiência existencial intensa, transformadora e de alto valor
simbólico para o narrador; como resultado de insights e reflexões propiciados por
cenários diferentes daqueles nos quais está acostumado a viver” (MODERNEL, 2010,
p. 107), é preciso ter em mente que registros imagéticos dessa jornada carregam
consigo um ponto de vista deveras específico sobre a experiência vivenciada.
Assim, assumir as demarcações e zonas limítrofes da narrativa imagética ajuda a
compreender como se dá o processo de interlocução e, mais profundamente, confirmar
ou refutar os contratos celebrados (fidedignidade, verossimilhança e fidúcia). Se não
me identifico, pois, com aquilo que vejo, não há motivos para seguir buscando em
uma narrativa específica aquilo que sei (ou acredito saber) não estar lá. Esse ponto
é importante de ser desdobrado na ordem de responder como eu, camponês, posso
saber o que integra a narrativa do outro, o marinheiro.
Citando a fuga de Goethe da Alemanha no fim do século XVIII, Modernell
retoma a expressão filosófica germânica Bildung, na qual “para tornar-se aquilo que é, o
viajante experimenta o que não é” (MODERNELL, 2010, 107). Logo, não é irresponsável
declarar que tendemos a assumir que se confirme esse ciclo transformativo em cada
nova narrativa que escolhemos a partir daquilo que consumimos antecipadamente à
nossa própria aventura. Se a transformação não se faz ver (ainda que o rio continue
correndo sem nunca ser o mesmo), por que seguir?
Na mesma direção, a profusão de formas de acesso às narrativas de viagem tende
a facilitar a sua construção e reconstrução cíclica. Quanto mais as consumo, mais sei
o que quero consumir e mais capaz de me afastar daquelas que não se enquadram no
que acredito eu me torno.
Na Índia, por exemplo, como desconsiderar uma visita à uma das maravilhas do
mundo, o suntuoso Taj Mahal, na cidade de Agra, em Uttar Pradesh? Como negar a
si mesmo um registro fotográfico diante daquele espetáculo de celebração ao amor do
imperador Shah Jahan por sua esposa Mumtaz Mahal, vítima de hemorragia fatal depois
de dar à luz ao décimo quarto filho do casal em idos da década de 1630 EC? Ora, em
tempos de Instagram e Facebook, um selfie é o mínimo recomendado para que retumbe
como confirmação da jornada: “vejam, eu estive lá”, é como se ecoasse de sua superfície.
Assim, busco uma vez mais as palavras de Martinez no sentido de que:
A moda de viajar segue em voga e para atender esse público ávido por
novidades as narrativas de viagem estão presentes em publicações semanais,
de interesse geral, revistas masculinas, femininas e para adolescentes, entre
Narrativas de Viagem
outras, bem como em sites [...], além dos cadernos de turismo de jornais de
todo o país (MARTINEZ, 2012, p. 46).
Some-se a isso a própria dinâmica social, em que ficção e realidade (ou aquilo
comumente designado como tal) se confundem na superabundância de imagens que
remetem umas às outras. Os relatos narrativos fotográficos são, assim, ressonâncias7
de um comportamento social que revela as particularidades de um sistema cultural
7 O perfil @insta_repeat no Instagram é um ótimo exemplo e, creio, por si só renderia uma ótima reflexão sobre
o assunto.
209 específico alicerçado em um aqui e agora... de um momento histórico no qual os
limites do que é ou não é se imbricam.
Afinal, distante dos locais em que os fatos se desenrolam em um primeiro
momento, o camponês tende a assumir como verdade aquilo que lê (lembremo-nos,
pois, do contrato de fidúcia), ainda que possa escolher não se mover para comprovar
o que fora visto ou negar aceitar sua própria aventura. Em outras palavras, “ele está
longe do cenário em que a ação se desenrola – e, em princípio, mais predisposto a
acreditar em coisas incomuns do que quando ouve contar algo sobre seu bairro, sua
aldeia” (MODERNELL, 2010, p.109).
Nessa direção, em sua reflexão sobre réplicas topográficas das narrativas
de viagem à Índia, Sandra C. S. Marques alerta para o fato de que “qualquer
texto e estilo narrativo é sempre enquadrado pelo corpo literário da sua época
e reflexo dos modelos políticos, económicos, sociais e académicos vigentes na
altura que se cruzam com as intenções do autor” (sic.) (MARQUES, 2010, § 04).
Em paralelo ao pensamento de Knauss sobre a configuração da cultura visual, o
hic et nunc está diretamente costurado na forma como as relações humanas se
dão. Espaçar, portanto, registros fotográficos da sua natureza de produto social,
ou seja, como constructo disso, impacta negativamente na análise do objeto
(KNAUSS, 2006, p. 114).
Se escrever é revelar-se, fotografar é desvelar-se como quando diante de
um espelho. Pois cada recorde carrega consigo traços de quem somos, de como
pensamos e agimos enquanto partes que integram um específico sistema socialmente
configurado, é preencher a superfície do instantâneo com um tempo outro fugidio
que nos antecede. É, assim, reproduzir modelos e formas de narrar que nos são caras e
às quais ouso chamar de tradições e que, ao mesmo tempo em que limitam, expandem
nossos horizontes no que toca aos domínios do inexplorado.
Traços de sal
Narrar é estar preso nesse sistema de tradições em que cada momento histórico
pode ser visto alegoricamente como uma caixa encerrada em si mesma? Não! A
narrativa fotográfica, como coloquei anteriormente, tem o poder de apontar “para
outras narrativas em um ir e vir dos tempos passado e presente” e que dependem do
nosso próprio conhecimento para serem acessadas (AZOUBEL, 2019, p. 106 e FRAGA;
AZOUBEL, 2019, p. 119).
Narrativas de Viagem
Logo, e se nos valemos da competência visual própria aos nossos dias, como
sugere Knauss (2006, p. 111), debruçar-nos sobre os mesmos tipos de registros
fotográficos, enquadramentos e técnicas, em nada ou em muito pouco nos ajudará a
aprofundar a jornada à qual buscamos. Antes disso, servirá para confirmar aquilo que
recorrentemente é veiculado como experiência a ser vivenciada irrestritamente em
vez de abrir espaço para que o camponês remova por si mesmo os véus que encobrem
o referente abordado nas histórias contadas pelo marinheiro ao qual escolheu como
fiduciário daquela jornada que está buscando.
A criação do imposto sobre o sal indiano pela Inglaterra se deu em 1759. Com
a entrada e posse da Companhia das Índias Orientais das terras circunvizinhas à
Calcutá os aluguéis das faixas territoriais e a taxação do transporte de sal aumentaram
consideravelmente (MOXHAM, 2001), chegando esse último a subir 2.400%. Ainda
enquanto estudante em Londres, na Inglaterra, entre 1888 e 1891, Gandhi expressou
sua oposição àquele imposto, o que deu início ao movimento de desobediência civil,
que viria a ser adotada por líderes indianos em 15 de fevereiro de 1930.
Já em 12 de março do mesmo ano, às 6h30 a Dandi March foi iniciada. O
objetivo era exigir a extinção do imposto sobre o sal entre outros dez pontos (HABIB;
NIZAMI, 1992). Diariamente, Gandhi e seus satyagrahis (companheiros de marcha)
cobriam a pé cerca de 20km até chegarem ao sul do Estado, em 06 de abril de 1930.
Ali, ele “ergueu aos céus um punhado de sal coletado à beira-mar na praia de Dandi
e declarou o fim do monopólio da sua manufatura pelos ingleses” (AZOUBEL, 2019).
“Com esta pitada de sal eu sacudo a base do império Britânico”, disse Bapu, ou o
“pai da nação”, como foi carinhosamente chamado por seus seguidores (SINHA,
1985; COLLECTED, on-line).
Ao todo, foram 24 dias de diálogos com os habitantes de cada aldeia ou
ponto de parada para descanso, de orações e de resistência às ameaças de prisão e
violência constantes pelos ingleses. Ao final da jornada, ainda que o número oficial
de caminhantes com Gandhi tenha sido 81, milhares de outras pessoas haviam se
juntado a eles pelo caminho, o que representou o apoio massivo da nação à causa.
Isso posto, tomo a liberdade de abordar os três registros fotográficos escolhidos
para problematizar três dos princípios norteadores da Satyagraha: sava dharma
samantva, sharirshrama e aparigraha estando cada um deles diretamente ligado a
uma das narrativas visuais escolhidas.
Na Fotografia 1, The Three, o que você vê além de uma árvore repleta de tecidos
diversos e multicoloridos? Melhor, o que você sente? Situada à beira da Rodovia
Borsad-Dhuvaran, na Zarola Village, caminho para Dandi, aquela árvore faz parte
de um templo a céu aberto chamado Witch Mother Temple, ou Templo da Bruxa Mãe.
Realizado em 2010, diz-se entre seus frequentadores que por causa dos recorrentes
acidentes na Rodovia8, desde então serve como ponto de encontro de devotos que não
mais precisam se assustar com os relatos trágicos de tempos passados.
Se olharmos atentamente, perceberemos que cada faixa de tecido é, na verdade,
um saree, típica vestimenta das mulheres indianas. De texturas, cores e tamanhos
Narrativas de Viagem
variados o que se nota em uma leitura mais atenta da imagem é a carga dramática
que traz consigo. Além dos tecidos, maquiagens são deixadas aos pés da árvore em
homenagem à referida bruxa que, em retorno, abençoa seus devotos, bem como os
moradores daquela vila.
De outro modo, a imagem pode ser associada à forma como a Índia vinha sendo
desnudada pelos ingleses por meio das regras coloniais impostas por tantos anos: uma
árvore, mil sarees; pode revelar em suas camadas as pobres condições de vida de um
8 Coincidência ou não, os acidentes pararam de acontecer desde aquela ocasião.
214 povo lutando pela sobrevivência em face da miséria durante o domínio britânico. Sem
dinheiro para comer ou vestir, não lhes restava mais do que a fé em dias melhores.
Isso posto, resgato o primeiro princípio escolhido, o da igualdade entre todas as
religiões (sava dharma samantva) em alusão à diversidade religiosa e espiritual neste
País. Mas em que isso tangencia a Salt Satyagraha? Diretamente coligado à prática
espiritual, Gandhi advogava em prol do respeito à diversidade em suas falas nas aldeias
e pontos de parada, bem como sobre a não violência, sendo ambos necessários para que
mulheres e homens qualifiquem-se ao Satyagraha Ashram, o equivalente “gandhiano” a
instituição religiosa ou espiritual. Ou, nas palavras do líder indiano, “uma comunidade
de homens ou religião”9 em que a comunidade está para grupo de pessoas vivendo
juntas, tal qual homens para os seres humanos e a religião para hinduísmo, cristianismo,
islamismo etc. ou qualquer outra crença (incluindo não crenças).
Assim, creio, o respeito ao outro (bem como sua consequente ausência) se
plasma como engrama da imagem, sobretudo considerando a natureza diferenciada
de cada saree, que nos conduz à multiplicidade das crenças humanas em tantas outras
imagens quantas às quais se possa recorrer. Acredito, ainda, que um outro princípio
poderia estar associado a ela, o da remoção da intocabilidade (sparshbhavana), mas
reconheço de saída que muito mais precisa ser pensado sobre a questão das castas e
sobre esse ponto em particular.
Na Fotografia 2, The Boy, as formas de um adolescente exercendo suas atividades
laborais sobre o sol se associam ao princípio do trabalho físico ou “trabalho do pão”
(sharirshrama), em que o ser humano pode buscar a salvação de feridas sociais e
individuais exclusivamente sustentando a própria existência por meio do trabalho.
Advogava Gandhi: adultos capazes devem sempre fazer seu trabalho pessoal por si
mesmos, sem recorrer à ajuda de outras pessoas a não ser em casos particulares.
De maneira contrária, o trabalho de idosos, doentes, deficientes e crianças deve
ser compartilhado por todos os adultos com força necessária para tal. Já, caso a ajuda
para cumprir esse princípio seja imprescindível, ela jamais deve se dar em uma relação
empregador x empregado.
Caminhando pelas ruas e avenidas de Guzerate não deixa de chamar atenção
o fato de que o trabalho doméstico é, esmagadoramente, designado às mulheres que,
muitas vezes, se veem servindo às famílias de seus maridos quando saem da casa
de seus pais para se casar. Complementarmente, não deixa de me surpreender que,
quando fiz a foto, não atentei a esse fato, mas à composição do quadro imagético.
Semanas depois, e por ocasião da compra de uma barra de sabão, fui surpreendido
Narrativas de Viagem
pelo vendedor que “aconselhou” não deixar que qualquer pessoa me veja lavando
minhas próprias roupas sob pena de ser confundido com uma mulher transexual.
O curioso é que embora a transexualidade seja vista com certa aceitação na Índia,
chegando mesmo a constituir uma comunidade respeitada – e, em alguns casos, com
seus membros do “terceiro gênero” percebidos socialmente como abençoados –, segundo
pontos de vista mais conservadores, quando se trata da responsabilidade pelo trabalho
doméstico essa novamente recai nos ombros de intersexuais, eunucos e transgêneros.
10 Isso fica ainda mais claro quando se depara com famílias inteiras trabalhando na construção civil. Isso mesmo,
famílias que viajam de obra em obra. Enquanto os pais derrubam ou erguem paredes, carregam pedras e outros
instrumentos, as crianças mais velhas cuidam das mais novas nos “quintais” desses locais e essas, por sua vez,
parecem brincar de construir prédios com aquilo que têm à mão. Se já em idade de carregar uma bacia sobre a
cabeça, por exemplo, esse jovem passa o cuidado dos irmãos à filha ou filho subsequente em um ciclo que ratifica
a condição familiar por meio do não acesso à educação, por exemplo.
11 Gandhi também incentivava a população a produzir suas próprias roupas.
216 Ocorre, entretanto, que buscando o engrama deste registro deparei-me com um
erro histórico confirmado pelo pesquisador Murtaza Gandhi, uma vez que, no calor
do verão indiano, em Guzerate é literalmente impossível se manter tão coberto por
tantos dias (24), ainda mais caminhando tantos quilômetros sem quaisquer tipos de
proteção contra a ação do sol e da poluição.
Fato é que a estátua representa um Gandhi muito mais próximo daquele que
se cobriu contra o frio durante uma visita à Inglaterra, em dezembro de 1931, do que
daquele que chegou a Dandi trajando apenas um/uma espécie de tanga de algodão
puro (dhoti) em abril do ano anterior.
Uma outra leitura possível diz respeito justamente a já referida ficcionalização da
realidade via propagação de um Gandhi mais coberto, de um movimento ressignificado
e, por isso, mais vendáveis aos marinheiros que destes portos desejam avançar sobre
o território indiano em suas aventuras. Pois, como citado anteriormente (AZOUBEL,
2019), o National Salt Satyagraha Memorial chega mesmo a constituir um negócio
expressivo no escopo do que compila Marques:
forma sua própria narrativa sobre a Salt Satyagraha e que, apesar das armadilhas ocultas
nas outras que a precedem, comprove por si, em seu hic et nunc característico, os efeitos
deste texto na sua percepção daquele referente. Finalmente, sentindo-se à vontade, não
deixe de me escrever para contar da sua jornada pois, marinheiro que sou, terei prazer
em ler o que você pensa tendo em mente as palavras de Benjamin...
“Seu dom é poder contar sua vida; sua dignidade é conta-la inteira [...]”
(BENJAMIN, 1994, p. 221).
217 REFERÊNCIAS
AZOUBEL, Diogo. The Three. Aslali – Guzerate. Índia. Fev. 2019 (Uma fotografia).
AZOUBEL, Diogo. The Boy. Dandi – Guzerate. Índia. Fev. 2019 (Uma fotografia).
AZOUBEL, Diogo. The Dhoti. Navagam – Guzerate. Índia. Fev. 2019 (Uma fotografia).
AZOUBEL, Diogo. Traços de sal: fotografias e histórias. In.: BARROS, Ana Taís
Martins Portanova (org.). A fotografia como imagem, a imagem como fotografia
[e-book]. Porto Alegre: Imaginalis, 2019, p. 102-116. Disponível em: <https://www.
ufrgs.br/imaginalis/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/AFotografiaComoImagem.pdf>.
Acesso em: 10 set. 2019.
AZOUBEL, Diogo. Faces do Maria Celeste: rito e memória em narrativas
fotojornalísticas. In. Anais..., 2017, São Paulo - SP. 15º Encontro da SBPJor, 2017.
Disponível em: < Artigo SBPJor – anais – teste sbpjor.org.br/congresso/index.php/
sbpjor/sbpjor2017/paper/.../317 >. Acesso em 01 jun. 2019.
BENJAMIN, Walter. O Narrador. In.: Magia e técnica, arte e política: ensaios
sobre literatura e história da cultura. 7ª ed. Trad. Sérgio Paulo Rouanet. São Paulo:
Brasiliense, 1994. Coleção Obras Escolhidas – Vol. I.
COLLECTED works of Mahatma Gandhi, The - Vol. 42. Disponível em < https://
www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/NDI=#page/1/mode/2up
>. Acesso em: 18 mar. 2019.
DANDI March. Disponível em: < https://sites.google.com/view/dandimarch/
home?authuser=0 >. Acesso em: 28 fev. 2019.
FRAGA, Estefania Knotz Canguçu; AZOUBEL, Diogo. No silêncio dos vestígios: o
naufrágio do Maria Celeste na capa do Jornal do Povo. In.: Líbero, São Paulo, v. 43, p.
108-120, jan./jun. 2019.
GINZBURG, Carlo. Pesquisa sobre Piero. Barcelona: Muchnik Editores, 1984.
GINZBURG, Carlo. Mitos, emblemas, sinais: morfologia e história. Trad. Federico
Carotti. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2003.
HABIB, Mohammad; NIZAMI, Khali Ahmad. Comprehensive history of India, A.
New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House, 1992.
KNAUSS, Paulo. O desafio de fazer História com imagens: arte e cultura visual.
ArtCultura. Uberlândia, v. 8, n. 12, p. 97-115, jan.-jun. 2006. Disponível em: < http://
Narrativas de Viagem
Diogo Azoubel1
1. A revealing tour
The Salt March (Salt Satyagraha3 or Dandi March) marks the history of the
movements and actions that culminated in India’s independence from English
colonization in 1947. Led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), or just
Gandhi as he is better known, the walk that began on March 12, 1930, in Sabarmati
Ashram, a suburb of the city of Ahmedabad, formerly the capital of the Indian state
of Gujarat, still reverberates today in that country’s imagination as synonymous with
resistance and, perhaps much more than that, overcoming.
But are these brief developments, reintegrations and temporal intersections
sufficient to justify this reflection? Now, I believe that to reach the argumentative
spatio-temporal depth a brief digression is necessary.
When I entered the Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em Comunicação e
Semiótica of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo of São Paulo (COS | PUC-
SP), in July 2016, I had only one desire: to complete an international internship before
defending the thesis. At that time, strongly influenced by the work of my master’s advisor
and current research partner, Monica Martinez, from the Universidade de Sorocaba
(Uniso), I considered France as the country with the greatest adherence to the proposal
of reflection on the nature of the photojournalistic image, especially with regard to the
issue of the narrative of tragedy from the coverage of the fire and successive explosions
of the cargo ship Maria Celeste, in March 1954, on the Maranhão (Brazil) coast.
That said, I took the first steps in the semiotic plural universe without,
however, giving up the dialogues with other fertile fields. Open to the possibilities
that presented themselves, and when the internal selection process of work
proposals that could be contemplated under the terms of the 2018 call for proposals
of the Programa Nacional de Doutorado Sanduíche of the Coordenação para
Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal do Ensino Superior (PDSE | Capes), I decided to apply
Travel Narratives
pages the brief analysis of three of the records I made during my own version of
Satyagraha, remade in February 2019, with a view to problematizing how three of its
guiding principles are established today, namely: sarva dharma samabhava (equality
among all religions), sharirshrama (physical work or “work of bread”) and aparigraha
(principle of non-possession).
Of an essayistic nature, this text was constructed in light of the qualitative
approach and the monographic and analytical methods of photographic procedure
221 via literature review and participant observation (MARCONI; LAKATOS, 2010).
This is a second onslaught on the theme, in a (but not only) kind of continuation
of the construction of historical visuality as a concept-life. At that first opportunity,
I asked “what other images can lead us to the photographic records made during the
repetition of the Dandi March4”? (AZOUBEL, 2019, p. 103).
Articulating authors such as Abraham (Aby) Warburg (1866-1929) (2015),
Carlo Ginzburg (1984 and 2003) and Susan Sontag (1933-2004) (2003), and in a brief
analysis of six authoritative photographic records, I argued for their power to guide
the reader’s gaze of such images through the domains of history, now remains the
mission of refining thought.
Thus, and as much as in Traços de sal: fotografias e histórias, the three
photographs gathered here were taken with the following equipment: DSLR Nikon
camera model D5200 with AF-P lens 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6g; Canon PowerShot SD780 IS
compact camera; and iPhone XS smartphone, by Apple. With limited digital editions
for color control and other subtle adjustments via Abobe Photoshop CC 2019 software,
they are part of a collection of more than 1,500 photographic images gathered in an
unprecedented editorial project under execution.
The intention thus remains the same: “an attempt to build bridges between past
and present from the problematization [...] of the guiding principles of the March5”. The
idea is to reflect on how visual travel accounts can be perceived as a historical source
for the transit of past and present space-time narratives, experiences and spirituality. As
far as reference works are concerned, I chose to keep myself in the light of O Narrador,
by Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) (1994) as well as seeking in authors of the narratives as
an object the links that I considered appropriate for the consolidation of the arguments.
The expected results are related to the constitution of the photographic surface
as a path leading to the symbolic reading of different possible perceptions about
that event. Therefore, in the sections that follow are juxtaposed notes on what I felt
would come to be the historical visuality, data about Dandi March, three photographic
records author and a brief analysis of this corpus created.
Far from stopping at the debate on the technical nature of photography (AZOUBEL,
2017 and 2019, FRAGA; AZOUBEL, 2019), it seems clear to me that its historical materiality
points out from its surface in the search for ballast in what we bring with us until the
moment of its reading. Now, carried out in a specific hic et nunc, it is inevitable that at least
one other layer of “here and now” is considered when problematizing it.
Travel Narratives
This power to make come and go, although it may not motivate a practical
external action in the reader, I believe, makes the portal photography open in time
and space... portal through which we can move freely according to the weight and
plurality of our own baggage. In other words, reading a photograph is like entering
4 As the original: “a que outras imagens podem nos conduzir os registros fotográficos realizados durante repetição
da Dandi March (Marcha do Sal)”.
5 As the original: “uma tentativa de construir pontes entre passado e presente a partir da problematização [...]
dos princípios norteadores da Marcha”.
222 Heraclitus’ river with the certainty that it can no longer be the same after such an
attack, even if without the awareness of that resignification of the self, as well as of
the depth and amplitude of its effects.
But where does that river flow? It seems fair to me to assume that the answers are,
if not infinite, multifaceted such as the condition of Homo Sapiens Demens by Edgar Morin
(2008). Even though he does not realize it, the contact with the photographic surface,
digital or analog, printed or electronic, makes the mechanisms of history turn, including
that of each subject. It allows us to approach past time - even the most recent - in the face
of the present, to think about what it shows and what it does not show (SAMAIN, 2012).
I am not affirming, however, that photography is “The” master gear, far from it,
it is part of a complex system of interdependent historical meanings that go from the
nature of the individual, from the analyzed object and from its relation to the intricate
cultural symbiosis in which it occurs. And to answer the historical why, I return to the
foundation of this reflection: the here, the now and the beyond of the narrative. which
can be and is much more than one.
The experience that passes from person to person is the source to which all the
narrators have turned. And, among the written narratives, the best are the ones
that are least distinguished from the oral stories told by the countless anonymous
narrators. Between these, there are two groups, which interpenetrate in multiple
ways. The figure of the narrator only becomes fully tangible if we have these
two groups present. “Whoever travels has a lot to tell,” says the people, and
thus imagines the narrator as someone who comes from far away. But we also
listen with pleasure to the man who honestly earned his life without leaving the
country and who knows its stories and traditions6 (BENJAMIN, 1994, p. 198).
But what about when the narratives are told visually? Is it possible to think of a
qualification system that distinguishes the best from the worst? I don’t think that’s the
case, even because, what would be the subjective criteria to account for something that
unfolds within the subjectivity of the reader’s contact with the photographic image?
Even so, it is necessary to elucidate about the nature of what is narrated, the
referent framed in the juxtaposition of the four angles of 90º and frozen there. Do I know
you? Do I want to meet him? At what intensity? Am I aware of your particularities?
Through what sources? Photography is, I think, like a call to adventure, to the unveiling
of the fictionalization of reality and the realization of fiction (of the referent).
Travel Narratives
Analyzing such an image through the bias of historical visuality is, therefore, to
approach its own nature as an object of subjective action. Although one can argue in favor
6 As the original: A experiência que passa de pessoa a pessoa é a fonte a que recorreram todos os narradores.
E, entre as narrativas escritas, as melhores são as que menos se distinguem das histórias orais contadas pelos
inúmeros narradores anônimos. Entre estes, existem dois grupos, que se interpenetram de múltiplas maneiras. A
figura do narrador só se torna plenamente tangível se temos presentes estes dois grupos. “Quem viaja tem muito
que contar”, diz o povo, e com isso imagina o narrador como alguém que vem de longe. Mas também escutamos
com prazer o homem que ganhou honestamente sua vida sem sair do país e que conhece suas histórias e tradições.
223 of its supposed objectivity, which has greatly served the ideals of truth in various fields of
knowledge and human action over the centuries, to discuss a historical fact such as Salt
Satyagraha only for what (a)seems to be on the imaginary surface and disregarding its
context - approached, for example, in texts like this - is, at least, to limit oneself. For, as
Paulo Knauss explains in his reflection on the challenge of making history with images:
[...] lead our eyes through history(s), create (or allow to do so) temporal links,
connections with what each reader carries within him/herself. More than
illustrating it, it carries with it a unique narrative that makes known even
what is outside its surface8 (AZOUBEL, 2019, p. 104).
This means that from historical visuality forms can be operated to initiate the
cycle of knowledge in the transit of what was, is and will be, multiple overlapping and
moving narratives, in a kind of composition beyond the gesture. Thus, in the specific
case of the three records presented below, more than discussing them aesthetically
(which, yes, is a possible way), the idea is to position them in a coherent way with the
event to which they refer, to approach traces perhaps not so obvious in a first reading.
Traces, therefore, of what moves us towards the consumption of travel narratives.
The archaic representations of the sedentary peasant and the merchant sailor
are used by Benjamin to construct his argument about the narrative act. After all,
the narrator is not present among us, comes from far away, travels too much and
has stories to tell, because he knows them well as their traditions (BENJAMIN, 1994,
p. 198-9), as already exposed. It is precisely in this experience of the stranger, of the
Travel Narratives
7 As the original: [...] Ao longo da história das civilizações, são inúmeros os exemplos em que se percebe como
os registros escritos acompanham os registros visuais. Velhas formas de escrita, como os hieróglifos, demonstram
essa proximidade. Isso equivale a dizer que a história da imagem se confunde com um capítulo da história da
escrita e que seu distanciamento pode significar um prejuízo para o entendimento de ambas. Reconhecer isso
implica admitir que imagem e escrita sempre conviveram.
8 As the original: [...] conduzir nossos olhos pela(s) história(s), criar (ou permitir fazê-lo) elos temporais, conexões
com o que cada leitor traz dentro de si. Mais do que ilustrá-la, carrega consigo uma narrativa única que dá a
conhecer, inclusive, pelo que está fora de sua superfície.
224 exotic, of the other that lies the germ for sharing between the peasant and the sailor.
The act of narrating is established as a celebration between interlocutor and
interlocutor, being the first required reliability and verisimilitude in the story woven
under the aegis of fiduciary. Thus, the interlocutor can tell what he knows, what he has
experienced of what he talks about, what he is allowed to talk about, acts as an intermediary
between heaven and earth, as a man between gods and as a god between men.
At the same time, in times of profusion of technical devices for communication,
it is up to the interlocutor to choose his sailor through his identification of himself with
what he believes (and the criteria that guide this choice are many, from geographic to
political) to be contemplated in the narrative, to be the voice of this.
Thus, it is no longer a question of who receives the sailor in his journey around
the world, but of who (subject) seeks him, based on what (motivation), as well as
how (environment) he seeks him. A profound reconfiguration if considered, as
cited by Monica Martinez on the spatial-theme transcendence of travel narratives,
the performance of Homer, in Greece in the 8th century B.C.E., when the Iliad and
Odyssey were made, initial milestones of travel narratives (MARTINEZ, 2012, p. 37).
In this perspective, such a search flows in the practical sense of the appropriation
of the narrated situation, in the utilitarian dimension cited by Benjamin. I seek - me, the
peasant - his - you, sailor - stories and traditions because I need them or because I want
to make use of them in some way. I therefore ask for your recommendations, your point
of view, “tissue in the living substance of existence, wisdom9” (BENJAMIN, 1994, p. 200).
The sailor is no longer just a merchant in the strict sense of the term, he becomes
a colleague on a journey (accessible in the palm of his hand through a few touches),
shares his expertise and often does not charge for it. The peasant, on the other hand,
far from being sedentary, seeks to reach the exotic he has heard of, to experience it
even if not with a body present. Interlocutor and interlocutor united to answer about
the importance of the narrative act, as intermediaries of space-time.
If we consider the historical visuality - yes, because we can’t lose our way or
forget that in this text the photographic images are the focus of the problematization
- the idea of seeking the reports of another person more experienced than me in
the domains of the hitherto unknown presents itself as an invitation, the call for
adventure mentioned above.
To this end, the identification of oneself with what makes up the photographic
surface10 is crucial to allow knowing something of someone in the context of production,
circulation and specific consumption (subject + motivation + environment). For, seeking
Renato Modernell’s words about travel narratives, “the traveler goes in search of the
other, learns and returns to apply what he learned to his own activity11” (MODERNELL,
Travel Narratives
2007, p. 107). As a result, the interlocutor, the peasant, who seeks his stories in an effort
to live this or that adventure himself, is moved. After all, “a person who moves in exotic
environments has a great chance of captivating those who would rather be there, in more
After all, experiencing and narrating different realities and worldviews may
attract attention because of their potential to touch. It is that the production
and reading of travel narratives from close or distant places awakens in the
human being the ancestral sensation of being facing the unknown and, with
this, can mobilize deep psychic content that allow the emergence of perceptions
and innovations previously dormant in individuals and the human species13
(JUNG, 2000 apud MARTINEZ, 2012, p. 48-9).
12 As the original: “uma pessoa que se move em ambientes exóticos tem grande chance de cativar aqueles que
prefeririam estar lá, em aventuras mais gratificantes, do que trancadas nos elevadores e nos congestionamentos
das cidades”
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13 As the original: Afinal, a vivência e o relato de realidades e visões de mundo diferentes talvez atraia atenção
pelo seu potencial de tocar. É que a produção e leitura de narrativas de viagem de lugares próximos ou distantes
desperta no ser humano a sensação ancestral de estar frente ao desconhecido e, com isso, pode mobilizar profundos
conteúdos psíquicos que permitem aflorar percepções e inovações até então adormecidas nos indivíduos e na
espécie humana.
14 In fact, I think, we are much closer to complete refutation than it seems to be to its possible confirmation.
15 In addition to the articles I have produced on the subject, I suggest reading the writings of Erivam Morais de
Oliveira to deepen the issue.
16 On the subject, I recommend reading KOSSOY, Boris. Realidades e ficções na trama fotográfica. Ateliê
Editora: Cotia, 2002.
226 to photograph is to choose, to privilege specific parts of the referent to the detriment
of others, nothing fairer than to question each record that becomes already when its
execution a trace (GINZBURG, 1984 and 2003) of what mimics, represents, fits or any
other verb that can be chosen.
If, as Modernell explains, the travel narratives gather “personal accounts that
constituted an intense existential experience, transforming and of high symbolic
value for the narrator; as a result of insights and reflections provided by different
scenarios from those in which he is accustomed to live17” (MODERNEL, 2010, p. 107),
it is necessary to keep in mind that imagery records of this journey carry with them
a very specific point of view about the lived experience.
Thus, assuming the demarcations and border areas of the imagery narrative
helps to understand how the process of dialogue takes place and, more deeply, to
confirm or refute the contracts entered into (trustworthiness, verisimilitude and
fiduciary). If I don’t identify myself, because, with what I see, there is no reason to
keep looking in a specific narrative for what I know (or believe I know) is not there.
This point is important to be unfolded in the order to respond as I, the peasant, can
know what integrates the narrative of the other, the sailor.
Citing Goethe’s flight from Germany at the end of the 18th century, Modernell
takes up the German philosophical expression Bildung, in which “to become what he
is, the traveller experiences what he is not18” (MODERNELL, 2010, 107). Therefore, it
is not irresponsible to declare that we tend to assume that this transformative cycle
will be confirmed in each new narrative we choose from what we consume before our
own adventure. If the transformation is not visible (even though the river continues
to run without ever being the same), why follow?
In the same direction, the profusion of forms of access to travel narratives tends
to facilitate their construction and cyclical reconstruction. The more I consume, the
more I know what I want to consume and the more I am able to get away from those
who don’t fit in with what I believe I become.
In India, for example, how can we disregard a visit to one of the wonders of the
world, the sumptuous Taj Mahal, in the city of Agra, Uttar Pradesh? How can one
deny oneself a photographic record before that spectacle of celebration of the emperor
Shah Jahan’s love for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, a victim of fatal hemorrhage after
giving birth to the couple’s fourteenth child in the early 1630s? Now, in Instagram and
Facebook times, a selfie is the minimum recommended for it to return as confirmation
of the journey: “look, I’ve been there”, it’s like echoing from its surface.
So I’m looking once again for Martinez’s words to the effect that:
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The fashion to travel is in vogue and to meet this audience eager for news,
travel narratives are present in weekly publications, of general interest,
magazines for men, women and adolescents, among others, as well as in
17 As the original: “relatos pessoais que constituíram uma experiência existencial intensa, transformadora e de
alto valor simbólico para o narrador; como resultado de insights e reflexões propiciados por cenários diferentes
daqueles nos quais está acostumado a viver”.
18 As the original: “para tornar-se aquilo que é, o viajante experimenta o que não é”.
227 sites [...], in addition to the tourism notebooks of newspapers throughout the
country19 (MARTINEZ, 2012, p. 46).
Add to this the very social dynamic, in which fiction and reality (or what is
commonly called as such) are confused in the superabundance of images that refer to
each other. Photographic narrative accounts are thus resonances20 of a social behavior
that reveals the particularities of a specific cultural system grounded in a here and
now... of a historical moment in which the limits of what is or isn’t are intertwined.
After all, distant from the places where the facts take place in a first moment,
the peasant tends to assume as truth what he reads (let’s remember, then, the fiduciary
contract), even though he may choose not to move to prove what he had seen or to refuse
to accept his own adventure. In other words, “he is far from the scenario in which the
action unfolds - and, in principle, more inclined to believe in unusual things than when
he hears something about his neighborhood, his village21” (MODERNELL, 2010, p.109).
In this direction, Sandra C. S. Marques, in her reflection on topographic replicas of
the narratives of her trip to India warns of the fact that “any text and narrative style is
always framed by the literary body of its time and reflects the political, economic, social
and academic models in force at the time that cross with the intentions of the author22”
(MARQUES, 2010, § 04). Parallel to Knauss’ thinking about the configuration of visual
culture, hic et nunc is directly stitched into the way human relationships occur. Spacing,
therefore, photographic records of its nature as a social product, i.e., as a construct of
this, negatively impacts the analysis of the object (KNAUSS, 2006, p. 114).
If writing is revealing yourself, photographing is revealing yourself as when in front
of a mirror. For each record carries with it traces of who we are, of how we think and act
as parts of a specific socially configured system, is to fill the surface of the snapshot with
another elusive time that precedes us. It is, thus, to reproduce models and forms of narrat-
ing that are dear to us and which I dare to call traditions and which, at the same time that
they limit, expand our horizons as far as the domains of the unexplored are concerned.
Traces of salt
19 As the original: A moda de viajar segue em voga e para atender esse público ávido por novidades as narrativas
de viagem estão presentes em publicações semanais, de interesse geral, revistas masculinas, femininas e para
adolescentes, entre outras, bem como em sites [...], além dos cadernos de turismo de jornais de todo o país.
20 The @insta_repeat profile on Instagram is a great example and, I think, would in itself yield a great reflection
on the subject.
21 As the original: “ele está longe do cenário em que a ação se desenrola – e, em princípio, mais predisposto a
acreditar em coisas incomuns do que quando ouve contar algo sobre seu bairro, sua aldeia”.
22 As the original: “qualquer texto e estilo narrativo é sempre enquadrado pelo corpo literário da sua época e reflexo
dos modelos políticos, económicos, sociais e académicos vigentes na altura que se cruzam com as intenções do autor”.
23 As the original: “para outras narrativas em um ir e vir dos tempos passado e presente”.
228 these images have their access globally expanded by the sense of sight (KNAUSS, 2006, p.
99) (including electronics) as socially established sense and break the barriers of space-
time, even pointing to the particular endogenous images in a movement structured and
structuring by / from the roots of culture (WARBURG, 2015 apud AZOUBEL, 2019, p. 106).
Thus, it remains for us to seek through the historical visuality as a path the
“imagetic engram, the sap of this understanding on facts of past time connected to
those of present time” (AZOUBEL, 2019, p. 106). In other words, from the records of
Salt Satyagraha’s repetition, in this specific example, as tracks that lead or may lead to
the intentionality of such records in relation to the original march.
This is because, obeying the “logic” of perception of travel narratives, one cannot fall
into the trap of taking as sufficient the visual patterns reproduced and reiterated in them. It
is necessary to go further, to seek the understanding of the narrated fact, not only by what
is known, by what is put and said, but by what is not known, by what is silenced and/or not
so clearly revealed on the imaginary surface. Otherwise, warns Marques, “narrowly limited
modes of representation are perpetuated [...], stereotyped images, discursively constructed
objects, which acquire meanings with autonomous existence, indifferent to their expres-
sion (or absence) in the real to which they refer24” (MARQUES, 2010, § 19). Therefore:
[...] what we see is that the discursive enunciations to which we resort in order
to narrate the experience of travel always require a shared meaning, with a
view to its understanding by the interlocutor community. They only acquire
meaning as narrative products shared by similar products that integrate and
reiterate them, bringing their authors together in a kind of “belief system” or
“body of knowledge” that serves as a basis for understanding reality, which
structures, defines and materializes, through its cumulative success, objects
that are discursively pre-organized25 (MARQUES, 2010, § 22).
Therefore, and if we make use of the visual competence proper to our days, as
Knauss (2006, p. 111) suggests, we focus on the same types of photographic records,
frames and techniques, in nothing or very little will help us to deepen the journey we
seek. Before that, it will serve to confirm what is repeatedly conveyed as an experience
to be lived unrestrictedly instead of making room for the peasant to remove for himself
the veils that hide the referent addressed in the stories told by the sailor whom he
chose as fiduciary of that journey he is seeking.
Assuming you need to know a little bit of the history of the March for the
analysis that follows, and even before we go any further, let me ask you: what do you
Travel Narratives
know about the Salt Satyagraha? About India? About Gandhi? Who, when and how
24 As the original: “perpetuam-se [...] modos de representação estreitamente limitados, imagens estereotipadas,
objectos construídos discursivamente, que adquirem significados com existência autónoma, indiferentes à sua
expressão (ou ausência) no real a que se referem”.
25 As the original: [...] o que se verifica é que os enunciados discursivos a que se recorre para narrar a experiência de
viagem requerem sempre um significado partilhado, com vista à sua compreensão pela comunidade interlocutora.
Só adquirem significado enquanto produtos narrativos partilhados por outros similares que os integram e reiteram,
aproximando os seus autores numa espécie de “sistema de crenças” ou “corpo de conhecimentos” que serve de base
ao entendimento do real, que estrutura, define e materializa, pelo seu sucesso cumulativo, objectos pré-organizados
discursivamente.
229 was this shared with you? Regardless of how deep your knowledge is, is it the case to
read the photographs before the impressions on them verbalized in order to fertilize
the ground for the flourishing of the sign reading in your different perceptions?
Let’s go!
The creation of the Indian salt tax by England took place in 1759. With the entry
into and possession by the East India Company of the lands surrounding Calcutta,
rents for the territorial zones and the taxation of salt transportation increased
considerably (MOXHAM, 2001), the latter reaching a 2,400% increase. While still a
student in London, England, between 1888 and 1891, Gandhi expressed his opposition
to that tax, which initiated the civil disobedience movement that was to be adopted
by Indian leaders on February 15, 1930.
Already on March 12 of the same year, at 6:30 a.m. the Dandi March was started.
The objective was to demand the extinction of the salt tax among other ten points
(HABIB; NIZAMI, 1992). Daily, Gandhi and his satyagrahis (marching companions)
covered on foot about 20km until they reached the south of the state on April 6, 1930.
There, he “raised to the skies a handful of salt collected by the sea on the beach of
Dandi and declared the end of the monopoly of its manufacture by the English26”
(AZOUBEL, 2019). “With this pinch of salt, I shake the base of the British Empire”,
said Bapu, or the “father of the nation,” as he was affectionately called by his followers
(SINHA, 1985; COLLECTED, online).
In all, there were 24 days of dialogues with the inhabitants of each village
or stopping point for rest, of prayers and of resistance to the constant threats
of imprisonment and violence by the English. By the end of the journey, even
though the official number of walkers with Gandhi was 81, thousands of other
people had joined them along the way, which represented the nation’s massive
support for the cause.
That said, I take the liberty of addressing the three photographic records
chosen to problematize three of the guiding principles of the Satyagraha: sava
dharmasamabhava, sharirshrama, and aparigraha, each of which is directly linked to
one of the chosen visual narratives.
In Photograph 1, The Three, what do you see besides a tree full of diverse and
multicolored fabrics? Better, what do you feel? Situated on the edge of the Borsad-
Dhuvaran Highway27, in Zarola Village, on the way to Dandi, that tree is part of
an open-air temple called Witch Mother Temple. Held in 2010, it is said among its
users that because of the recurring accidents on the Highway, since then serves as a
meeting point for devotees who no longer need to be scared by the tragic reports of
past times.
If we look closely, we can see that each band of fabric is, in fact, a saree, typical of
Indian women’s clothing. With varying textures, colors and sizes, what you notice in
Travel Narratives
a more attentive reading of the image is the dramatic load it brings with it. In addition
to the fabrics, makeup is left at the foot of the trees in honor of the aforementioned
witch who, in return, blesses her devotees, as well as the residents of that village.
Otherwise, the image may be associated with the way in which India had been
stripped by the English through the colonial rules imposed for so many years: a tree,
26 As the original: “Com esta pitada de sal eu sacudo a base de o império Britânico”.
27 Coincidence or not, accidents have stopped happening since that time.
232 a thousand Saharans; it may reveal in its layers the poor living conditions of a people
fighting for survival in the face of misery during the British rule. With no money to
eat or wear, they had nothing left but faith in better days.
That said, I rescue the first principle chosen, that of equality among all religions
(sava dharma samabhava) in allusion to religious and spiritual diversity in this
country. But in what tangents to Salt Satyagraha? Directly linked to spiritual practice,
Gandhi advocated for respect for diversity in his speech in the villages and stopping
places, as well as for non-violence, both of which were necessary for women and
men to qualify for the Satyagraha Ashram, the “Gandhian” equivalent of a religious
or spiritual institution. Or, in the words of the Indian leader, “a community of men or
religion” in which community is for group of people living together, such as men for
human beings and religion for Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, etc. or any other belief
(including non-beliefs).
Thus, I believe, respect for the other (and its consequent absence) is formed as
an engram of the image, especially considering the differentiated nature of each saree,
which leads us to the multiplicity of human beliefs in as many other images as one
can resort to. I also believe that another principle could be associated with it, that of
the removal of untouchability (sparshbhavana), but I recognize the output that much
more needs to be thought about the issue of castes and about that particular point.
In Photograph 2, The Boy, the forms of an adolescent exercising his work
activities on the sun are associated with the principle of physical work or “work of
bread” (sharirshrama), in which the human being can seek salvation from social and
individual wounds exclusively supporting his own existence through work. Gandhi
advocated: capable adults should always do their personal work for themselves,
without resorting to the help of other people except in particular cases.
Conversely, the work of the elderly, the sick, the disabled and children must
be shared by all adults with the necessary strength to do so. If help to comply with
this principle is indispensable, it should never be given in an employer-employee
relationship.
Walking through the streets and avenues of Gujarat does not fail to call attention
to the fact that domestic work is, overwhelmingly, assigned to women who often find
themselves serving their husbands’ families when they leave their country’s house
to marry. Complementarily, it surprises me that, when I took the photo, I didn’t pay
attention to this fact, but to the composition of the image frame. Weeks later, and
when I bought a bar of soap, I was surprised by the salesman who “advised” me not
to let anyone see me washing my own clothes under penalty of being mistaken for a
transsexual woman.
Travel Narratives
Indian summer, in Gujarat is literally impossible to stay so covered for so many days
28 This becomes even clearer when faced with entire families working in the construction industry. That’s
right, families who travel from work to work. While parents tear down or erect walls, carry stones and other
instruments, the older children take care of the younger ones in the “backyards” of these places and these, in turn,
seem to play at building buildings with what they have at hand. If, for example, the young man is old enough to
carry a basin over his head, he passes the care of his siblings on to his daughter or subsequent son in a cycle that
ratifies the family condition by not having access to education, for example.
29 Gandhi also encouraged the population to produce their own clothes.
234 (24), even more walking so many miles without any kind of protection against the
action of the sun and pollution.
The fact is that the statue represents a Gandhi much closer to the one who
covered himself against the cold during a visit to England, in December 1931, than the
one who arrived in Dandi wearing only one / one type of pure cotton thong (dhoti) in
April of the previous year.
Another possible reading concerns the aforementioned fictionalisation of reality
through the propagation of a more covered Gandhi, a movement that is resigned and,
therefore, more saleable to sailors who wish to advance over Indian territory in their
adventures. For, as previously mentioned (AZOUBEL, 2019), the National Salt Satyagraha
Memorial even constitutes an expressive business in the scope of what compiles Marques:
That said, and with the previous arguments, I believe I have underpinned,
even minimally, the logic of the functioning of historical visuality as a space-time
reflective-comprehensive path, at the same time as the importance of considering
contexts and interfaces that support the narrative act about Salt Satyagraha from
my own experience. It remains for me, therefore, to write in favor of a reading of
photographic imaginary narratives increasingly stripped of the confirmatory cycle, of
the “validation of the ‘authenticity’ of the object [...] by the use of the replica [...], of
the repeated use of stylistic artifices that [...] successively reissue the appearance of
the encounter of the new and the extraordinary31” (MARQUES, 2010, § 50).
Recognizing that the unfolding of this reading needs to be deepened in
opportunities that, I hope, will not take long to be noticed, I conclude this reflection
hoping that, from what has been explained, you have the disposition and courage to
build in some way your own narrative about Salt Satyagraha and that, despite the
traps hidden in the others that precede it, you prove for yourself, in your characteristic
hic et nunc, the effects of this text on your perception of that referent. Finally, feeling
at ease, don’t forget to write me to tell me about your journey, for, as a sailor, I’ll be
happy to read what you think with the words of Benjamin in mind....
“Your gift is to be able to count your life; your dignity is to count it all...32”
Travel Narratives
30 As the original: Como já extensamente analisado por inúmeros autores de diversas áreas disciplinares e sob
diferentes perspectivas (K. Adams 1984; Hummon 1988; Cohen 1989; Fakeye e Crompton 1991; Hughes 1992; Dann
1996; Edwards 1996; McGregor 2000), as representações visuais e textuais desempenham um papel fundamental
na indústria turística, determinando desde o primeiro momento (directa ou indirectamente) a escolha do produto,
experiência e destino, assim como expectativas, imagens antecipadas e práticas no local.
31 As the original: “validação da ‘autenticidade’ do objecto [...] pelo recurso à réplica [...], do uso repetido dos
artifícios estilísticos que [...] reeditam sucessivamente a aparência do encontro do novo e do extraordinário”.
32 As the original: Seu dom é poder contar sua vida; sua dignidade é conta-la inteira [...].
235 REFERENCES
AZOUBEL, Diogo. The Three. Aslali - Gujarat. India. Feb. 2019 (One photograph).
AZOUBEL, Diogo. The Boy. Dandi - Gujarat. India. Feb. 2019 (One photograph).
AZOUBEL, Diogo. The Dhoti. Navagam - Gujarat. India. Feb. 2019 (One photograph).
AZOUBEL, Diogo. Traços de sal: fotografias e histórias. In.: BARROS, Ana Taís
Martins Portanova (org.). A fotografia como imagem, a imagem como fotografia
[e-book]. Porto Alegre: Imaginalis, 2019, p. 102-116. Disponível em: <https://www.
ufrgs.br/imaginalis/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/AFotografiaComoImagem.pdf>.
Acesso em: 10 set. 2019.
AZOUBEL, Diogo. Faces do Maria Celeste: rito e memória em narrativas
fotojornalísticas. In. Anais..., 2017, São Paulo - SP. 15º Encontro da SBPJor, 2017.
Available at < Artigo SBPJor – anais – teste sbpjor.org.br/congresso/index.php/sbpjor/
sbpjor2017/paper/.../317 >. Accessed on Jun. 01, 2019.
BENJAMIN, Walter. O Narrador. In.: Magia e técnica, arte e política: ensaios sobre
literatura e história da cultura. 7ª ed. Trad. Sérgio Paulo Rouanet. São Paulo: Brasiliense,
1994. Coleção Obras Escolhidas – Vol. I.
COLLECTED works of Mahatma Gandhi, The - Vol. 42. Available at < https://
www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/NDI=#page/1/mode/2up
>. Accessed on Mar. 18, 2019.
DANDI March. Available at < https://sites.google.com/view/dandimarch/
home?authuser=0 >. Accessed on Feb. 28, 2019.
FRAGA, Estefania Knotz Canguçu; AZOUBEL, Diogo. No silêncio dos vestígios: o
naufrágio do Maria Celeste na capa do Jornal do Povo. In.: Líbero, São Paulo, v. 43, p.
108-120, jan./jun. 2019.
GINZBURG, Carlo. Pesquisa sobre Piero. Barcelona: Muchnik Editores, 1984.
GINZBURG, Carlo. Mitos, emblemas, sinais: morfologia e história. Trad. Federico
Carotti. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2003.
HABIB, Mohammad; NIZAMI, Khali Ahmad. Comprehensive history of India, A.
New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House, 1992.
KNAUSS, Paulo. O desafio de fazer História com imagens: arte e cultura visual.
ArtCultura. Uberlândia, v. 8, n. 12, p. 97-115, jan.-jun. 2006. Available at < http://www.
seer.ufu.br/index.php/artcultura/article/view/1406/1274 >. Accessed on Jun. 03, 2019.
MARCONI, Marina de Andrade; LAKATOS, Eva Maria. Fundamentos de metodologia
Travel Narratives
Thanks: The effectiveness of this text was only possible with the insights and technical
suggestions of researchers Alexandra Gonçalves (COS | PUC-SP), Estefania Knotz
Canguçu Fraga (P.E.P.G. in History | PUC-SP), Manisha Pathak-Shelat (MICA) and
researcher Murtaza Gandhi (MICA), especially regarding the history of Salt Satyagraha.
About the adjustments in the colorimetry of the photographs, my special thanks to
technical partner Govind Chauhan (MICA).
Travel Narratives
237 DENÚNCIA E ALTERIDADE:
OS QUADRINHOS DE VIAGEM
DE GUY DELISLE
Nos textos que introduzem este volume, assim como em um artigo que publiquei
anteriormente (PASSOS e CASTILHO, 2017), é fortemente ressaltada a noção de
que há um núcleo temático comum às narrativas de viagem: a descoberta – e, mais
especificamente, a descoberta do outro, em um exercício de alteridade. Assim, torna-
se evidente que a literatura de viagem não se centra necessariamente apenas sobre
localidades, mas também sobre povos, sobre civilizações.
O tema é um dos elementos essenciais – junto a forma composicional e estilo
– para se definir gêneros de texto (e não apenas de texto) a partir da concepção
bakhtiniana de gêneros discursivos, bastante cara a mim justamente por sua elasticidade
e – por que não? – permissibilidade, ao proporcionar a visão de uma cosmologia de
gêneros que em vez de restringi-los a um conjunto definido e bem delimitado, abre a
portas para o infinito, a ponto de nos passar uma sensação de vertigem: para Bakhtin
(2016), ao mesmo tempo que um conjunto de práticas discursivas que utilizem com
alguma recorrência e estabilidade elementos temáticos, composicionais e estilísticos
semelhantes configuraria um gênero discursivo, qualquer alteração substancial em um
desses componentes necessariamente originaria um novo gênero, necessariamente
distinto do primeiro.
Assim, numa perspectiva bakhtiniana pode fazer mais sentido falar em sistemas
de gêneros discursivos do que em gêneros isolados e bem delimitados, prevendo assim
a variação, a dissonância, os pontos fora da curva e, principalmente, os pontos fora
da curva que fazem escola, vão se aglomerando e passam a constituir seus próprios
conjuntos (ou subsistemas) de gêneros discursivos – assim, podemos trabalhar
definições que compreendam e mesmo antecipem simultaneamente a semelhança e
a diferença. Essa é, por exemplo, a tratativa com que venho trabalhando o jornalismo
Narrativas de Viagem
receberam títulos distintos: A User’s Guide to Neglectful Parenting, Even More Bad
Parenting Advice, The Owner’s Manual to Terrible Parenting e The Handbook to Lazy
Parenting. Já a conviência com os profissionais da organização Médicos Sem Fronteiras
renderia a graphic novel S’Enfuir. Récit d’un Otage [Fugir. O Relato de um Refém]
(2016), que conta a história de Christophe André, um administrador dos Médicos Sem
Fronteiras que foi sequestrado e viveu em cativeiro na região do Cáucaso em 1997.
As quatro graphic novels de Guy Delisle que constituem narrativas de viagem,
relatos de sua experiência no estrangeiro – Shenzhen, Pyongyang, Crônicas Birmanesas
243 e Crônicas de Jerusalém – têm uma estrutura narrativa peculiar: são quadrinhos-
fragmento, quase fractais, compostos por pequenos instantâneos que representam
momentos distintos de sua viagem – abordagem possivelmente influenciada pelo
exercício de formas cartunescas curtas como as dos primeiros livros que produziu. São,
assim, mais do que tramas de fôlego estruturadas num crescendo narrativo, coletâneas
de experiências integradas por pequenas unidades sem progressão de ação, cuja
tensão narrativa é rapidamente resolvida: um mosaico que representa de certo modo a
natureza da experiência de viagem, na qual eventos se sucedem sem que haja conexão
direta entre eles, a não ser a sequência cronológica.
narrativa um choque cultural que o mostra horrorizado com a vida e sociedade locais
– a ponto de compará-la diretamente com o Inferno dantesco da Divina Comédia,
sintomaticamente elencando os Estados Unidos como análogos ao Paraíso (Figura 3).
Esse gesto expressa uma percepção discursivo-ideológica que curiosamente aprecia
os EUA como expressão máxima de liberdade civil, à qual se contraporia a sociedade
chinesa, a medida a partir da qual os mais variados eventos – matricular-se em uma
academia, passar o Natal com um colega de estúdio, a estada no hotel – tornam-se palco
para expressar deslocamento, descontentamento e repúdio e pintar a cidade como um
244 pesadelo vivo. Como apontam Dalmonte e Araujo (2011), esse movimento de rejeição
se expressa no próprio traço de Delisle que, adotando um aspecto mais grosseiro,
“reconstrói as percepções da sujeira, da palidez, da velocidade e, muitas vezes, do caos
de Shenzhen” (DALMONTE e ARAUJO, 2011, p.357)
De forma semelhante, Pyongyang expressa o estranhamento e o repúdio de
Delisle a sua estada de dois meses na capital norte-coreana. Há algumas distinções
interessantes, porém. A primeira é o dúbio vínculo que o cartunista estabelece com
seu guia permanente, Sin – a quem apelida Capitão Sin, de modo a prover algum
alívio cômico para sua própria estada e para a narrativa. Desta vez, se há cenas em
que a rejeição cultural-ideológica se coloca de maneira ainda mais intensa, como
uma visita feita Museu Internacional da Amizade, uma celebração da revolução e
dos líderes norte-coreanos, ou na qual tenta “despertar” um de seus guias ocasionais
ao lhe emprestar um exemplar de 1984, de George Orwell – na esperança de que
ele enxergasse os paralelos entre a realidade ao seu redor e a distopia orwelliana
(Figura 4) –, há momentos de leveza em que Delisle se diverte com os guias ou colegas
estrangeiros do estúdio de animação.
Narrativas de Viagem
Um dos aspectos distintivos – que talvez estejam entre os mais relevantes – das
narrativas de viagem é a preocupação com alguma recriação visual dos ambientes
experienciados pelos viajantes-narradores, por vezes amparada por longas e detalhadas
descrições. De acordo com John Hartsock (2016), ao lidar com o jornalismo literário
de modo específico, a combinação de narração e descrição permite ao leitor uma mais
profunda imersão nos acontecimentos narrados, tornar-se uma espécie de testemunha
virtual das ações, das pessoas e dos lugares, e desse modo envolver-se e mesmo
assimilar melhor o material ali apresentado.
Essa preocupação já está manifesta em relatos medievais como Il Milione, de
Marco Polo (MARTINEZ, 2016) e do início da idade moderna como a obra de Hans
Staden publicada em 1557, Warhaftige Historia und beschreibung eyner Landtschafft der
Wilden Nacketen, Grimmigen Menschfresser-Leuthen in der Newenwelt America gelegen
[História verídica e descrição de uma terra de selvagens, nus e cruéis comedores de
seres humanos, situada no Novo Mundo da América], tradicionalmente traduzida em
português como Duas Viagens ao Brasil, na qual relata sua captura por uma comunidade
Tupinambá, que praticava o canibalismo ritual, e seu papel como intérprete e mediador
Narrativas de Viagem
entre partes em conflito como seus captores e uma comunidade Tupiniquim, inimiga
dos Tupinambás e aliada aos colonizadores portugueses. A obra apresenta diversas
gravuras feitas pelo próprio Staden de modo a buscar reproduzir visualmente aquilo
que vira e testemunhara em território brasileiro, nas imediações da atual Ubatuba,
no litoral paulista. O trabalho narra-descritivo e iconográfico de Staden (Figura 9)
é reconhecido pelo seu valor em ilustrar a flora e a fauna brasileira, assim como
elementos do cotidiano dos Tupinambás com quem Staden conviveu (PAPAVERO e
TEIXEIRA, 2007).
248 No caso dos quadrinhos, por conta de sua própria natureza composicional
expressa na simbiose entre texto verbal de balões e recordatórios – representações de
fala e pensamento, e no caso dos recordatórios também de marcas de tempo e espaço
ou narração em terceira pessoa – e o texto imagético dos desenhos, na qual não seria
correto estabelecer uma relação de precedência ou hierarquia clara entre um e outro
(RAMOS, 2009; POSTEMA, 2018; WOLK, 2007), temos alguma descrição verbal, mas
a parcela mais significativa da ambientação e caracterização das experiências recai
sobre a construção imagética das obras.
Nesse sentido, em vez de estimular uma representação visual por meio das
narrações e descrições, os quadrinhos apresentam ao leitor uma representação
acabada, construída a partir dos desenhos – de modo análogo a como uma peça
audiovisual ou um texto acompanhado de imagem oferecem a reconstrução fotográfica
de lugares, pessoas e acontecimentos. Há, porém, uma distinção que coloca os
gêneros de quadrinhos e os gêneros audiovisuais em extremos opostos: enquanto os
linguagens audiovisuais como a cinematográfica, a partir de convenções definidas
historicamente, buscam recriar uma sensação ilusória de naturalidade e continuidade
a partir de captura de fragmentos de ações (XAVIER, 2005), os quadrinhos evidenciam
e escancaram sua artificialidade ao oferecer como superfície de contato e mediação
entre o leitor e a realidade experienciada o desenho, com traços que variam entre
a estilização cartunesca, a tentativa de reprodução naturalista e composições sujas,
Narrativas de Viagem
que a camada verbal é apenas uma das dimensões textuais-discursivas das obras, e
que os desenhos são uma camada de narração e representação de igual importância.
É sempre necessário, ainda, distinguir aquilo que compõe o estilo, isto é, aquilo
que é intrínseco à individualidade da representação gráfica de cada autor, o modo
como assimilam a realidade e a renderizam na forma de desenho, o que inclui
sua autorepresentação (Figura 10), e gestos que deliberadamente constituem
intervenções sobre a realidade.
Assim, a fruição e a análise crítica dos quadrinhos de viagem – assim como os
251 autobiográficos e jornalísticos – demandam o estabelecimento de um tipo singular
de pacto de leitura que dê conta de lidar simultaneamente com o caráter não ficcional
dessas narrativas e com a ficcionalidade e exaustiva interpretação de lugares,
sujeitos e ações. Nessa direção, podemos retomar a proposta de David Eason (1990)
para classificar os autores do Novo Jornalismo, a vertente do jornalismo literário
norte-americano surgida e exercida ao longo da década de 1960: Eason propõe
uma divisão entre “realistas” (a quem também podemos chamar de empiricistas),
que acreditam conseguir manter distância da realidade material, enxergá-la e
narrá-la objetivamente, e os “modernistas” (a quem também podemos denominar
fenomenólogos), que se vêem como intérpretes da realidade e não descolam a
narração de um movimento subjetivo, interpretativo no qual a realidade em si é
inacessível, sempre filtrada a partir da cultura e ideologia de observadores e atores,
sujeita a certo grau de ficcionalização em sua apreensão. Em ambos os casos, é
preciso notar, a realidade é algo interpretado e em certo grau ficcionalizado pelos
sujeitos – ao menos a partir de uma organização lógica e estruturada de ações e
acontecimentos, com o estabelecimento de relações causais entre eles–; porém, há
autores que buscam, dentro dos recursos narrativos que têm à disposição, reforçar a
verossimilhança e negar ou mascarar as camadas de interpretação e ficcionalidade,
enquanto outros assumem a inevitabilidade dessas camadas e a impossibilidade da
compreensão e da reprodução objetivas da realidade.
Enquanto autores como Joe Sacco e Alison Bechdel estão em distintas zonas
cinzentas entre esses dois polos, acredito ser possível afirmar que Guy Delisle,
ao menos nos aspectos visuais de suas obras, encontre-se mais próximo do polo
modernista – inclusive pelo caráter episódico, fragmentário de suas narrativas que
torna sua experienciação menos “natural” (XAVIER, 2005), novamente chamando
a atenção à artificialidade do ato narrativo. Se em certos momentos um traço
cartunesco bastante estilizado é adotado para expressar a irritação de um dos líderes
dos Médicos Sem Fronteiras ao passar pela área de segurança do Aeroporto Ben
Gurion e ter de se despir quase completamente no processo de revista (Figura 16) –
imprimindo certo humor a uma situação de violência–, em um quadro de Pyongyang,
um dos únicos quadros de página inteira de suas obras, o que imprime mais impacto
à cena, representa uma dezena de meninas norte-coreanas que tocavam acordeon
numa apresentação televisionada. Seu espanto com a uniformização das ações e
das expressões sorridentes treinadas, quase sinceras, o leva a compor o visual da
cena ao conferir feições quase idênticas às crianças (Figura 15). Assim, mesmo
em sua fase de maior preocupação denuncista e menor grau de alteridade, Delisle
Narrativas de Viagem
REFERÊNCIAS
considered as a genre or form despite its multiple and radically distinct incarnations
around the world and over the decades and centuries (BAK, 2011). By thinking of
all those manifestations of literary journalism as a system of discourse genres that
1 Professor at the Graduate Program in Social Communication of the Methodist University of São Paulo (Umesp)
and executive editor of the Comunicação & Sociedade journal. Holds a PhD in Literature (University of Campinas –
Unicamp) and a Master’s Degree in Science, Technology and Society (Federal University of São Carlos – UFSCar),
a BA in Journalism (Catholic University of Campinas – PUC-Campinas) and a BA in Literature Studies University
of Campinas – Unicamp). E-mail: mateus.passos@metodista.br
256 has as a common ground a compositional element – the hybridization between
journalism and literature practices –, we allow for the acceptance of the dissonant
and the unforeseen cases. We could also identify the formation of subsets of genres
arising from one or more of such dissonances – e.g. the case of gonzo journalism,
which comprises quite distinct but still related writing practices, stemming
especially from a dialogical relationship with the pioneer reference texts, Hunter
S. Thompson (MARTINEZ and PASSOS, 2018). This notion of sets of genres also
allows us to understand how similar writing practices relate to different subsets
of genres: it is possible, for example, to identify works that are in the border zone
between the subsets of gonzo journalism and travel literary journalism, such as
Arthur Veríssimo’s reportage pieces for the Trip magazine, stories of egocentric
performance focused on contact, strangeness and sometimes empathy with different
cultures around the world, with a particular emphasis on religious practices.
I would then like, in a rather preliminary, non-exhaustive and non-delimiting
Bakhtinian way, with no prospect of completion or conclusion, to think of travel
narratives as a rather complex and diverse set/system of discursive genres – diverse
even by comprising very different narrative languages throughout almost every
media supports. The set presented in this book is exemplary of this: there are
travel narratives that are essentially textual-documentary or essentially imagetic,
fictional, journalistic, advertising, audiovisual, even transmedia – and among them
I cannot help but identify Demétrio de Azeredo Soster’s recent bicycle narratives,
Operação Banda Oriental (2017), Operação Valparaiso (2018) and Operação Carretera
Austral (2019), which in addition to each being composed of a sets of book and
documentary, and of a narration of events that is simultaneously and complexly
constructed together with the narrated experiences, are still hybrids between
fruition and academic materials, since they also have their scholarly counterparts.
We still have, however, that shared thematic core that allows us to group
them together – which beyond travelling itself comprises, as already mentioned, the
discovery of the other land and the other people, but on an even more fundamental
level it comprises the organization and narration of personal experience, since its
origins in the narratives of the privileged few who in times of great infrastructural
limitations had the possibility to brave the world (MARTINEZ, 2016).
The narration of experience is a topic dear to authors such as Walter Benjamin,
explored in essays of his mature phase such as 1933’s “Experience and Poverty”
[“Erfahrung und Armut”] and “The Storyteller” [“Der Erzähler”], published in 1936
– more specifically, Benjamin is interested in the “poverty of experience” (2012,
loc.1235), the decay and devaluation of experience in the narrative production of
Travel Narratives
the first decades of the Twentieth Century, for which he attributed at least partial
guilt to the journalism of his time (BENJAMIN, 2018). One should bear in mind that
Benjamin was referring at to a process of “modernization” of journalism which
incorporated textual strategies such as the lead and inverted pyramid structure,
seeking to reduce events to their essential factual cores (GENRO FILHO, 2012)
and leaving rational and emotional appreciation of events to quoted fragments;
narrative-descriptive forms such as those of literary journalism are diametrically
257 opposed to it, constituting precisely textual strategies that prioritize experience as
an essential condition for the appreciation of reality (PASSOS, 2017).
In narratives of experience, at least since the late Nineteenth Century – in
literary movements such as French naturalism and Italian Verismo, as well as
in academic studies of disciplines such as History (HELLER, 2016; CERTEAU,
GIARD and MAYOL, 2013) and Philosophy of Language (VOLOSHINOV, 2015), the
contemplation of daily life has gained ground and prominence, complementing or
even replacing the narrative of broad-scope events, of important, world-changing
deeds. The experience of daily life, routine and banal activities, or even the ruptures
of routine in the singular dimension of a person or a small community, the
narration of all this allows us to know a reality that is often at odds with the large-
scope patterns and generalizing considerations about a locality or its folk. Valentin
Volóshinov (2015), in a work usually attributed to Mikhail Bakhtin, goes so far as to
firmly state that the daily experience gives rise to a form of ideology, a worldview
of its own, which would oppose an official ideology constituted by institutions of
financial, administrative, and coercive power. By prioritizing a narrative painting
of such an ideology one establishes a dialogue with the movement for which
Benjamin (2012) appeals in the most enigmatic of his works, the set of theses “On
the Concept of History” [“Über den Begriff der Geschichte”], acoording to which
the true historian should brush History against the grain, unveil what is hidden
in the writing of the history of the great narratives, the history of the victors, the
dominators, the hegemonic powers. When we talk about everyday life in travel
narratives – which in theory would represent a rupture in the dimension to which
we most commonly attribute the notion of daily life –, we deal precisely with the
small-scale dimensions of life that unfold through narrative, with the observation
of habits and values distinct
from that of the traveler, with the cultural shock, with
the mutual understanding of the other and the eventual assimilation of some habits
and values: in short, through the exchange of culture, the alterity and otherness in
their most fundamentally dialogical and human aspects.
We finally come to the topic of comics as one of the artistic media in which
travel narratives are articulated. Comics by themselves are also a complex system of
discourse genres, with radically different thematic and stylistic variations, although
they most commonly known for their mainstream variations that Douglas Wolk
(2007, p.21) calls “genre comics”, i.e., comics that are segmented into topics such as
horror, action, fantasy, science fiction and superheroes, and generally considered
to be a reading material aimed at and read mostly by teenagers and young adults.
It is important to note that the notion of genre that Wolk uses deals mostly with
thematic content, although of course it has its consequences and limitations in
Travel Narratives
the compositional and stylistic aspects, dimensions that are usually articulated
around the conventions of the three great global quadrinistic matrices: the Anglo-
Saxon, the European and the Japanese, each evidently containing a certain degree
of hybridization with the others due to the dialogical flows between the different
traditions and artists. Beyond “genre comics” lies the even wider world of “artistic
comics” or “author comics” (WOLK, 2007) which includes fiction and nonfiction,
258 biography and memory, naturalism and surrealism, figurativism and abstractivism,
the sober and the oneiric, encompassing works so disparate in narrative strategy –
in their visual as in their verbal aspects – that it feels extremely reductive to group
them around a common denominator as simplifying as “comics”.
Even when talking about travel comics we are dealing with a subset of genres
that span such disparate narratives that we might consider them antipodes. As an
example, I would like to mention two works belonging to the field of fiction and
the same Japanese comics tradition: One Piece, Eiichiro Oda’s mainstream manga
serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump, the world’s most popular manga anthology
dedicated to teens, and A Distant Neighborhood [Haruka na Machi e] by Jiro
Taniguchi, serialized in the biweekly magazine Big Comic, aimed at a more mature
audience. One Piece is a maximalist action-adventure narrative, published since
1997 and still ongoing, at the moment collected in 93 volumes with an average of
approximately 200 pages each, and applying the cinematic and agile narrative style
that has become the manga standard since Osamu Tezuka’s innovations between
the 1950s and 1980s. One Piece tells the story of a band of pirates on a journey
that literally goes around the world, facing ever more powerful enemies while
slowly unraveling the mysteries of the downfall of a forgotten civilization and the
emergence of a hegemonic world government – travel is only one aspect of the
narrative, but it is precisely the core element that gives the plot some cohesion,
with successive travels between countries whose inhabitants, architecture, habits
and values are
always characterized in a peculiar and singular way. A Distant
Neighborhood, on the other hand, is substantially smaller in length, comprising
two volumes of material published between April and November 1998; it is also
minor in the scope of the plot, which deals with a journey of discovery in one
of its most banal aspects, when the protagonist mistakenly takes a train to his
hometown and away from his apartment, and there relives memories and confronts
his past. With a visual style and narrative composition closer to the “album” model
of the European comics tradition, many of Jiro Taniguchi’s most renowned works
focus precisely on journeys without any major significant events, with a flanêur-
like protagonist exploring unknown neighborhoods, or even unknown streets of
their own neighborhoods, such as The Walking Man [Aruku Hito] or churning out
restaurants, dishes and tastes like The Solitary Gourmet [Kodoku no Gurume]. The
journeys in Oda’s stories are striding, monumental in scope, and hold the potential
to change the course of the whole humankind, while Jiro Taniguchi’s are timid, and
if they have any impact, this happens only within their protagonists’ hearts.
Travel Narratives
259
In the realm of nonfiction, works that contemplate and celebrate the dimension
of daily life are much more recurring – a domain pioneered by the American author
Harvey Pekar in the 1970s when dealing with subjects such as his personal obsessions,
the discomfort with supermarket queues or the appreciation of jazz records in his
American Splendor series (VILELA, 2016) or by the also American author Alison
Bechdel in works such as Fun Home and Are You My Mother? (ZOUVI, 2016).
If we consider comic nonfiction travel narratives – thus already contemplating
intersections between various subsets of this vast system of discursive genres – one of the
exponents in the more journalistic branch is the Maltese comic artist Joe Sacco, specializing
in war coverage and globally recognized for his work focused on the Palestinian issue and
the Balkan War, and who is the focus of Ricardo Jorge’s chapter in this book.
Another name that has been recognized as a unique and prominent voice in the
field is Guy Delisle, who will be the focus of our attention here. Delisle specializes in
autobiographical and to some extent denouncing works, although in his most recent
pieces he has developed a view more open to humanization and otherness. Just like every
piece of travel narrative, the four narratives we will briefly discuss here – Shenzhen: A
Travel Narratives
Travelogue from China, Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Burmese Chronicles, and
Jerusalem – are thus narratives of the discovery of the other, narratives of experience
and of everyday life. As a group, however, they constitute a kind of narrative-in-the-
making in which we follow the gradual maturation of the traveler, his worldviews and
his relationship with the Other in his experiences in foreign lands.
260 Guy Delisle: narratives of shock and empathy
The four of Guy Delisle’s graphic novels that constitute travel narratives,
accounts of his experience abroad – Shenzhen, Pyongyang, Burma Chronicles, and
Jerusalem – have a peculiar narrative structure: they are fragmentary comics, almost
fractal-like, composed of small snapshots that portray distinct moments of his journey
– an approach possibly influenced by the experience with short cartoon forms like
those of the first books he produced. Rather than breathtaking plots structured in a
261 narrative boom, they are collections of experiences made up of small units with little
or no plot progression, which narrative tension is quickly resolved: a mosaic that in
a way represents the very nature of the travel experience, in which events follow suit
without any direct connection between them except their chronology.
Figures 3 and 4: In Shenzhen (left) and Pyongyang (right), Delisle presents several
forms of repudiation/denunciation of societies he terminantly rejects and considers
as non places.
The first two books, Shenzhen and Pyongyang, as mentioned earlier, are
quite similar both in terms of the subjects of narrative fragments and of Delisle’s
responsiveness to events, to environments. In his first experience in a politically closed
society, the cartoonist expresses a cultural shock and depicts himself as horrified with
local life and society – to the point of comparing China directly with Dante’s Hell
from the Divine Comedy, and symptomatically lists the United States as analogue to
the Paradise (Figure 3). This gesture expresses a discursive-ideological perception that
curiously appreciates the US as the ultimate expression of civil freedom, to which
Chinese society would be in direct opposition, the extent to which the most varied
events – enrolling at a gym, spending Christmas with a studio colleague, staying at
the hotel – become a stage for expressing displacement, discontent and repudiation
and painting the city like a living nightmare. As Dalmonte and Araujo (2011) point
Travel Narratives
out, this movement of rejection is expressed in Delisle’s own drawing style which,
adopting a cruder aspect, “reconstructs perceptions of Shenzhen’s dirt, paleness,
high-speed and chaos” (DALMONTE and ARAUJO, 2011, p.357).
Similarly, Pyongyang expresses Delisle’s estrangement and repudiation
of his two-month sojourn in the North Korean capital. There are some interesting
distinctions, though. The first is the dubious bond the cartoonist establishes with his
262 permanent guide, Sin – whom he calls Captain Sin, in order to provide some comic
relief for his own stay and the narrative. This time, while there are scenes in which
the cultural-ideological rejection arises even more intensely, such as a visit to the
International Friendship Exhibition, a celebration of the North Korean leaders and
the revolution itself, or a scene in which he tries to “awaken” one of his occasional
guides by lending him a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 – hoping that he would notice
the parallels between the reality around him and the Orwellian dystopia (Figure 4)
–, there are also light moments in which Delisle enjoys the company of the guides or
fellow foreign colleagues from the animation studio.
colonizers. The work presents several engravings made by Staden himself in order
to visually reproduce what he had seen and witnessed in Brazilian territory, in
the vicinity of the current Ubatuba, on the coast of the São Paulo state. Staden’s
narrative-descriptive and iconographic work (Figure 9) is recognized for its value
in illustrating Brazilian flora and fauna, as well as elements of the daily life of the
Tupinambás with whom Staden lived (PAPAVERO and TEIXEIRA, 2007).
266 In the case of comics, due to its own compositional nature expressed in the
symbiosis between verbal text in balloons and captions – representations of speech
and thought, and in the case of captions, also the marking of time and space or third-
person narration – and the imagetic text of the drawings, it would not be correct to
establish a relationship of precedence or clear hierarchy between each other (RAMOS,
2009; POSTEMA, 2018; WOLK, 2007). In comics, there is some verbal description, but
the most significant part of the setting and characterization the experiences lies in the
imagetic construction of the works.
Figure 10: Guy Delisle and his cartoonish self-portrayal: a stylistic strategy for
representation and interpretation of reality that shows its artificiality.
The graphic style of each artist is an essential element that influences the reception
of a work, and also the answers and questions that the reading will offer to the public.
Among the autobiographical nonfiction comics (ZOUVI, 2016; VILELA, 2016), on the
one hand, a convention was established to adopt cartoonish styles that again show the
artificiality and a certain degree of distancing between events as they happened and
their representation – perhaps from the principle of partiality and fallibility of memory
(WOLK, 2007), seeking to highlight it rather than mask it. There are exceptional cases
267 in which text and image are created by distinct authors, as in the American Splendor
series, with Harvey Pekar’s writings about his own daily life, and art by several
and very different artists, including the well-acknowledged underground cartoonist
Robert Crumb – in this case, there is yet another interpretive and mediating layer in
which the graphic artist presents his own reading, his own interpretation of Harvey
Pekar, the people around him, and the small events of their lives.
The art, as a mediating layer, imposes a certain limit on the trustworthiness –
and sometimes even the credibility – of nonfiction comics and thus some authors,
especially those who carry out journalistic works (RAMOS, 2016) seek occasionally
– or even integrally – to adopt a more naturalistic drawing style that is understood as
a mimetic – almost objective – reproduction of events, seeking to preserve the most
documentary aspects (MUANIS, 2013) of their narratives.
Figures 11 and 12: In Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel presents a distancing
between experience and performance, distinguishing (still stylized) reproduction of
photographs from cartoonish representation. (ZOUVI, 2016, p.73)
even at a scene in Are You My Mother? which shows, in a metalinguistic gesture, her
use of documentary records for the composition of the art (Figures 11 and 12).
268
Figures 13 and 14: In Jerusalem, Delisle repeatedly records his concern with
reproducing the design of buildings on the spot. We only have access to their
cartoonish portrayal, however.
narratives and with the fictionality and the exhaustive interpretation of places, subjects
and actions. In this direction, we can regard David Eason’s proposal (1990) to classify
the authors of New Journalism, a branch of North American literary journalism that
emerged and was practiced throughout the 1960s: Eason proposes a division between
“realists” (who we may also call empiricists), who believe they can keep their distance
from material reality, see it and narrate it objectively, and the “modernists” (whom we
may also call phenomenologists), who see themselves as interpreters of reality and
269 do not dissociate their narration from a subjective, interpretive movement in which
reality in itself is inaccessible, and always seen and experienced through the filters of
culture and ideology by observers and actors, and thus is subject to some degree of
fictionalization in its apprehension by them. In both cases, it should be noted, reality
is something that is interpreted and to some degree fictionalized by the authors – at
least under the logical and structured organization of actions and events, with the
establishment of causal relations between them. However, there are authors who
seek, within the narrative resources at their disposal, to reinforce the likelihood of
their pieces and to deny or mask the layers of interpretation and fiction, while others
assume these layers are the inevitable and that it is impossible to reach an objective
reproduction or even an objective understanding of reality.
While authors like Joe Sacco and Alison Bechdel stand in different gray areas
between those two extremes, I believe it is possible to state that Guy Delisle, at least
in the visual aspects of his works, is closer to the modernist branch – including the
episodic, fragmentary character of his storytelling that makes the experience of
reading his work seem less “natural” (XAVIER, 2005), again drawing attention to the
artificiality of narrative. If oftentimes a fairly stylized cartoony style is adopted to
express the irritation of one of the leaders of Doctors Without Borders as he passes
through the security area of the Ben Gurion Airport and has to strip down to his
underwear (Figure 16) – imbuing some humor into a situation of violence – and in
a scene from Pyongyang, in one of the only full-page drawings of his works, which
makes it most impactful, Delisle portrays a dozen North Korean girls playing accordion
in a televised performance. His astonishment at the uniformity of their almost sincere
trained actions and smiling expressions leads him to compose the look of the scene
by giving the children almost identical facial features (Figure 15). Thus, even in that
early period of his work full of greater denunciation concerns and lesser degrees of
otherness, Delisle assumes himself as an author and an interpreter of reality and
presents the narrative as something to be perceived as a personal reconstruction of
experience rather than a reliable reproduction of reality.
Travel Narratives
Figures 15 and 16: Scenes from Pyongyang (left) and Jerusalem (right): the
cartoonish trait is evidenced as artificiality, an interpretation of reality, and demands
reading under that perspective.
270 REFERENCES
HELLER, Agnes. O Cotidiano e a História. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2016. (ebook)
MARTINEZ, Monica. Jornalismo Literário: tradição e inovação. Florianópolis:
Insular, 2016.
MARTINEZ, Monica; PASSOS, Mateus Yuri. Gonzo Brazilian Style: Arthur Veríssimo’s
adaptations of Thompson’s journalism. In: ALEXANDER, Robert; ISAGER, Christine
(Eds.). Fear and Loathing Worldwide: Gonzo Journalism beyond Hunter S.
271 Thompson. Londres: Bloomsbury, 2018, p.69-83.
MUANIS, Felipe. O quadrinho documental e a tradução da cidade. 9ª Arte, v.2, n.1,
p.45-57, 2013.
PAPAVERO, Nelson; TEIXEIRA, Dante Martins. A fauna de São Paulo nos
séculos XVI a XVIII, nos textos de viajantes, cronistas, missionários e relatos
monçoeiros. São Paulo: EdUSP, 2007.
PASSOS, Mateus Yuri. De fontes a personagens: definidores do real no jornalismo
literário. In: SOSTER, Demétrio de Azeredo; PICCININ, Fabiana Quatrin (Eds.).
Narrativas Midiáticas Contemporâneas: perspectivas epistemológicas. Santa
Cruz do Sul: Catarse, 2017.
PASSOS, Mateus Yuri; CASTILHO, Fernanda. Pessoas de paisagem: a caracterização
de destinos portugueses na revista Fugas. Rizoma, v.5, n.1, p.111-123, 2017.
POSTEMA, Barbara. Estrutura Narrativa nos Quadrinhos. Construindo sentido a
partir de fragmentos. São Paulo: Peirópolis, 2018.
RAMOS, Paulo. A leitura dos quadrinhos. São Paulo: Contexto, 2009.
RAMOS, Paulo. Jornalismo em Quadrinhos ou Quadrinhos com Jornalismo? In:
VERGUEIRO, Waldomiro; RAMOS, Paulo; CHINEN, Nobu (Eds.). Enquadrando o
Real. São Paulo: Criativo, 2016, p. 196-229.
VILELA, Túlio. Aspectos (Auto)Biográficos nas Histórias em Quadrinhos. In:
VERGUEIRO, Waldomiro; RAMOS, Paulo; CHINEN, Nobu (Eds.). Enquadrando o
Real. São Paulo: Criativo, 2016, p. 10-43.
VOLÓSHINOV, Valentin. Marxismo e Filosofia da Linguagem. São Paulo: Editora
34, 2015.
WOLK, Douglas. Reading Comics. How graphic novels work and what they mean.
Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2007.
XAVIER, Ismail. O discurso cinematográfico: a opacidade e a transparência. 3. ed.
São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2005.
ZOUVI, Aline de Alvarenga. Auto-Obsessão versus Representatividade nos
Quadrinhos de Alison Bechdel. In: VERGUEIRO, Waldomiro; RAMOS, Paulo;
CHINEN, Nobu (Eds.). Enquadrando o Real. São Paulo: Criativo, 2016, p. 60-77.
Travel Narratives
272 QUANDO UMA PÁGINA FALA
DE UMA CIDADE: ANÁLISE DO LAYOUT
EM OBRAS DE JOE SACCO
Introdução
com outras culturas; depois, propomos uma breve discussão sobre o conceito de
reportagem; e, por fim, as propostas tipológicas de páginas de quadrinhos feitas
por Barbieri (1993), Peeters (1998) e Groensteen (1999), as quais nos auxiliarão na
posterior análise de algumas partes das obras citadas.
1 Jornalista. Professor-Associado I do curso de Jornalismo do Instituto de Cultura e Arte da Universidade Fe-
deral do Ceará (ICA-UFC) e do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação da Universidade Federal do Ceará
(PPGCOM-UFC). Doutor em Comunicação pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação (UFPe, 2011); mes-
tre em Comunicação e Cultura (UFRJ, 1997); especialista em Teorias da Comunicação e da Imagem (UFC/UFRJ,
1994); e graduado em Comunicação Social - Jornalismo (UFC, 1990). Coordenador do projeto de extensão Oficina
de Quadrinhos UFC e do projeto cultural Oficina Avançada de Quadrinhos.
273 Quadrinhos e viagens: breve história
pelo pseudônimo de Cham. Seu trabalho busca retratar o tédio das viagens de trem
feitas pelo protagonista da série, Monsieur Boniface (CAMPOS, 2015: 119). Esse tédio
fica visualmente explicitado no modo como o autor planeja suas páginas e ilustrações,
as quais mostram imagens de um cenário que praticamente não se modifica e que o
personagem contempla pela janela do trem (figura 2)3.
2 O site do Royal Museums Greewich sugere que William Holland possa ter sido, na verdade, James Sayers (1748-
1823). Para mais detalhes, ver: http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254939.html.
3 Arriscamo-nos a dizer que Impressions de Voyage de Monsieur Boniface é, visualmente falando, um precursor da
noção de plano e de contraplano do cinema, ao criar e revezar dois pontos de vista opostos.
274
Do século XX, seria impossível não citar ao menos dois quadrinistas bastante
distintos por seus modos de representar diferentes culturas: o belga Hergé e o norte-
americano Carl Barks. Citamos a ambos aqui pelo fato de grande parte de suas
produções envolver personagens cujas tramas estão diretamente ligadas ao fato de
eles estarem presentes em diferentes países e em contato com culturas distintas.
Hergé (1907-1983), criador do famoso personagem jornalista Tintin, escreveu
boa parte de suas histórias tendo como elemento central as viagens do protagonista
e seus adjuvantes por diversos países, sejam eles reais (Congo, China, Egito,
Índia) ou fictícios (San Théodoros, Nuevo Rico, Bordúria, Sildávia). Conforme
relata Apostolidès (2006), em suas primeiras aventuras, publicadas no começo
dos anos 1930, Tintin tinha uma relação direta com a história concreta (Bélgica,
Europa, colônias européias, o comunismo); suas façanhas se dirigiam a crianças
e adolescentes daquele período, adaptando-as à psicologia da juventude da época
e dando-lhe caráter didático; assim, Tintin seria um modelo a ser proposto aos
adolescentes, um jovem virtuoso e heróico num mundo corrompido cuja tarefa ele
Narrativas de Viagem
Os povos é que não se conhecem direito. Por isso muitos europeus imaginam
que todos os chineses são homens maliciosos e crueis, que usam trança e passam
o tempo inventando torturas e comendo ovos podres e ninhos de andorinha...
Esses mesmos europeus acreditam que todas as chinesas, sem exceção, têm
pés minúsculos e que, ainda hoje, todas as meninas chinesas sofrem as mais
terríveis torturas... para que seus pés não cresçam normalmente. E ainda por
cima, estão convencidos de que os rios da China estão cheios de bebes chineses,
que são jogados na água ao nascer... (HERGÉ, 2012, p. 43).
4 Hergé situa a história num momento de tensão entre Japão e China: a Segunda Guerra Sino-Japonesa. A busca
pela verossimilhança foi tal que vários cartazes e faixas representados na HQ trazem ditos em mandarim, como
sugestões de boicotes a produtos japoneses e slogans anti-imperialistas, mas que têm valor apenas decorativo
Narrativas de Viagem
à maioria dos leitores ocidentais que desconhecem o idioma (APOSTOLIDÈS, 2006, p. 50). Notas de rodapé
com a tradução desses textos auxiliariam numa melhor interpretação daquele momento histórico por parte dos
leitores; afinal, os quadros que trazem essas mensagens em geral são mudos, ou seja, sem balões de diálogos ou
pensamentos, como que para enfatizar os slogans em mandarim.
5 Leia-se: página 31, tira I.
6 Isso não quer dizer que aceitemos a supremacia do verbal em relação ao visual; apenas estamos chamando a
atenção para a diferentes intenções comunicativas de Hergé em cada uma das duas situações.
7 Sim, sabemos que o “império dos signos” de Barthes (2007) é o Japão, e não a China, mas cremos que tal
expressão pode também ilustrar bem nossa relação, de ocidentais, com os signos chineses que emergem do
desenho de Hergé.
8 Curiosamente, várias passagens textuais em O Charuto do Farão (como placas e cartazes) aparecem traduzidas,
em português ou inglês, e no alfabeto latino. Já em O Lótus Azul isso não ocorre.
276
Viagem e jornalismo
Para podermos falar sobre a obra do quadrinista Joe Sacco como sendo um
representante do jornalismo em quadrinhos e associá-lo à temática da viagem, devemos
(ainda que também brevemente) considerar as relações entre reportagem e viagem.
Por que falar em reportagem, e não em jornalismo, de modo geral? Porque
a reportagem é um gênero textual específico, dentro do campo sociodiscursivo
interpretativo do jornalismo. Lage, por exemplo, sugere que a reportagem é uma das
categorias de informação jornalística, a qual se caracteriza por ser “a exposição que
combina interesse do assunto com o maior número possível de dados, formando um
Narrativas de Viagem
todo compreensível e abrangente” (2001, p. 112). Assim, ela deve ser uma modalidade
de texto potencialmente narrativa9 e que se dirija preferencialmente a um público
bastante heterogêneo e de modo embasado; enquanto a notícia, como relato breve,
“pressupõe apresentação bem mais sintética e fragmentada” (LAGE, 2001, p.113).
Um aspecto central na concepção de reportagem é a relação entre tempo e
espaço: “tempo para verificação e espaço para ser apresentada” (PEREIRA JR., 2006,
9 Dizemos “potencialmente narrativa” pelo fato de existirem outras modalidades de reportagem, como a
dissertativa (ou expositiva), a narrativo-dissertativa, a dissertativo-narrativa e a descritiva (COIMBRA, 1993).
279 p. 127). Ou seja: a reportagem requer simultaneamente planejamento temporal, para
que as informações, de diversas naturezas, possam ser apuradas ou captadas (leitura
analítica de documentos, realização de entrevistas, checagem de informações etc.),
e planejamento espacial, para que o volume de material produzido tenha como ser
preparado e oferecido ao público em diversas páginas ou minutos.
Se o jornalista é tido como um ser que deve buscar os fatos na rua, nas áreas
do Jornalismo Nacional (cobertura do próprio país, excetuando-se a própria cidade)
e Internacional (cobertura de outros países) o profissional de imprensa deve ir além
da rua para obter a notícia. Isso se dá de dois modos: ou através do material de
agências de notícias (Associated Press, France Press, etc.) ou através do trabalho dos
correspondentes (de outros estados ou países).
Até um passado não tão distante, a cobertura internacional era um dos grandes
fetiches do jornalismo.
(1860-1904) sobre uma reportagem feita pelo escritor, dramaturgo e contista russo,
publicada num livro intitulado A Ilha de Sacalina (1893-1894):
se sobrevém algum dano a quem contemple outro país pelas lentes distorcidas
de um correspondente que manifeste suas mais francas reações, não é nada em
comparação com o sufocante tédio causado pelos repórteres declaradamente
neutros e precisos. Estes, sob a alegação de nem sequer terem alguma reação
ante o que é estrangeiro, solapam o desejo que sentimos de enriquecer nosso
conhecimento de mundo (BOTTOM, 2015, pp. 89-90).
se o que importasse fosse apenas a ação da história); e produtiva (tem uma estrutura
bastante específica, e que tende a interferir nos modos como percebemos a narrativa,
solicitando um maior “investimento cognitivo” – expressão nossa – na interpretação
da página e, posteriormente, da história). Posteriormente, Groensteen (1999, pp. 107-
19) sugere um olhar não tão rígido (talvez: mais sistêmico) para a classificação de
Peeters, na medida em que essas possibilidades podem se encontrar numa mesma
página. Assim, ele propõe outra tipologia de páginas: regular e discreta; regular e
ostensiva/retórica; irregular e discreta; irregular e ostensiva/retórica. Vejamos, agora,
como Joe Sacco faz uso do layout de página para propor formas de percepção de
281 dois espaços bastante distintos. Algumas das classificações enumeradas acima serão
retomadas através de algumas páginas do corpus aqui sugerido.
Em Palestina e Sarajevo, temos a figura de Joe Sacco como elemento
catalizador de seus relatos: ambas trazem algumas semelhanças (como a forma
visual cartunesca de se autorretratar e a estética herdada do estilo underground
norte-americano, figura 6) e diferenças (como a diagramação das páginas: irregular
na maior parte de Palestina, regular em quase toda Sarajevo, como veremos
adiante). Em ambos os casos, Sacco quer trazer à tona a realidade dessas regiões
para seus leitores.
9 números) e em 1993 também como livro. Quanto a Sarajevo, por sua vez, na bio
sobre o autor, que consta na edição brasileira, lemos que o quadrinista viajou para
aquela cidade em 1995, pouco antes do fim da Guerra da Bósnia, enquanto o livro foi
publicado originariamente em 2003.
Comecemos com Palestina: desde o início o leitor é situado literalmente dentro
da cidade de Cairo, com uma enxurrada de recordatórios irregulares, referentes aos
pensamentos do próprio Joe Sacco, e sinuosamente espalhados ao longo da página
planejada em formato splash page, ou seja, em uma única vinheta (figura 7). Tal proposta
282 visual, com recordatórios dispostos de modo irregular, sugere falta de equilíbrio por
parte do quadrinista e de espaço à sua volta, e será uma tônica ao longo da obra.
Em algumas poucas sequências (p. 11-5; 34-6; 83-92; e 102-13), porém, o espaço
gráfico torna-se regular, porque o ambiente se torna menos caótico; o capítulo
quatro, em particular, apresenta uma maior quantidade de páginas regulares. Nos
demais capítulos, predominam as páginas de layout irregular. Aqui, faz sentido
a proposta sistêmica feita por Groensteen: uma página pode ser, ao mesmo tempo,
irregular e ostensiva. Ou seja: a irregularidade da página tem uma finalidade estética.
Consequentemente, as páginas regulares também são ostensivas. Aqui, o binômio
regularidade/irregularidade deve ser pensado não apenas em termos de planejamento
gráfico, mas também em termos de função narrativa dentro da história.
Em suma: a partir da proposta gráfico-visual feita por Joe Sacco, podemos perce-
ber a Palestina como uma região onde a bolha espacial do indivíduo é constantemente
invadida: as distâncias entre indivíduos tendem a ser mínimas, tanto no espaço público
quanto no espaço privado (além dos espaços de tortura de prisioneiros). Recursos visu-
ais como o uso de perspectivas e escorços, e o uso de texturas que acentuam uma “pa-
leta” de tons de cinza, realçam o clima socioespacial de opressão da região. Com isso, a
Narrativas de Viagem
Considerações finais
BIBLIOGRAFIA
Narrativas de Viagem
Introduction
There is still a need for the making of a history about the relation between comics
and travels. The recent boom of said factual comics (journalistic, autobiographical,
historical etc.), most commonly known as nonfiction comics, suggests that such
a relationship is quite recent, especially when enumerating some titles that lead
author and reader to other territories: it’s the recent case (to be understood as the
transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century) of works such as Guy
Delisle’s (Shenzhen - a travelogue from China, Pyongyang – a journey in North Korea,
Burma Chronicles), Craig Thompson’s (Carnet de Voyage), Liniers’ (Conejo de Viaje
or Travelling Rabbit) and Marjanie Satrapi’s (Persepolis), to name a few.
One of the authors who has stood out in this universe is the Italian Joe Sacco,
a cartoonist who, since the beginning of the 90s, has been consolidating a career
that combines his abilities as a comic book artist and as a war reporter. Joe Sacco has
published many comics about his travels and impressions as a journalist in several
countries. For the purposes of this article, we will restrict ourselves to two titles:
Palestine – a nation occupied (hereafter Palestine, 2000) and The fixer – a story from
Sarajevo (hereafter, Sarajevo, 2005). Both works portray different moments of the
author in countries such as Egypt, Israel and Bosnia, whether walking through the
surroundings of those places or talking to his interviewees.
The purpose of our endeavor is to show how Joe Sacco portrays the impressions
and sensations that come from his contacts with these environments through the way
he designs his pages. Our interest is to show that, in addition to written words and
drawn pictures, it is possible to suggest to the reader some of the impressions of a comic
book artist through a given page layout; in Joe Sacco’s case, that the pages’ layouts
translate something of what he felt in the region of Palestine and the city of Sarajevo.
In order to do so, we present here initially some examples of comics and comic
book artists that emphasize in their stories both the act of traveling and the interaction
with other cultures; we then present a brief discussion of the concept of reporting;
and finally, we will briefly present the typological proposals of comic pages made
Travel Narratives
by Barbieri (1993), Peeters (1998) and Groensteen (1999), which will help us in the
subsequent analysis of some parts of the aforementioned works.
1 Journalist. Associate Professor I of the Journalism course at the Institute of Culture and Art of the Federal
University of Ceará (ICA-UFC) and the Graduate Program in Communication of the Federal University of Ceará
(PPGCOM-UFC). PhD in Communication from the Graduate Program in Communication (UFPe, 2011); Master in
Communication and Culture (UFRJ, 1997); specialist in Communication and Image Theories (UFC / UFRJ, 1994);
and graduated in Social Communication - Journalism (UFC, 1990). Coordinator of the UFC Comics Workshop
extension project and the Advanced Comics Workshop cultural project.
289 Comics and travels: a brief history
The bonding between comics and travels go way back. A brief reading of Campos
(2015) brings us some relevant examples. One of them can be found in the works of
William Holland (?-?)2, afterwards edited and illustrated by William Elmes (1797-1815),
named Adventures of Johnny Newcome (figure 1), published between 1808 and 1812 (first
by Holland and later by Elmes) which portrays the main character – a member of the
Royal Navy – in little misadventures through places such as Jamaica and the West Indies.
In light of our current views, curiously, the series, “although a parody of the racism of its
time (…), reveals, involuntarily, how those who opposed to slavery were also racists as
well” (CAMPOS, 2015:68). It’s also important to highlight that such blatantly Eurocentric
perceptions are presented in other comic works, as we’ll present later.
2015: 119). This boredom is made visually explicit by the way pages and illustrations
are planned by the author, which display images of a practically unmodified landscape
that is contemplated by the character through the train window (figure 2)3.
2 The Royal MuseumsGreewich website suggests that William Holland may actually have been James Sayers
(1748-1823). For further details, see: http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254939.html.
3 We venture to say that Impressions de Voyage de Monsieur Boniface is, visually speaking, a forerunner of the
notion of plongée and contre-plongée (plan and counter-plan) in cinema, by creating and interchanging two
opposite points of view.
290
During the XXth century, it would be impossible not to mention at least two
very distinct comic book artists for their ways of representing different cultures: Her-
gé from Belgium and Carl Barks from the United States. Both are worth mentioning
for the enrollment in a huge part of their productions of characters whose storylines
are directly linked to the fact of them being present in different countries and in con-
tact with distinct cultures.
Hergé (1907-1983), creator of the famous journalist character Tintin, wrote a
significant part of his stories having as a central element the travels of the main character
and his adjuvants through several countries, being them real (Congo, China, Egypt, India)
or fictional (San Théodoros, Nuevo Rico, Bordúria, Sildávia). According to Apostolidès
(2006), during his first adventures, published in the beginning of 1930, Tintin had a direct
relation with concrete history (Belgim, Europe, European colonies, communism); his
enterprises were aimed at the kids and teenagers of that time, adapting them to the youth
psychology of that epoch and giving them a didactical expression; in that manner, Tintin
would be a model to be proposed to the youth, a heroic and virtuous young man in a
corrupted world whose task he had to carry through (APOSTOLIDÈS, 2006, p.22).
Hergé’s Eurocentric perception is modified when he meets a young Chinese
Travel Narratives
man named Tchang Tchong-jen, a student at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels.
This contact provides Hergé with the opportunity to discover a country full of
traditions and far from the caricature that the cartoonist had until then: under
these circumstances, he creates The Blue Lotus under Tchang’s guidance (2006, p.
50). In this work, through the character of a young Chinese man who’s named after
Tchang, we have access to his thoughts (and, by extension, to the thoughts of all
291 the Chinese people of that historical time)4. In the following passage in which Tintin
and Tchang become mutually acquainted, both exchange impressions on each other’s
culture; Hergé, as it seems, expresses a kind of mea culpa through Tintin’s speech:
“Different people don’t know enough about each other. Lots of Europeans
still believe that all Chinese are cunning and cruel and wear pigtails, are
always inventing tortures, and eating rotten eggs and swallows’ nests… The
same stupid Europeans are quite convinced that all Chinese have tiny feet,
and even now little Chinese girls suffer agonies with bandages designed to
prevent their feet developing normally. They’re even convinced that Chinese
rivers are full of unwanted babies, thrown in when they are born…” (HERGÉ,
2012, p. 43).
The most singular aspect about this “intercultural exchange” is that both characters
cry when they bid their farewell to each other on the last page of the story (HERGÉ,
2012, p. 62); before that, Tintin had already gotten involved and wept for Mme. Wang’s
drama, who witnessed her son’s mental collapse after being affected by the use of a drug
that causes his break down (HERGÉ, 2012, p. 29). At this moment we are faced with a
“real” involvement by Tintin in regard to one of the characters from another territory
(as Hergé does with Tchang). However, as Apostolidès states, the agreement between
a fictitious character and the real world is fragile, and Hergé ends up abandoning this
link with reality (2006, p. 54): the “discovery of a cultural relativity” (APOSTOLIDÈS,
2006, p. 52) makes the author choose, after The Blue Lotus, to set most of Tintin’s stories
in fictional countries.
Another relevant aspect in Hergé’s works is the way he visualizes “exotic”
spaces: take as examples Cigars of the Pharaoh and The Blue Lotus (figures 3 and 4).
The first one has only two larger panels (that is, with a height greater than a comic
strip: in 31, I, and 61, I5). The first of them shows the front of the fort from which
Tintin is fleeing in Egypt; the second one focuses on a parade from the perspective
of a royal palace in India. In both cases, the scenario is merely “cinematographic”.
Completely different from those cases is what occurs in The Blue Lotus: here, the
biggest panels in question (as well as some smaller ones) function as visual anchors
for the revolutionary sayings written in Mandarin (6, II; 26, I; 45, III). That is to say:
if in the Cigars of the Pharaoh the exotic environment is there just to be seen and
contemplated, in The Blue Lotus the environment is supposed to be read, to be decoded
by the reader6: there is an empire of signs7 to be appreciated8.
4 Hergé situates the story in a moment of tension between Japan and China: the Second Sino-Japanese War. The search
for verisimilitude was such that several posters and banners depicted in the comic book are written in Mandarin, as
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suggestions of boycotts of Japanese products and anti-imperialist slogans, but only of decorative value to most Western
readers who don’t know the language (APOSTOLIDÈS, 2006, p. 50). Footnotes with the translation of these texts would
help for a better interpretation of that historical moment by the readers; after all, the frames that carry these messages
are generally mute, that is, without dialogue balloons or thoughts, such as to emphasize the slogans in Mandarin.
5 To be understood as: page 31, strip 1.
6 This doesn’t mean that we accept the supremacy of verbal communication in relation to the visual one; we are only
drawing attention to Hergé’s different communicative intentions in each of the two situations.
7 Yes, we know that Barthes’s “Empire of Signs” (2007) refers to Japan, not China, but we believe that this specific
term can also well illustrate our Western relationship with the Chinese signs that emerge from Hergé’s drawings.
8 Curiously, several textual passages in The Cigars of the Pharaoh (such as signs and posters) appear translated, in
Portuguese or English, and in the Latin alphabet. However, in The Blue Lotus this doesn’t occur.
292
Figure 3 – Excerpt taken from a page of The Cigars of the Pharaoh, by Hergé, 1934
Figure 4 – Excerpt taken from a page of The Blue Lotus, by Hergé, de 1946
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Barks’ work presents some similarities with Hergé’s. One of those is the resort
to the creation of fictitious countries, as is the case of the then Soviet Union that is
metaphorized in a country called Brutopia, which appears in some stories between
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the years 1957 and 1965, and is a space of spies and saboteurs (SANTOS, 2002, p. 184).
Another example is a Latin-American country filled with volcanoes called Volcano
Valley, created in 1947 and which shows its inhabitants living under an explicitly
bureaucratic system and being adepts to the siesta (SANTOS, 2002, p. 224).
Another similarity to Hergé (with the exception of The Blue Lotus) is related to
the stereotyped manner in which all cultures other than his own (in this case, non-
294 American cultures, including European ones) are portrayed in his stories (although
this is a common pattern of the comic book artists who work for Disney, not being
restricted only to Barks). Thus, non-American people are portrayed as “children,
primitive, barbaric or decadent, exotic all of them (because the one who doesn’t have
similar customs tends to be seen as a folk being - including the Europeans, who are
portrayed as rude, weird and outdated, inhabitants of castles and villages)” (SANTOS,
2002, pp. 223-4). But it should also be remembered that, paradoxical as it may seem,
Barks also criticized other targets, such as technology (SANTOS, 2002, pp. 187-8) and
American society itself, at times portrayed in a very caricatured way (BARBIERI,
2014, p. 53).
However, there are other modalities of study on travel representation in comics.
One of these is, for example, the field of time travel analysis, as proposed by Baroni
(2016), by studying the French science fiction comics published between the 1930s and
the early 1980s (like the ones made by Pierre Christin and by Jean-Claude Mézières).
Here, the author concludes, among other things, that comics “present themselves as
a device particularly adapted to graphically explore imaginary spaces” and that them
“often anticipated the visual universe of science fiction films, at least before the latter
reached their digital revolution” (2016: 39-40).
Another modality of analysis on the relationship between comics and
geographic locations is the study of chronotopes (in the Bakhtinian sense of the
term, which means, the interrelationship between time and space in a narrative) in
comics, analyzing them in fictional comics too. Lucas (2016), as an example, proposes
the existence of at least two types of chronotopes in this field: the coherent ones
(in which the narrative progresses in a linear, temporal and spatial way) and the
paradoxical ones (in which there are confusions and graphic experiments involving
time and space on a page or a set of pages, as it can observed in works such as Frank
King’s, Fred’s and Chris Ware’s).
To be able to talk about the work of comic book artist Joe Sacco as a representative
of comics journalism and associate it with the thematic of traveling, it’s still necessary
(though also briefly) to consider the relationship between report and travel.
Why talk about reporting and not journalism as a whole? Because reporting is a
specific textual genre within journalism’s interpretive sociodiscursive field. Lage, for
example, suggests that reporting is one of the categories of journalistic information,
which is characterized as “exposure that combines interest in the subject with as much
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data as possible, forming a comprehensible and extensive unit” (2001, p.112). Thus,
it must be a modality of potentially narrative text9 and that is directed preferentially
to a very heterogeneous public and properly grounded, while the news, as a brief
report, “foresees a much more synthetic and fragmented presentation” (LAGE, 2001,
p. 113).
9 We say “potentially narrative” by the fact that there are other forms of reporting, such as the dissertative (or
expository), the narrative-dissertative, the narrative-narrative, and the descriptive (COIMBRA, 1993).
295 A central aspect when defining reporting is the relation between time and space:
“time for verification and space to be presented” (PEREIRA JR., 2006, p. 127). That is
to say: the report requires simultaneously temporal planning, so that the information,
from different sources, can be investigated or captured (analytical reading of documents,
conducting interviews, checking information, etc.), and space, so that the resulted
material produced can be prepared and offered to the public in several pages or minutes.
If the journalist is considered someone who must seek the facts on the street, in
the field of National (coverage of the country, with the exception of the coverage from
their own city) and International (coverage of other countries) journalism the media
professional must go beyond the street to get the news. This happens in two ways:
either through the material of news agencies (Associated Press, France Press etc.) or
through the work of correspondents (from other states or countries).
Not too long ago, international coverage was one of the greatest obsessions of
journalism.
“An old dream of many journalists, it has changed a lot if it hasn’t been
completely extinguished. That coveted overseas job with a fixed salary and the
mission of translating politics and the international economy to his compatriots
has been systematically surpassed by the technological and qualitative
advancement of communications and by the geometric multiplication of the
amount of information provided by the Internet” (RODRIGUES, 2002, p. 87).
Besides all those changes, there is still the challenge of seducing an audience:
“the subject of international articles (...) have a limited capacity to sensitize the
reader. Hence the importance of the textual information and the approach, to draw
the reader’s attention to facts, people, and places that are far removed from their
reality” (RODRIGUES, 2002, p. 88).
Bottom (2015) establishes an interesting parallel between travel literature and
international news. In the first case, the figure of a narrator assists the reader to enter
other countries, as there is an exchange of identification between one another regarding
assumptions, fears, homesickness, weaknesses and other forms of demonstration of
what the journalist feels himself deep down. As for the current international news,
Bottom recalls, “any kind of personal narrator would be considered an intrusion into
the objectivity of a journalistic account. Thus, the international news avoids speaking
with a particular voice or personality” (2015, p. 89). One of the consequences of this
phenomenon is the already mentioned and almost inevitable distance between the
reader and the cold report of an unknown location.
It is in the report, with the existence of time and space, that the possibility of
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an “intrusion” from the journalist becomes possible. A good example on this can
be found in the introduction made by Piero Brunello, Italian History professor, to a
book written by Anton Tchékhov (1860-1904) about a reportage made by the Russian
writer and playwright:
“Those who read Tchékhov’s report on Sacalina have the impression of being
guided in hell by an ordinary individual and not by an omniscient being: by
296 a naive man who accepts the invitations for lunch, goes fishing, listens to
conversations along the way, is ready to believe in others, observes honestly
and without prejudice, checks the news and tells what he sees. There are no
sensational cases or picturesque figures. The characters he meets don’t know
how to speak, are incapable of defending themselves, almost always can’t
read or write” (BRUNELLO in TCHÉKHOV, 2007, p. 10).
“if there is any harm to anyone who contemplates another country through
the distorted lens of a correspondent who manifests his sincerest reactions,
it is nothing compared to the suffocating boredom caused by reporters who
are blatantly neutral and accurate. Those, under the claim of not even having
some reaction to what is foreign, undermine the desire we feel to enrich our
world knowledge” (BOTTOM, 2015, pp. 89-90).
Bottom also points out that, in order to overcome the so-called “relevant events”,
the news ends up forgetting that our involvement with a given country depends on
a contact with “visual or sensorial elements that alone can arouse a deeper interest
for a society or a place” (BOTTOM, 2015, p. 90). One of the things he defends, among
others, is the approximation of journalism with the details, which makes use of some
lessons of poets, writers of travel reports and novelists, so that these texts cause us
interest in the events (2015, p. 97). Part of this is provided by some comic book artists,
in that they tend to have both time verification (work tends to be independent, rarely
linked to any journalistic vehicle) and publication space (work tends to be published
as a book).
An important aspect in comics is the composition of the page, that is, its
aesthetic planning. Some authors propose different forms of classification. Barbieri
(1993: 151-70), for example, restricts his proposal to two types of page: the static,
the most common one, with gutters and borders, and the dynamic, in which there
is no gutter between the frames, nor limits of the borders. In this case, the space
becomes compressed, without boundaries. Peeters (1998, pp. 49-78), in turn, proposes
four page possibilities: regular (panels of similar or multiple measures that make the
page neutral, without influence on the story); decorative (or aesthetic, it is irregular:
its gutters have their own layout and draw attention to themselves); rhetoric (the
most common one, stretches or compresses the pictures proportionally to the action
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shown in the panel’s drawing, as if what mattered was only the action of the story);
and productive (it has a very specific structure, and that tends to interfere in the ways
in which we perceive the narrative, requesting a greater “cognitive investment” - our
expression - in the interpretation of the page and later of the story). Subsequently,
Groensteen (1999, pp. 107-19) suggests a not so rigid (perhaps more systemic) look
at Peeters’ classification, as these possibilities can be found on the same page.
Thus, he proposes another typology for the pages: regular and discreet; regular and
297 ostentatious / rhetorical; irregular and discreet; irregular and ostentatious / rhetorical.
Let us see, now, how Joe Sacco makes use of the page layout to propose forms of
perception of two quite distinct spaces. Some of the classifications listed above will
be retaken through some pages of the corpus suggested here.
In Palestine and Sarajevo, we have the figure of Joe Sacco as a catalyst for
his stories: both have some similarities (such as the self-portraying art form and the
aesthetics inherited from the American underground style, figure 6) and differences
(such as the pages’ layout: irregular in most of Palestine, regular in almost all Sarajevo,
as we’ll observe below). In both cases, Sacco wants to bring out the reality of these
regions to his readers.
Let us begin with Palestine: from the beginning the reader is situated literally
within the city of Cairo, with a flood of irregular reminders, referring to Joe Sacco’s
own thoughts, and sinuously scattered throughout the page designed in a splash page
format, that is, a single drawn inside the frame (figure 7). Such a visual proposal, with
irregularly arranged reminders, suggests a lack of balance on the part of the author
and the space around him, and will act as a constant element throughout the work.
298
In a few sequences (pp. 11-5, 34-6, 83-92, and 102-13), however, graphic space
becomes regular because the environment becomes less chaotic; chapter four, in
particular, presents a greater amount of regular pages. In other chapters, irregular
layout pages predominate. Here, the systemic proposal made by Groensteen makes
sense: a page can be both irregular and ostentatious at the same time. That is: the
irregularity of the page has an aesthetic purpose. Consequently, regular pages are
also ostentatious. Here, the binomial regularity / irregularity must be thought not
only in terms of graphic planning, but also in terms of narrative function within
the story.
In short: from the graphic-visual proposal made by Joe Sacco, we can perceive
Palestine as a region where the individual’s private space is constantly invaded: the
distances between individuals tend to be minimal, both in the public space and in
the private space (besides the spaces of torture of prisoners). Visual resources such
as the use of perspectives and foreshortening, as well as the use of textures that
accentuate a palette of grayscale, enhance the region’s socio-spatial atmosphere of
oppression. Thus, the spatio-temporal relationship that Sacco portrays in Palestine
Travel Narratives
aims for the construction of a place where time seems to be accelerated (although
indeterminate; Sacco purposely leaves its temporal identification quite vague; this
is clear in comparison with Sarajevo, as we shall see later) and space always seems
small, squeezed, overwhelmed.
There are other differences that become clear when it comes to Sarajevo’s
analysis: as we have said, the more regular arrangement of panels makes our
perception of geographical space less chaotic, but not less disturbing. If formerly
300 the always crowded spaces were responsible for the claustrophobic atmosphere,
here we have environments that seem to come out of thriller or horror movies:
empty streets, abandoned buildings, dark environments (as seem, for example, in
the pages 5-6 and 14-16).
A radical example of this can be found in the splash page formed by pages
12 and 13 (Figure 9), which follow the turn of page 11 and Sacco’s last reminder in
the sentence: “and someone indicated something in a terribly quiet street ...” (italics
added). In these two pages we have the protagonist occupying a small spot in the
left corner of the graphic space, while deserted streets, empty buildings and charged
clouds fill the rest of the environment.
Figure 9 – Splash page from The Fixer: a Story from Sarajevo, 2005.
During the work, other moments in which the dark gives the visual emphasis
can be identified, merging with the excess of hatches that guarantee (also) a darker
undertone to the narrative. Those elements are most commonly found in the chapters
set in the year 2001 after the Bosnian conflict: in them, actions take place in the
open air, apparently conveying a sense of calm, but also routine - a routine which,
Travel Narratives
as it seems (and as Joe Sacco makes clear throughout the narrative) would no longer
interest the international press, since nothing of greater relevance, journalistically
speaking, seems to occur in Sarajevo.
301
Figure 10 – Excerpt of a page from The Fixer: a Story from Sarajevo, 2005.
Figure 11 – Page taken from The Fixer: a Story from Sarajevo, 2005.
302 On the other hand, Sacco’s enunciative strategy here remains the same, that
is, giving voice to the inhabitants of the region - although now the emphasis is on
the speech of former soldier Neven: it is through his voice that we have contact with
what may have happened in the region. As any journalist would potentially do in a
breathtaking reportage.
Concluding remarks
As we have seen, Palestine is the story of a space crowded with people fighting
over a territory whose passage of time seems unattainable; Sarajevo is the story of a
space emptied by war and with very precise dates. Both leave marks on Sacco, but his
sensory experiences, in regard to space and time, are portrayed in very different ways.
That is precisely what (also) makes Joe Sacco’s work interesting: he’s not
restricted to telling his story only by reconstituting dialogues of his sources or the
scenarios where he went. He aims to intensify these sensations through the layout. In
that way, pages that may seem, at first, only regular or irregular, mere receptacles of
verbal (dialogues, thoughts) and visual (drawings) texts, have also another purpose: to
visually translate Joe Sacco’s sensations and the sensations of his interviewees as well.
On the one hand, we have the anguish arising from the lack of contemplative spaces;
on the other hand, the feeling of emptiness due to the excess of spaces partially or
totally occupied.
In doing so, as a whole, Joe Sacco uses the best of the three languages that support
comics: the verbal text (for access to the thoughts, anxieties, sufferings and hopes of both
him and his interviewees), the visual text (the drawings that aim to portray the spaces
by which he wanders continuously) and the graphic text that, at the same time, helps to
create a shared meaning between verb and image, and also supports these texts.
Finally, it’s possible to find in Joe Sacco’s work much of the characteristics
suggested for a report that seeks the involvement of the reader: description of characters
and environments, approximation of their lives with ours, access both to the thoughts
and impressions of the narrator-journalist as well as to their fears and joys, all of this
expressed by the way the cartoonist self-portraits.
REFERENCES
2014.
BARTHES, Roland. O império dos signos. São Paulo: WMF Martins Fontes, 2007.
BARONI, Raphaël. “A Exploração Temporal como Modalidade da Viagem Imaginária
nos Quadrinhos da Tradição Franco-Belga (1930-1980)”. In: Ciberlegenda, 2016, v. 1,
n. 34, pp. 20-41.
303 BOTTOM, Alain de. Notícias: manual do usuário. Rio de Janeiro: Intrínseca, 2015.
CAMPOS, Rogério de. Imageria: o nascimento das histórias em quadrinhos. São Paulo:
Veneta, 2015.
COIMBRA, Oswaldo. O texto da reportagem impressa. São Paulo: Ática, 1993.
GROENSTEEN, Thierry. Système de la bande dessinée. Paris: PUF, 1999.
LAGE, Nilson. A reportagem: teoria e técnica de entrevista e pesquisa jornalística.
Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2001.
LUCAS, Ricardo Jorge de Lucena. “O Espaço nos Quadrinhos: entre as formas diegética
e gráfica”. In: Ciberlegenda, 2016, v. 1, n. 34, pp. 58-75.
PEETERS, Benoît. Lire la bande dessinée. Paris: Casterman, 1998.
PEREIRA JR., Luiz Costa. A apuração da notícia: métodos de investigação na
imprensa. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2006.
RODRIGUES, Ernesto. “Em Cada Editoria um Desafio Diferente”. In: CALDAS, Álvaro
(org.). Deu no jornal: o jornalismo impresso na era da Internet. Rio de Janeiro/São
Paulo: PUC-Rio/Loyola, 2002, pp. 79-93.
SACCO, Joe. Palestina: uma nação ocupada. São Paulo: Conrad Editora do Brasil, 2000.
SACCO, Joe. Uma história de Sarajevo. São Paulo: Conrad Editora do Brasil, 2005.
SANTOS, Roberto Elísio dos. Para reler os quadrinhos Disney: linguagem, evolução
e análise de HQs. São Paulo: Paulinas, 2002.
TCHÉKHOV, Anton. Um bom par de sapatos e um caderno de anotações: como
fazer uma reportagem. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2007.
Travel Narratives
304 O “EU-VIAJANTE” A SERVIÇO
DAS MARCAS: O CASO DA KLM
e impessoais que por tanto tempo prevaleceram nos guias de viagem e relatos
jornalísticos. O narrador externo, que testemunhava ou relatava a experiência dos
outros, quase desapareceu. Com plataformas próprias de comunicação, estratégias
para aumentar o público participativo e narrativas específicas para falar com os
1 Graduado em Jornalismo pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica (SP) e mestre em Comunicação pela Faculdade
Cásper Líbero (SP), atua como jornalista desde 1991. Trabalhou para publicações como Veja, O Estado de S. Paulo
e National Geographic, tendo se especializado em jornalismo de viagem – tema do curso livre que ministra desde
2016. Escreveu para dezenas de títulos de revistas, nove livros e seis guias de viagem. Produz também conteúdo
para marcas.
305 “fãs” de forma também instantânea, muitos narradores passaram a se expor e a se
atrelar a marcas interessadas no seu poder de seduzir outros viajantes – diga-se,
compradores.
Essa mudança de comportamento do viajante contador de histórias da estrada
– jornalista ou não – acabou por ser incorporada pela sociedade capitalista. A
publicidade, tão impactada quanto o jornalismo e o turismo em tempos de fim da
centralidade da mídia nos processos comunicacionais e de falência dos modelos
de negócio até então prevalecentes nesses três segmentos de mercado, também
centrou fogo no poder do indivíduo que viaja, se mostra e narra. Alçados a postos
de estrelas, influenciadores ou celebridades, esses novos “eus-viajantes” passaram
a lotar de relatos afetivos em primeira pessoa – e de retratos – não apenas os
veículos jornalísticos e as redes sociais digitais como também as plataformas das
marcas do turismo.
2 http://www.klm.com
3 https://blog.klm.com/
4 https://www.iflymagazine.com/es
5 https://www.youtube.com/klm
6 https://podcast.klm.com/en/
306 Quadro 1: Algumas das plataformas da KLM
73 funcionários blogueiros
Wilbert van
Naufrágio Comissário Indonésia Aventura
Haneghem
Cavalos Noor Gierveld Acomp. Cavalos - Cavalos
Vinho e museu Diederik Swart Comissário Holanda Vinhos
Live like a local Vania de Leeuw Comissária Ilhas Maurício Cultura local
Os heróis do podcast
Orgulho
PLATAF. Inovação Pioneirismo Awareness Servicing Reputação
holandês
Blog 3 1 6 4 5 3
Vídeos 6 6 6 3 6 6
Podcasts 5 3 6 6 6 3
REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
Mackenzie, 2011.
MEDINA, Cremilda. A arte de tecer o presente. São Paulo: Summus, 1973.
MOTTA, Luiz G. Análise Crítica da Narrativa. Brasília: Editora Universidade de
Brasília, 2013.
RECUERO, Raquel. Redes sociais na internet. Porto Alegre: Sulina (Coleção
Cibercultura), 2009.
319 SHANNON, Claude E. A Mathematical Theory of Communication. The Bell
System Journal, Vol. 27, 1948.
VOGLER, Christopher. A jornada do escritor: estruturas míticas para escritores.
Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2006.
Narrativas de Viagem
320 THE “I-TRAVELER” IN THE SERVICE
OF BRANDS: THE CASE OF KLM
long prevailed in travel guides and journalistic articles. The outside narrator who
witnessed or related the experience of others has all but disappeared. With their own
platforms for communication, strategies for expanding the participating public and
1 Holding a B.A. in journalism from Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo and a master’s degree in com-
munications from Faculdade Cásper Líbero, Daniel Nunes Gonçalves has been a professional journalist since 1991.
He has worked for such publications as Veja, O Estado de São Paulo and National Geographic, having specialized
in travel reporting – the theme of the course he has been administering since 2016. He has contributed to dozens
of magazines, 9 books and 6 travel guides. He also produces content for brands.
321 specific narratives to talk with “fans” in a manner that is also instantaneous, many
narrators have gone on to expose and attach themselves to brands interested in their
power to speak to other travelers – meaning, buyers.
This change in behavior on the part of those storytellers of road narratives
-- whether they’re journalists are not – ended up being incorporated into capitalist
society. Advertising, just as impacted as journalism and tourism in this era that’s
witnessed the end of centralized media in communications and the bankruptcy of
business models that previously dominated these three segments of the market,
has also honed in on the power of the individual who travels, appears and narrates.
Elevated to stars, influencers or celebrities, these new “I-travelers” are now loading
not only journalistic vehicles and online social networks, but also the platforms of
tourism brands, with their emotional, first-person reports and portraits.
Telling true stories to inspire others to seek similar experiences: the priority
which companies give to communication based on personal reports to promote
products and services has become more common after the popularization of the
internet in Brazil and around the world (GOTTSCHALL, 2013) and the increased
exposure of the subject on the social networks online. Real human experiences have
grown prominent to the detriment of advertisements with fictional characters – like
the Maytag repairman and Mikey, the Life Cereal boy, just to mention two examples
from USA – or ostensive sales ads. According to Kotler (2010), communication
contextualized by stories tends to be more successful because people don’t buy
products or services, but instead the stories themselves.
In the context of tourism-related companies, one that has placed value on the
importance of subjective traveler narratives is KLM, the focus of this study. The
Dutch airline, which transported 34.2 million passengers in the year 2018, has won
a number of awards for communications since its founding in 1919. In its multi-
platform strategy (table 1), the corporation – which has its own website2, a blog3,
online social networks, a print magazine (Holland Herald), an electronic magazine
(iFly)4, a video channel5 and a podcast channel6, among other media outlets –
promotes subjective travel narratives to humanize the brand and elicit passengers’
identification with its 166 destinations.
Travel Narratives
2 http://www.klm.com
3 https://www.iflymagazine.com/es
4 https://www.youtube.com/klm
5 https://www.youtube.com/klm
6 https://podcast.klm.com/en/
322 Table 1: Some of KLM’s platforms
It’s as if they had shortened the distance between a journalistic text and quality
storytelling produced by a brand’s marketing department.
“Never before have the news and marketing been so close to one another, so
interactive,” says journalist and professor Carlos Chaparro in the text Jornalismo
e marketing de mãos dadas from his blog O Xis da Questão (2016). “Newsworthy
occurrences are more and more carefully planned and controlled by the wisdom
323 and strategic powers of marketing, transforming the facts to be reported into
tactical actions,” he adds.
The main reason contemporary advertising has elevated storytelling to a level
of priority in campaigns is the need to speak to potential buyers in a different way.
With the proliferation of interactive media channels that allow customers to choose
what kind of communication they will consume, it became easy for the individual to
block ostensive advertising. Rather than investing their time in watching a massive
“buy this!” type of ad – something easily eliminated with an ad-block tool –, users
now prefer to view catchy stories, such as narratives of others embarking on intense
travel experiences.
By incorporating the use of narratives about people into its branding, KLM
constructs its own brand narrative, one which gives the company a personality--
also known as a “persona.” For Herkovitz and Crystal (2010), so-called storytelling
is essential brand construction, especially storytelling based on a brand’s persona:
“This brand persona creates a long-lasting emotional bond with the audience because
it is instantly recognizable and memorable” (2010, p. 21).
But what are these attributes that translate the KLM persona? According to their
website, KLM strives to be the most innovative airline in Europe. The presentation
of KLM’s award-winning magazine online magazine iFly makes it clear: “iFly KLM
Magazine is all about inspirational travel stories. We go all over the world to find
out where the new hotspots are, where you can relax on the most stunning beaches
and where to find the hidden gems in big cities. Because traveling is what we love
and we know you do too!”
In others words, instead of propagating its attributes talking about the
aircrafts it operates and the destinations it services, the airline invests in telling
stories through narrator-characters. And we aren’t referring here to the simple use
of real pilots and flight attendants as poster boys and girls, a common practice
in airline communications. KLM’s differential lies in the fact that they highlight
these agents’ characteristics as travelers-- much more than as service providers. As
such, KLM’s potential customers, themselves travelers, thus find in this subjective
narrative someone with affinities, an “equal.”
Studying contemporary narratives, Medina (1973) underlines the value that
message-receivers place on degree of identification with life stories. “Readers clearly
manifest a preference for humanized, lived information, exemplified in scenes of
daily life and personified by heroes of contemporary adventure” (1973, p. 53).
A series of interviews with four KLM executives made it possible to identify
some characteristics that are part of the brand’s so-called DNA: innovation, a
Travel Narratives
73 blogger-employees
One example of how the Dutch airline utilizes multiple travel narratives to
construct its brand narrative is the KLM blog, which, as of January of 2019, aligned no
less than 84 traveler profiles. There are dispatches from a graffiti-loving flight attendant
who goes on a street art tour in Colombia, an avid distance runner describing what it
was like to take part in a street race among 50,000 others in Amsterdam (mentioning
significantly that 519 of them were KLM employees) and a foodie journalist narrating
a video about the cooking class she took in Holland. Due to the peculiar fact of its
vastness and heterogeneity, the way it speaks to various publics that fly with the
company, the blog works with narrators who write about themes connected to their
professions, their personal tastes and travel experiences. If the reader will kindly
forgive the travel writing cliche: it has a little of everything for all tastes.
Of the six narratives observed up close (table 2), five are told by employees.
Flight attendant Valerie Musson, of the blog DareSheGoes, narrates her experiences in
the capital of Argentina with the dance she loves: the tango. One of her coworkers,
Vania de Leeuw, talks about her experiences interacting with natives – the theme of
her blog – at a then-new KLM destination, Mauritius. Two other flight attendants
made use of their travel for their jobs to talk about personal hobbies: Diederik Swart
enjoys wine at a museum in Amsterdam, while Wilbert van Haneghem, a passionate
adventurer, writes about surviving a shipwreck in Indonesia. Noor Gierveld is
responsible for transporting horses on airplanes and she professes her love for the
quadrupeds. The only non-employee in this group, “professional blogger” Annette de
Graaf shares stories from her family vacation around the world.
Living like a local Vania de Leew Flight attendant Mauritius Local culture
Created in January, 2009, the KLM blog is a peculiar platform: the process of
producing its narratives depends on the work of a sort of informal, deterritorialized
325 editorial process that makes use of the manpower of its own personnel, who make
up 86% of the total narrators (the others are outside collaborators and personalities
sponsored by the brand). “The staff has the freedom to propose posts they would
prefer to write about, and at times the boss asks if someone person would like to
write about a certain subject,” says interviewee number 3, director of social media in
Amsterdam. “The work is done during regular work hours, but it must not get in the
way of the individual’s other responsibilities.”
By blending anonymous writers with people of certain authority and reputation,
KLM makes protagonists out of unknown authors to a certain extent, in that they are
put on equal footing as famous people – at least in terms of the degree of prominence
by each is featured in the layout – as if they were specialists on the themes about
which they write. Regardless of their personal history, all the bloggers make their
info available, expose their images, mediate interactions with readers and collaborate
on the construction of collaborative, heterogenous content in the service of a brand
that values human differences. “KLM attends to the individual needs of passengers;
we know everybody is different,” reads KLM Corporate page.
With posts on distinct themes produced by a staff with diverse profiles, KLM
has succeeded, through this strategy, in producing plentiful content that serves its
brand. Its editorial staff, comprised of young people, combines communications (that
inspires and informs) with the business of selling airplane tickets – as made evident
by the links at the end of some posts. In this way, the potential consumer has the
option of quoting the price of airfare on their intended travel dates, following links to
the airline’s webpage where they can purchase tickets. In other words: an inspiring
blogpost generates the opportunity for readers to be converted to customers.
Broadly speaking, the blog places priority on two blocks: Behind the Scenes
and Destinations. The former refers to the staff, the airline’s history, campaigns and
events, while the latter seeks to inspire with “cool pictures, travel tips and legends of
magical destinations” where the airline flies. Under the title introducing each subject
the estimated amount of time internet users will need to actually read it (usually 2-3
minutes for short posts) is listed. The page entitled Our Writers highlights portraits
of blog authors, with their names and quantities of blog posts. As you run the cursor
over each portrait you’ll see a first person mini-profile.
From KLM’s point of view, there are many advantages in building the airline’s
blog internally. The main one relates to control of the information provided by
employees, easily monitored in the digital environment and the world of cyberculture.
The very notion of cyberculture, a term made popular when civil society started using
the internet on a large scale, is related to the idea of control expressed through the
Travel Narratives
prefix “cyber”– from the Ancient Greek root kubernḗtēs which means ‘governor’ or
‘navigator’ (FELINTO, 2011, p. 3).
According to interviewee number 3, KLM has editors who are able to direct,
guide and correct the tone of any narrative presented there to ensure it conforms to
the brand’s so-called “DNA.” The aforementioned blog is actually a marketing and
public relations tool. There is no risk of receiving criticism, which would not be the
case if the authors were external, independent bloggers. Another factor is related
326 to the economy of costs. There is no remuneration involved in the production of
the blog, one of the airline’s main platforms in its strategy to seduce the 28 million
followers of KLM on digital media (in 2019).
So what could be the motivating factor for these 73 employee-bloggers to
voluntarily share their writings and personal images on the brand’s platform free
of charge? Perhaps the answer is the possibility of having their personal stories
shared by the company, in narratives that, in turn, place the formerly anonymous
employee in the role of hero. The participation of its employees further raise the
“social capital” of this small celebrity, as described by Recuero (2009). According to
her, “social capital is constructed and negotiated between the actors in the network
and enables the strengthening of bonds and solidification of groups: it is people gain
by being associated with a network” (2009, p. 55). This, therefore, seems to justify the
willingness of these people to associate their image with a brand with a presumedly
good reputation, like KLM.
The airline also gains social capital by connecting different actors, some of
whom are specialists in their areas. By transforming 73 of their 32,000 employees into
bloggers and no longer sharing their virtual home with outside celebrities (like party
promoter Duncan Stutterheim and lifestyle blogger Anne de Buck of Your Little Black
Book, the main cultural calendar blog in Amsterdam), KLM is able to further polish its
hip image for the public.
Additionally, every time a blogger brings new followers to the KLM platforms,
the airline also adds the user info of new potential buyers to its databank. We live in
times in which information is valuable and, with this data from the public and the
professional and personal experiences of its employees, the company enhances its
repertoire of content that is useful for its communications sector. In this way, the
wisdom and passions of the internal staff help to build a brand narrative that allows
it to sell more plane tickets.
Podcast heroes
Audible narratives are also included in the range of alternatives which KLM
utilizes to tell true travel stories to address its public of potential travelers. Launched
in March of 2018, the airline’s podcast channel, christened The Journey, was first
introduced on KLM media as an initiative of the first airline to ever use a podcast to
display the transformative power of travel. “Close your eyes and go on a journey,”
reads the website’s headline, stimulating the neutralization of vision.
Audio recordings of the six travel experiences (table 3) are narrative documents
Travel Narratives
created in the style of radio plays that use voices, soundtracks and sound effects to
enable listeners to experience a blind immersion. The story is conducted by a traveler
subject and the narrative is constructed according to the formula of the hero’s journey,
studied by Campbell (1949). Each features a narrator who is not the traveler-protagonist
(and who threads the script along with testimony from supporting characters).
Podcast content allows for a form of communications with more sensorial
stimuli than that contemplated solely by vision (often to the detriment of the other
327 senses). In addition, the podcasting system, a technological concept from the early
2000s, allows users to transcend time and space. Receivers of information can access
the audible narratives in the setting and moment of their choosing – whether in their
seat on a plane with their eyes closed or while commuting from home to work or
school with their eyes open, to give just two examples.
In the first episode of the series The Journey, titled Living with Bears, sounds
of rivers running, doors flapping, wind whistling and birds singing attempt to make
listeners feel like they’re there in Alaska alongside traveler Linda Nijlunsing. Through
the use of sound effects, podcasts stimulate other senses, like touch, smell and taste,
depicting Linda’s daily routine in a house in the mountains where she’s trying to
change her life. The sounds of the kitchen and dialogues with her companion Big Jim
place the listener in the role of voyeur.
Episodes of The Journey are available to the general public-- not just to KLM
customers-- via the main podcast platforms, just as passengers have access to the
airline’s inflight entertainment system while traveling. The public interested in
learning more about the travel stories they hear have the option of visiting the
platform website: there, they can read a summary of the story or the entire transcript,
view photos of the real-life characters and locations, watch a trailer in the form of
a one-minute video which explains the project and share their favorite episode with
friends on social media.
In other words, at least in terms of the travel stories for which the podcast is
the central platform, the airline is producing narratives of transmedia, as described
by Jenkins (2006). According to the author, “transmedia stories unfold across multiple
media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to
Travel Narratives
the whole.” By analyzing this process in the context of The Journey, it’s apparent that
anyone who likes what they heard on the podcast can complement their knowledge
by accessing the site to see how the story is revealed in other formats, such as real
photos and a summary of the written text.
With significant endeavors in audiovisual productions, print and digital
magazines, websites and blogs, KLM has constructed its brand based on images.
Though accompanied by text, images of the faces of pilots, attendants and passengers,
328 scenes of airplanes and travel destinations were central to marketing for a century. The
novelty in investing in the audio media matches the contemporaneity that Kamper
(1997) called “a new age for listening” (1997, p. 131) in a society characterized by an
overload of visual information.
Those who allow themselves to be immersed in the audible narratives of The
Journey will notice that the stories follow the playbook the so-called Hero’s Journey.
In his classic book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces (1949), Joseph Campbell coined
this expression to define the formula behind plots based on the archetypes of heroes
on personal journeys. These stories have always been reproduced in myths-- and
this is the format in which KLM invests in its podcasts. In each episode, the subject
embarks from one point to another and experiences an inner transformation. The
idea contained in the gesture is that travel is good, it transforms people and KLM
supposedly makes this possible.
The trajectory of quest, conflict, apparent defeat, conquest and the transformation
of the hero, common in Campbell’s stories, is clear in episode 3. New York executive
Dina Kaplan earned a lot of money by founding a start-up, but then suffered from so
much stress that she had to abandon the stability and comfort of her old life and search
for something new in the distant lands of Indonesia. The same impetus for change
occurred to executive Todd Leeloy, who, in episode 4, falls in love with an unnamed
Argentine woman on a business trip to Buenos Aires, and does everything he can
to meet her. The victory of Samba Schutte, the descendent of Africans who goes to
live with a tribe in Kenya in episode 2 is resounding: he discovers the purpose of his
existence in the land of his ancestors and goes on to become a successful comedian
in Hollywood.
This structure of the monomyth – another name used by Campbell to refer to
the hero’s journey-- would go on to become as prevalent in the movie industry, like,
for instance, in George Lucas’s sci-fi classic Star Wars, as it is in other literary genres.
This is the case of the Odyssey, written by Homer in the 8th century B.C., which
follows the king Odysseus, a traveling hero on his journey home to Ithaca. According
to Vogler (1998), “Campbell had broken the secret code of story.” As if letting slip
spoilers of what goes on in our travels and in our lives, Campbell helps us to identify
in a simple post on a travel blog or podcast who the hero-character is, who acts as his
or her mentor and what the challenge is – in general, to explore a place, a culture, an
unprecedented experience – until the moment in which the traveler is transformed.
Another noteworthy component of the KLM podcasts is the presence of a
narrator to help tell the stories of the protagonist heroes. Unlike the blogs, in which
most of the plots are unveiled by the subject as he or she experiences them – that is,
Travel Narratives
the protagonist is also the narrator –, the podcasts feature a supporting narrator, as
is often the case in fables and the theater. Here, the narrator is Jonathan Groubert,
a Dutch professor of journalism, storytelling and podcasting. Groubert rose to
international fame by helping to coin the term “talkumentary,” which consists of
combining interviews with journalistic narratives in search of true, impactful stories.
He is the one who conducts the interviews and statements made by travelers sharing
their personal experiences to inspire KLM passengers.
329 It’s curious to note that the brand KLM hardly ever comes up in the podcasts.
In each audio file, it’s mentioned once, around the second or third minute, after
the lead-in at the beginning of the text. From a structural point of view, the stories
begin at the climax, which denotes a good use of narrative technique. After, there is
a presentation of the characters and where they are, and only then does the narrator
introduce himself and mention the brand: “Hi. I’m Jonathan Groubert and this is
The Journey, the original KLM podcast, where we meet extraordinary people whose
lives were transformed by travel.” From there, the sequence of the plot follows the
traveler’s endeavors in chronological order.
From a market point of view, the podcast series The Journey is yet another
strategy to communicate KLM’s attributes by using storytelling with journalistic
tools to attract the attention of the public in an organic manner. “Podcasting adds
a unique aspect to our existing channels of communication. It’s a great way to
strengthen our brand, being that it keeps listeners interested in the story for 30 to 40
minutes,” explains the responsible for the marketing actions. In 5 of the 6 narratives,
the travelers display a noticeable attitude toward some ingredient of innovation, one
of the attributes of the KLM brand.
The relationship between travelers and their affections also stands out in the
audiovisual narratives that KLM shows on its YouTube channel, which featured over
675 videos in 2019. Considering the substantial volume of material to be analyzed, the
decision was made to observe, out of the 23 main series of videos, the six real, first-
person narratives that display attributes of the brand’s so-called DNA, according to
the researcher’s preliminary analysis.
The spelling of the word “royal” is due to the fact that the KLM channel earned
worldwide fame not for the narratives of traveling subjects, but instead for being the
official vehicle where the airline’s advertising campaigns are launched, almost always
conceived from a media perspective in order to go viral on the social networks. This is
the case of the video KLM Lost & Found Service in which a beagle puppy, with a KLM
badge attached to its collar, runs through Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, until it
finds the owner of a pink cell phone supposedly lost on an airplane. An internet hit in
2014, the video tallied 24.2 million views as of 2019 and has become the most watched
video since the channel was created in 2009.
Elevated to the level of world-class audiovisual storytelling in service of a brand,
the narrative of the heroic puppy contributed to the construction of KLM’s image as
Travel Narratives
a reference in the travel sector, as a creator of intelligent actions using digital media.
On the YouTube channel alone, where the brand was followed by 154,000 subscribers
as of January, 2019, the video racked up 3,000 comments. Many of them, however,
protested the language it employed, which mixed journalism and advertising to
announce the airline’s lost and found service. The service itself did exist, but the use
of sniffer dogs did not. The reaction to this gave way to memes which circulated soon
after its launch: one of them had a photo of the dog beneath the word “fake.”
330 With the fame it achieved, the puppy video might have given the impression
that all KLM’s videos are fictional and derivative of media. The analysis conducted
for this study showed otherwise. Only five of the series analyzed were catalogued
in the category of fake or hybrid narrative. All the others are based on reality with
journalistic narratives – though in the service of promoting the brand. The 66 videos
in the series of advertising campaigns are those with the highest visibility – probably
driven by media funds from the online social networks.
Baudrillard, in this sense, warned that one shouldn’t be fooled by the function
of advertising: “For this is not a logic of propositions and proofs, but a logic of fables
and of the willingness to go along with them” (1996, p. 166). Increasingly image-based,
the message in advertising speaks of the product while at the same time talking of
the company – and KLM’s narratives go overboard in attempts to make travelers feel
warmed by the affections of the airline that shows itself to be so outgoing – among
other attributes of the brand’s “spirit.”
Journalistic language employed to serve as marketing is displayed in the series
handpicked for this study to find travel narratives centered on the story of the travel
narrator, as shown in table 4. Three of them are highlighted on the main page of
the airline’s YouTube channel: Intern on a Mission, which had 30 videos and 53,000
views as of January of 2019, all with young employees presenting how a certain KLM
activity works, Cockpit Legends, with 11 videos about the behind-the-scenes activities
of the captains, 401 views on the same date, Surf KLM, with 10 videos and 9,000 views
of surfers narrating adventures at (only) three KLM destinations: Portugal, Norway
and Indonesia.
Electronic
DJ Hardwells Music festivals DJ Hardwells Various
music
Travel Narratives
The videos in the series Intern on a Mission explain how specific departments
and services work, based on the firsthand experience of supposed interns. The reading
331 of the scene can also be journalistic: reporters use the tools of gonzo journalism –
a narrative technique created by American journalist Hunter S. Thompson in the
1960s in which the author lives out an experience that is making news – so as to
narrate it in the first person. By taking on unusual experiences in order to share
them with the audience – like what’s it like escorting a horse on an airplane –, the
narrator grants the public access to a privileged point of view of the behind-the-
scenes goings-on of aviation.
The passion for flying, another attribute of KLM’s brand narrative, is explicit
in this episode, as well as the series Cockpit Legends, always narrated by pilots. Like
flight attendants, pilots are among the narrators whose profession (and passion
for their job) is most exploited in the airline’s videos. In both cases, the brand is
quite explicit, demonstrating an intention to promote to spectators the three pillars
of communication, according to interviewee number 1, digital manager for South
America: awareness, reputation and servicing (revealing what goes on behind-the-
scenes with the services the airline provides).
The decision to create series with specific themes, like surfing and music –
as in the travel series by electronic music DJ Hardwell, another of the six analyzed
– reinforce the theory put forth by interviewee 3, director of digital media, who
looks for real people to show the spirit of this ‘young and innovative’ brand. Video
documentaries register the travel experiences of Yannick de Jagger as well as DJ
Hardwell, recounted through first-person narratives in which celebrities sponsored by
the brand themselves act as narrators and main characters explaining their passions
and professions.
As Naomi Klein (2002) explains, “the lines between corporate sponsors and
sponsored culture have entirely disappeared.” Influential national celebrities like
the surfer Jagger and DJ Hardwell, who have come to share the content of certain
brands, were christened “digital influencers” around the year 2017. “So what was once
a process of selling culture to a sponsor for a price has been supplanted by the logic
of “co-branding” - a fluid partnership between celebrity people and celebrity brands”
(2002, p. 49).
The last two series observed represent very distinct narrative lines and uses of
narrator. The 20 videos in the series Docs iFly place value on the host narrative – rather
than that of the traveler. All of them feature journalistic language and refinement,
portraying the destinations in a much more sophisticated manner than another series
from the same channel, KLM Destinations. The latter channel has 64 short videos
providing superficial presentations of cities to which the airline flies – some include
just one individual in a flight attendant’s uniform talking about the place in front of
Travel Narratives
a simple panel reproducing the landscape, without the slightest effort to pretend that
person actually traveled there.
There is obvious Dutch pride in the videos, most of which were produced with the
narrators speaking their native language, thus emphasizing the cultural exclusivity of
the European country. Interviewee number 3 confirmed that the airline tries to imbed
in the narratives constructed and shared on the social networks the characteristics
capable of differentiating KLM from the competition based on the presupposed
332 behavior of the Dutch people. “We’re Dutch. We’re open, reliable, pragmatic, friendly
and innovative. We’re always searching for new solutions and sometimes we can be
quite direct,” she sums up.
As Klein emphasizes (2000), by associating the brand with Dutch culture, KLM
does more than just add value to the product. What it and other companies like it
are doing, primarily, is “thirstily soaking up cultural ideas and iconography that
their brands could reflect by projecting these ideas and images back on the culture
as ‘extensions’ of their brands” (2000, p. 47). According to Klein, starting in the
1990s, advertising began “to take these associations out of the representational realm
and make them a lived reality” (2000, p. 48). She wonders if contemporary brands
themselves are culture. “If brands are not products but ideas, attitudes, values and
experiences, why can’t they be culture too?” (2000, p. 48) Apparently, the airline’s
attitude seeks a symbiosis with Dutch culture.
According to interviewee number 1, every new marketing campaign is given
a landing page, a temporary website whose main communication is conducted via
a video. “We utilize real characters and we always think about promoting the spirit
of the brand,” she says. The three-pronged approach that defines the video’s agenda
is the same one that guides all other communications: the stories should focus on
content that upholds the reputation of the brand, brand awareness or servicing.
By combining in the same sentence the search for “real characters” and the
“promotion of the brand’s spirit,” the KLM director naturally addresses the ever-
increasing blend of the languages of journalism and advertising in brand narratives,
more and more oriented toward the digital realm. Klein summarizes: “online (...) there
was never really any pretense of a wall existing between editorial and advertisement.
On the Web, marketing language reached its nirvana: the ad-free ad” (2000, p. 59).
And she continues, “Sites are increasingly created by “content developers,” whose
role is to produce editorial that will make an ad-cozy home for the developers’ brand-
name clients” (2000, p. 60).
By assuming the vocation of the digital realm to create narratives that
blend journalism with advertising, producing spectacular videos that are shared
on multiple platforms, KLM transformed its YouTube channel into an archive of
seductive audiovisual stories, with journalistic content to inspire and inform and an
advertising strategy focused on brand building and sales. It’s up to the public, which,
as of January, 2019, had viewed the airline’s 675 videos some 122 million times, to
differentiate between the two.
If KLM’s greater intention in its communications strategy is, more than to sell,
to construct a narrative of a solid brand to be remembered throughout the process of
convincing the consumer – the traveler’s journey--, the strategy of supporting itself on
subjective travel narratives has proved to be well-structured. The stories are true. They
appeal to travelers’ sentiments. They speak to audiences with distinct profiles on the
334 platforms that they utilize.
This doesn’t mean that the company doesn’t omit speech. Reports of lost luggage
or delayed flights are virtually non-existent on the airline’s platforms. There is also
only one mention of the fact that the Dutch king Willem-Alexander frequently served
as pilot for the company. This fact is buried by the official communications, regardless
of its potential to generate travel narratives of great appeal. By working with most of
the narratives from within the platforms themselves, the airline guarantees control
of the stories that circulate based on experiences of flying KLM. And it constructs the
image of being 100 years-old and futuristic, almost itself the persona of an I-traveler
with a thousand faces. Even though some of these facets remain unseen by today’s
travelers.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
O século XXI vêm sendo marcado pelas constantes mudanças tecnológicas, sociais
e culturais que transformam a maneira como nos comunicamos, nos informamos, e
nos organizamos como sujeitos e como sociedade. Ao ampliarem as possibilidades
de interação entre os indivíduos, as novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação
(TICs) e os dispositivos móveis são agentes importantes nestas transformações que
alteram os mais diversos âmbitos da vida humana.
É possível observar, por exemplo, que o uso destas tecnologias móveis para
realizações de atividades profissionais é cada vez mais frequente. Aliás, no momento
em que os celulares começaram a se expandir na sociedade, no final dos anos 1990 e
início dos anos 2000, muito acreditou-se que seus usos estariam restritos ao universo
do trabalho, afinal, quem gostaria de estar 24h por dia disponível a não ser que sua
rotina de trabalho criasse essa demanda?
Ainda que esse prognóstico não tenha se realizado – somos, quase todos,
testemunhas de que os celulares foram muito além das interações do universo
profissional - tais dispositivos foram rapidamente incorporados ao cotidiano de
sujeitos que necessitavam manter sua força de trabalho sempre disponível e conectada.
No caso do jornalismo, não foi diferente. Dos celulares, a outras tecnologias de
informação e comunicação, a presença e utilização desses artefatos permeia toda a
história do campo profissional. Dos relatos orais e do impresso, passando pelas mídias
eletrônicas, como a TV e o rádio, chegando aos ambientes móveis digitais, com a
internet e seus dispositivos de conexão, o jornalismo se reinventa a cada mudança
tecnológica. E, nesse processo, os diferentes segmentos se modificam.
Neste capítulo, nosso foco de análise será o jornalismo de viagem, tendo em
vista os desafios e possibilidades trazidos pelos dispositivos móveis em rede e as
Narrativas de Viagem
por cento corretas, é considerado um relato adequado dos destinos retratados e dos
acontecimentos da época.
Com a descoberta dos novos continentes, as narrativas de viagem se tornaram
ainda mais relevantes. Os diários de bordo dos navegadores, exploradores e
pesquisadores, como botânicos e filósofos, serviram para informar indivíduos e
governos, além de auxiliar na definição de ações importantes neste contexto.
3 KROOK, Nienke. A short history of travel writing. [S. l.], 4 fev. 2013. Disponível em:<https://www.thetraveltes-
ter.com/a-short-history-of-travel-writing/>. Acesso em: 20 maio 2019.
338 Logo os diários de viagem começaram a ser reproduzidos também na ficção.
No século XVII, obras como As aventuras de Robinson Crusoé, de Daniel Defoe, As
Viagens de Gulliver, de Jonathan Swift, e A Volta ao Mundo em 80 dias, de Júlio Verne,
foram escritas baseadas em jornadas factuais narradas e registradas pelo viajante.
Hoje, estas obras são consideradas clássicos da literatura.
O cientista Charles Darwin também foi um importante escritor de viagem, uma
vez que sua famosa jornada no século XIX a bordo do HMS Beagle para pesquisar e
elaborar a Teoria da Evolução resultou em um trabalho que, como é dito por Krook
(2013), interseciona ciência, história natural e viagem.
Desde a modernidade, as narrativas de viagem também encontraram seu lugar
no jornalismo, combinando o relato descritivo, com elementos literários para relatar
experiências vividas sob a perspectiva do turista e também – esse é um ponto polêmico
– promover destinos. Como é lembrado por Wenzel e John (2012, p. 298), “é comum os
jornais trazerem suplementos sobre temas específicos, além das publicações mensais
sobre saúde, beleza, mulher, crianças, artesanato, culinária e até mesmo viagem”.
Nesse universo, enquanto os impressos contam com seus suplementos e com as
revistas especializadas, a TV e o rádio têm seus programas destinados a temáticas
específicas. Já na internet, o número de sites, blogs, portais e perfis em redes sociais
dedicados a nichos variados e com a possibilidade de explorar diferentes formatos
é bastante expressivo, permitindo não só uma ampla variedade de categorias, como
também de produtores de conteúdo.
O jornalismo de viagens se faz presente nestes tantos meios de comunicação.
Alguns exemplos contemporâneos são a FolhaTurismo, o suplemento especializado da
Folha de S. Paulo; a Viaje Mais, revista brasileira centrada em assuntos turísticos; Pedro
pelo Mundo, programa de TV do canal fechado GNT; e sites como o 360 Meridianos4,
How To Travel Light5, Rodei6, Esse mundo é nosso7, entre muitos outros que possuem
viagens como temática e são organizados e produzidos por jornalistas.
Apesar de ser um segmento já consolidado, o jornalismo de viagens ainda é
pouco explorado no contexto acadêmico brasileiro. A relação deste gênero com a
Literatura e com a área de Publicidade e Propaganda pode gerar confusão e uma certa
resistência entre acadêmicos e até mesmo entre os jornalistas para considerarem este
gênero com seriedade.
A relação do jornalismo de viagens com a literatura vai além do fato de
muitas vezes as obras, que contemplavam esse tipo de narrativa, serem publicadas
em formatos de livros. Mas vincula-se à própria estruturação da narrativa que
Narrativas de Viagem
O paradigma da mobilidade
Narrativas de Viagem
Essa virada espalha-se pelas ciências sociais mobilizando análises que têm
sido historicamente estáticas, fixas, preocupadas predominantemente com
estruturas sociais não-espaciais. As contribuições dos estudos culturais,
feminismo, geografia, estudos sobre migração, política, estudos da ciência,
sociologia, estudos sobre transporte e turismo e tantos outros transformam, de
maneira hesitante, as ciências sociais e especialmente revigoram as conexões,
as sobreposições e as apropriações tanto entre as ciências naturais e físicas
quanto entre os estudos literários e históricos. A virada da mobilidade é pós-
disciplinar (URRY, 2007, p. 6, tradução livre).
geográficas e sociais;
• a mobilidade comunicativa que se dá por meio de mensagens pessoa a
pessoa, via diferentes mediações e linguagens (oral, escrita, visual, etc.).
Uma outra característica levantada por Urry (2017) acerca deste contexto
de constante mobilidade é que, diferente do que era considerado pelos indivíduos
anteriormente, os períodos que eles passam viajando de um ponto para outro não
parece mais ser considerado como improdutivo ou desperdiçado.
O autor cita as “anti-atividades” efetuadas nos momentos de viagem, como a
341 prática de relaxamento, reflexão, e os prazeres do próprio ato de viajar, como a sensação
de velocidade, a exposição ao ambiente e a beleza das rotas, como oportunidades que
muitas vezes são valorizados pelos viajantes.
Do mesmo modo, Urry enfatiza que as novas tecnologias móveis possibilitam aos
usuários executar tarefas e atividades enquanto se movimentam. Estas novas rotinas
sociais estão gerando o que o autor chama de “inter-espaços”, que são definidos pelo
agrupamento de pessoas em movimento intermitente e envolvem o uso de telefones,
dispositivos móveis, conexões e comunicação sem fio e assim por diante. Esses inter-
espaços são geralmente utilizados para fazer arranjos e compromissos em movimento,
como é descrito com mais detalhes pelo autor em:
O olhar do turista
parte do turismo que se pratica atualmente existe o que Urry (2001, p. 26) chama
de “uma licença” para comportamentos menos sérios, alegres, mais permissivos e
livre de restrições, além de uma certa proximidade social. O autor pontua que, com
frequência, é encontrada uma “ação semi-rotineira ou uma espécie de não-rotina que
acabou se tornando rotina” (URRY, 2001, p. 27) no exercício do turismo.
Algo que colaborou muito com a formação de diferentes olhares do turismo
e, ao mesmo tempo, com o estabelecimento desta “não-rotina” frequente entre os
indivíduos turistas foram as viagens imaginativas e comunicativas (URRY, 2007) que
342 citamos anteriormente. Estes tipos de mobilidade configuram devaneios e expectativas
necessários para o turismo, mas que não são autônomos. De acordo com Urry, esta
formação envolve o trabalho de um conjunto de significações que são geradas pela
mídia: “o devaneio não é apenas uma atividade puramente individual. É socialmente
organizado, sobretudo através da televisão, da propaganda, da literatura, do cinema,
da fotografia, etc.” (2001, p. 118).
Com isto em mente, é interessante considerar que as publicações oriundas do
jornalismo de viagens, além de informar leitores e espectadores a respeito de destinos,
diferentes ambientes, novas culturas, entre outros assuntos, também podem trazer
novos elementos para o devaneio e incidir nas expectativas dos interlocutores e assim
engendrar novas possibilidades para a fruição turística destes indivíduos.
A produção em movimento
Num cenário de constante mobilidade, onde o turismo se torna cada vez mais
propagado, não só como um momento de lazer para escapar às rotinas do trabalho,
mas até como um modo de vida, tendo em vista as possibilidades de se exercer diversas
práticas laborais em movimento, as produções do jornalismo de viagens também se
modificam.
Para compreender melhor como esse cenário está se configurando atualmente,
buscamos conversar com Gaía Passarelli, jornalista de viagens. A trajetória da
profissional nos pareceu interessante por englobar tanto os meios tradicionais de
comunicação, como, mais recentemente, os canais de internet. No caso, Passarelli
produz, edita e assina conteúdos sobre viagens em formato de textos e podcasts,
e além disso é autora de um livro com relatos de viagem. O canal que reúne seus
materiais é o site How to Travel Light (www.gaiapassarelli.com). Com uma arquitetura
de informação simples, o site apresenta muitas imagens, trabalhando fortemente a
dimensão imaginativa da mobilidade.
Dentre os pontos abordados com a jornalista, um ponto que nos interessava
compreender era a questão da viabilidade financeira do projeto, justamente por esse
ser um ponto importante em relação à prática e condutas éticas. No caso, Passarelli
nos conta que tanto em sua experiência como jornalista de viagens, como quando
produz conteúdo para seu portal, o financiamento das viagens realizadas pode ser
proveniente de renda própria, ou do patrocínio de uma organização de turismo, de
alguma marca ou produtora.
Narrativas de Viagem
Os aparelhos móveis e tudo que está relacionado a eles, como aplicativos guias
de viagens instalados no celular e que levamos junto [de nós], a possibilidade
de fazer fotos, de gravar entrevista, de pegar informações sobre um lugar
em tempo real enquanto você está lá... Tudo isso é parte essencial do meu
trabalho, e arrisco dizer que mudou muito a forma como o trabalho é feito
(Gaía Passarelli).
Eu acho que isso é uma coisa que muda muito. Já participei de viagens em que
eu queria publicar as coisas conforme elas fossem acontecendo, só para ver
que isto era impossível por falta de tempo ou falta de conexão [de internet]
em países estrangeiros. Também já quis simplesmente consumir a viagem
enquanto estou viajando para escrever na volta, só para depois ter a sensação
de que faltou isso ou aquilo. Então, acho que o ideal é um equilíbrio entre os
dois, algo que a gente consegue enquanto se prepara para viagem, o que é
essencial para mim (Gaía Passarelli).
Narrativas de Viagem
Considerações finais
O turismo está intimamente ligado à mobilidade, assim como estão outras práticas
sociais, quando analisadas pela perspectiva teórico-metodológica do paradigma da
mobilidade de Urry (2007). E com as novas Tecnologias de Comunicação e Interação e
os dispositivos móveis, muitas práticas, até mesmo aquelas que já eram consideradas
móveis, vêm se transformando e se reinventando.
O jornalismo, assim como outras áreas de trabalho, é um campo que vem
passando por modificações neste contexto de mobilidade. O segmento de viagens,
que há tempos tem o movimento como pauta, também se transforma.
Atualmente, a partir das experiências descritas e pela observação em diferentes
mídias e plataformas, os sujeitos têm diante de si diversas possibilidades de retratar
suas viagens em meios e formatos variados, que constroem distintas temporalidades
e espacialidades. Além disso, de maneira mais específica, ajudam a criar e/ou manter
hábitos relacionados com viagens e turismo.
A conexão, em muitos casos, faz com que o jornalista de viagens esteja presente
em diferentes locais enquanto desempenha sua atividade laboral: está fisicamente em
seu destino, mas em contato com seus leitores e espectadores, que podem estar em
qualquer outro ponto geográfico, através das redes sociais; está em casa ou na redação
fisicamente, porém, imaginativamente, pode já se encontrar no seu próximo destino,
ao buscar informações sobre este local; está em movimento durante um trajeto, mas
aproveita este tempo “entre espaços” para realizar reuniões, fazer publicações, redigir
texto ou fazer pesquisas, sendo produtivo em momentos que antes poderiam ser
considerados “desperdiçados”.
O encontro e a mescla de diferentes mobilidades parece permear os processos
do jornalismo de turismo. Porém, existem limitações: a falta de um dispositivo ou de
uma conexão de rede adequada pode prejudicar o exercício da atividade, fazendo com
que o profissional seja obrigado a se adaptar de acordo com as ferramentas técnicas
disponíveis no local.
Ainda há muito a ser pesquisado no que diz respeito às práticas do jornalismo de
viagens, ainda mais se levando em considerações as novas tecnologias e os dispositivos
Narrativas de Viagem
móveis. Porém, como vimos, este tema não se limita somente às atividades deste campo
profissional ou deste segmento: ao observar, pesquisar e analisar o jornalismo de
viagens em um contexto de mobilidade, também estamos observando, pesquisando e
analisando aspectos sociais, culturais, antropológicas, tecnológicas, comunicacionais,
entre outros que permeiam variadas áreas do conhecimento. Este novo capítulo na
história das narrativas de viagem ainda tem muito a ensinar-nos.
REFERENCIAS
346
CARVALHO, Carmen; LEITE, Ronaldo. O dilema ético do jornalismo nos suplementos
de turismo. In: Congresso Brasileiro de Ciências da Comunicação. 2007.
Disponível em: < http://www.intercom.org.br/papers/nacionais/2007/resumos/
R1335-1.pdf> Acesso em: 20 de maio de 2019.
CUNHA, Leonardo; FERREIRA, Nísio Antônio Teixeira; MAGALHÃES, Luís. Dilemas
do jornalismo cultural brasileiro. In: Temas: Ensaios de Comunicação, n.1, v.1, ago/
dez 2002, Centro Universitário de Belo Horizonte (UNI-BH).
ELLIOTT A., URRY J. Mobile Lives. London: Routledge, 2010. 188p.
FERREIRA, Isadora Silva; MANTOVANI, Camila Maciel Campolina Alves.
Organizações em movimento: Relações e práticas profissionais no contexto de
trabalho remoto. Revista Iniciacom: Revista Brasileira de Iniciação Científica em
Comunicação Social, Brasil, ano 2019, v. 8, n. 2, ed. 14, p. 167-177
JANÉ, Mariano Belenguer, Periodismo de Viajes: análisis de una especialización
periodística, Comunicación Social, Sevilla, 2002.
MANTOVANI, C. M. C. A. Narrativas da Mobilidade: comunicação, cultura e
produção em espaços informacionais. Belo Horizonte, 2011. 234 f. Tese (Doutorado
em Ciência da Informação) - Escola de Ciência da Informação, Universidade Federal
de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2011.
MOLZ, J. G. Connectivity, collaboration, search. In: BÜSCHER, M., URRY, J.
WITCHGER, K. (org). Mobile Methods. London: Routledge, 2010. p.88-103.
URRY, John. O olhar do turista: lazer e viagens nas sociedades contemporâneas. São
Paulo: Studio Nobel/SESC, 2001.
URRY, John. Mobilities. London: Routledge, 2007.
WENZEL, Karine; JOHN, Valquíria Michela. Jornalismo de Viagens: análise
das principais revistas brasileiras. Universidade do Vale do Itajaí. Estudos em
Comunicação nº 11. Brasil. 2012. Disponível em: < http://www.ec.ubi.pt/ec/11/pdf/
EC11-2012Mai-14.pdf>. Acesso em: 20 de maio de 2019.
Narrativas de Viagem
347 TRAVEL JOURNALISM AND THE PRODUCTION
OF CONTENT IN MOVEMENT
The 21st century has been characterized by constant technological, social and
cultural changes that transform the way we communicate, inform and organize
ourselves as subjects and as society. By expanding the possibilities for interaction
between individuals, new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and
mobile devices are important agents in these transformations that alter the most
diverse spheres of human life.
It is possible to observe, for example, that the use of these mobile technologies
for accomplishment of professional activities is more and more frequent. By the time
mobile phones began to expand in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was widely believed
that their uses would be restricted to the universe of work, after all, who would like to
be available 24 hours a day unless your work routine created that demand?
Although this prognosis has not been accomplished - we are almost all witnesses
that cell phones went far beyond the interactions of the professional universe - such
devices were quickly incorporated into the daily life of subjects who needed to keep their
workforce always available and connected. In the case of journalism, it was no different.
From cell phones to other information and communication technologies, the presence
and use of these devices permeates the whole history of the professional field. From oral
and printed reports, through electronic media, such as TV and radio, to digital mobile
environments, with the Internet and its connecting devices, journalism reinvents itself
with every technological change. And in this process, the different segments change.
In this chapter, our focus will be on travel journalism, considering the challenges
and possibilities brought by mobile networked devices and the new forms of production,
access and broadcasting of content and interaction with the public interested in this
type of information. Based on the theoretical and methodological grounding of the
paradigm of mobility (URRY, 2007), we will reflect on the contemporary forms of
journalism, especially travel journalism.
Travel Narratives
1 Graduated in Social Communication with a degree in Journalism from the Faculty of Philosophy and Human
Sciences of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Researcher of Scientific Initiation in the project “Subject in
motion: narratives and subjectivities in the new organizational dynamics” and currently studying the use of
mobile devices in the professional activities of travel journalists. Both researches are guided by Professor Camila
Mantovani E-mail: is.silvaferreira@gmail.com
2 Professor of the Department of Social Communication and PPGCOM / UFMG. Doctor and Master in Informa-
tion Science (ECI / UFMG). Graduated in Social Communication / Journalism (UFMG) is co-coordinator of Afetos:
Research Group on Communication, Accessibility and Vulnerabilities. Her research interests include: Midiatiza-
tion; Organizational communication; Usability and accessibility studies; Mobility; Mobile media; Disabled people;
Body and technology. E-mail: camilam@ufmg.br
348 Narratives and Travel Journalism
paradigm developed by John Urry (2007). From the theoretical development and the
increasing empirical analysis on the phenomenon of mobility in the most distinct
aspects of life, the author’s perspective shows a differentiated way of thinking about
the characteristics of relations in society, which would point to a “mobility turn” in
the social sciences (URRY, 2007).
In the author’s own words, the mobility paradigm
351 This turn spreads through social sciences mobilizing analysis that have
been historically static, fixed, predominantly preoccupied with non-spatial
social structures. The contributions of cultural studies, feminism, geography,
studies on migration, politics, science studies, sociology, transport and
tourism studies, and so many others, hesitantly transform the social sciences
and especially reinvigorate connections, overlaps, and appropriations both
between the natural and physical sciences as well as between literary and
historical studies. The mobility turn is post-disciplinary (URRY, 2007, page 6).
in intermittent motion and involve the use of telephones, mobile devices, wireless
connections and communication, and so on. These inter-spaces are generally used
to make moving arrangements and commitments, as described in more detail by the
author at:
Inter-space is the space and time between two or more events resulting from
how the boundaries between the travel time and the time of activity seem
352 to be confused. Travel time is converted to time of activity within the inter-
space. In turn, less travel time of the individual is used, allowing more trips
to occur, or encouraging greater use of modes that can allow activities to be
carried out in motion; including the development or maintenance of network
capital. This pattern is increasingly found among relatively prosperous young
professionals who work (and act) in various urban centers (URRY, 2007, pages
250-551).
Tourist gaze
Production in motion
The mobile devices and everything that is related to them, such as travel
guides applications installed on the mobile phone, and carrying with us the
possibility of taking photos, recording interviews, of getting information
about a place in real time while you are there... All of this is an essential part
of my job, and I’ll venture to say that the way the work is done has changed
a lot (Gaía Passarelli).
As for the possibilities of using the time spent moving from one place to
another for the performance of their work, she responds that different conditions
354
interfere in this practice. She cites the comfort and length of the journeys, as well as
fatigue and the presence or not of company, as important factors in making decisions
about this topic. The journalist comments that she has explored different ways of
producing her subjects:
I think this is something that changes a lot. I’ve been on trips where I wanted
to post things as they were, only to see that this was impossible because of
lack of time or lack of connection in foreign countries. I also wanted to simply
consume the trip while I’m traveling to write on the return, only to later feel
that I missed this or that. So, I think the ideal is a balance between the two,
something that we get as we prepare for the trip, which is essential for me
(Gaía Passarelli).
explored. Therefore, like the journalist, the tourist moves through networks of social
interactions and information, producing knowledge in the mobility era.
From the John Urrys perspective (2007), we can see that mobile devices allow
different mobilities to happen at the same time. In the journalist’s account, for
example, when she mentions the use of her devices as work tools that enable her to
consult, record, photograph and publish information and contact those who need it,
the conjunction and overlap of bodily mobilities is visible, since it is in a movement
355 that mixes leisure (tourism) and work; the virtual trip, by having the possibility of
contact with another person in real time but out of the space in which it is; and also
communicational travel, by publishing and communicating with readers and viewers
through messages and other media.
Imaginative mobility can also be found in different moments described by the
journalist:
• When researching information in different media about her future destiny,
in order to construct itineraries for her trip and guidelines for her reports,
the interviewee ends up performing an imaginative trip. Not only that, it
is also influenced by the tourism gazes portrayed in the media, and their
expectations and ramblings will be influenced by them.
• By generating media products on her own travels, the journalist ends up
sharing her own tourist gaze with images, reports and even guides on the
destinations visited. This causes her readers to make imaginative journeys
by consuming this material.
However, the journalist points out that, unlike many people imagine, working
as a travel journalist, while involving tourism, is not like being on vacation. The
“tourist’s glance” conveyed by it, then, can often be without the unconcerned approach
quoted earlier, which Urry (2001) posed as usual among tourists.
Final considerations
but in contact with its readers and spectators, who may be anywhere else, through
social networks; is at home or in the newsroom physically, but, imaginatively, it may
already be in its next destination when seeking information about this location; is in
motion during a journey, but takes advantage of this time “between spaces” to hold
meetings, publish reports, write text or do research, being productive in moments
that could previously be considered “wasted”.
356 The encounter and the mixture of different mobilities seems to permeate the
processes of tourism journalism. However, there are limitations: the lack of a device
or an adequate network connection may impair the exercise of the activity, causing
the professional to be forced to adapt according to the technical tools available on
the spot.
There is still much to be researched in regard to the practices of travel
journalism, even more taking into consideration the new technologies and mobile
devices. However, as we have seen, this theme is not limited to the activities of this
professional field or this segment: when observing, researching and analyzing travel
journalism in a context of mobility, we are also observing, researching and analyzing
social, cultural, anthropological, technological, communicational, among others
that permeate various areas of knowledge. This new chapter in the history of travel
narratives still has much to teach us.
REFERENCES
URRY, John. O olhar do turista: lazer e viagens nas sociedades contemporâneas. São
Paulo: Studio Nobel/SESC, 2001.
De acordo com Nieto (2006), o que se pode assegurar é que os egípcios foram
os primeiros a documentar seus relatos de viagem, como fazia o escriba Ortega,
que era por definição o homem do Egito que documentava a vida pública, dava fé,
elaborava informes e noticiava. Seus hieróglifos e gravações nos templos descrevem
Narrativas de Viagem
com realismo suas viagens. Pode-se dizer que, Ortega já praticava o jornalismo
naqueles tempos.
Os povos fenícios superaram os egípcios nas suas viagens pela antiguidade.
No ano 3.000 a.C. uma tribo semítica se desenvolveu em uma região costeira que
hoje é Israel e Líbano, eles se converteram em mercadores marítimos e criaram o
primeiro império marítimo do mundo. Os fenícios construíram barcos que podiam
ir a qualquer parte, recorrendo a todo Mediterrâneo se aventurando mais adiante
pelas Ilhas Britânicas e Cabo de Boa Esperança, dois mil anos antes do que fizera
Vasco da Gama.
361 Narradores gregos
aportam suas narrativas e ao mesmo tempo se sentem em casa, ou seja, eles viajam
quando navegam.
Narradores romanos
Esta conexão permanece cortada até quando o Islã retoma suas rédeas culturais do
humanismo antigo.
2 A obra cobre todo o mundo conhecido pelos gregos e pelos romanos da altura. Apresenta uma constante defesa
do poeta Homero como fonte geográfica, não levando em conta escritores mais recentes, como Heródoto, que nor-
malmente testemunhavam o que reportavam; uma preocupação normalmente argumentativa e crítica em relação
a estes outros escritores, com uma atitude, a priori, em relação aos fatos, tipicamente grega, fazendo-a derivar do
puro exercício da razão. No entanto, esta argumentação, que por vezes é criticada, oferece aos acadêmicos mo-
dernos uma informação histórica valiosa nos métodos de geografia antiga e no conhecimento de geógrafos mais
antigos que de outra forma não teríamos conhecimento. Loeb Classical Library edition, 1924 (public domain).
Disponível em: <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/home.html>.
363 A era viking
Relatos do oriente
Narrativas de Viagem
Os cristãos europeus
É no século XV, entre os anos de 1400 e 1600 que se inicia a idade do ouro, dos
grandes descobrimentos, juntamente com o humanismo e o nascimento dos estados
modernos. O pensamento crítico e racional se desenvolve nas universidades, onde se
estudam os clássicos em latim e grego, as dúvidas com relação aos dogmas da Igreja são
questionadas, a imprensa permite a divulgação da cultura e escrita, assim a burguesia
mercantil e industrial passa a decidir sobre os novos interesses da sociedade.
Naquela época a Europa era um continente pouco povoado, demasiado arborizado
que vivia essencialmente da agricultura. Nieto (2006) lembra que, a noção de espaço
do europeu médio era muito curiosa, pois no início dos grandes descobrimentos, a
distância média que uma pessoa devia percorrer para alcançar outros povos era de
aproximadamente doze quilômetros e a viagem média mais longa que uma pessoa
fazia em toda sua vida era de trinta quilômetros.
Diante de tantas dificuldades, a imprensa era considerada uma profissão errante
e os juglares - os “proto jornalistas” da época, eram os que viajavam e divulgavam os
relatos que haviam vivido, os músicos, os ciganos, os estudantes e eruditos também
Narrativas de Viagem
O autor também destaca diversas obras como Mondus Novus, escrita por
Américo Vespúcio em que relata suas viagens entre os anos de 1501 e 1502. Também
os textos de Richard Hakluyt que foi o cronista dos grandes viajantes ingleses e de
seus descobrimentos no século XVI, ele quem escreveu a obra Principais expedições,
viagens, empresas, comerciais, e descobrimentos da nação inglesa. Ainda assim, as
crônicas escritas por Pero Vaz de Caminha sobre a grande expedição portuguesa
capitaneada pelo navegador Pedro Alvarez Cabral em 1500 é, sem dúvida um dos
documentos mais importantes sobre o descobrimento do Brasil.
A Carta de Pero Vaz de Caminha A El Rei D. Manuel, também conhecida como
Carta do Achamento do Brasil, é o documento inicial da história do país, escrita em
Porto Seguro, entre 26 de abril e 2 de maio de 1500 que relata sobre a terra de Vera Cruz
Narrativas de Viagem
e seus primeiros contatos com os índios, que causaram estranheza à sua concepção
católica e europeia.
É no século XVII que todo processo de descobrimento se transforma e começa
uma nova etapa na exploração aventureira que vai dar passos a projetos mais
3 Tradução livre do seguinte excerto do texto original: Sin embargo, Pedro de Valencia era considerado un
“cronista obscuro “, desconocido, que nunca cruzó los mares y reelaboró lo que le contaron. Hacía descripciones
geográficas de elementos históricos y urbanísticos, de la administración, de la política y demografía sólo a través
de investigación y análisis. No obstante, sus informaciones son completísimas, como las de un periodista de mesa
que transforma la información bruta en análisis, estudio e interpretación para darle sentido (NIETO, 2006, p.136).
368 sistematizados, organizados por companhias de navegação, empresas melhores
financiadas, congregações, entre outras. As atividades de exploração e colonização
vão progressivamente se convertendo em aventuras que se calculam cuidadosamente
e se controlam através de Conselhos das partes interessadas, ou seja, dos próprios
Estados, da Igreja, dos burgueses, empresários, sábios, navegantes, entre outros
(JANÉ, 2002, p.74).
Nessa época, se destacam alguns nomes que passaram pelo continente norte-
americano, como é o caso do navegante inglês Henry Hudtson, que viajou pelos mares
do Ártico no início do século em busca de uma rota para o noroeste. Também outro
viajante, explorador e aventureiro, foi Samuel de Champlain, fundador de Quebec e
explorador dos vastos territórios do Canadá, contemporâneo dele destaca-se também
John Smith, colonizador da Virgínia.
A lista poderia ampliar com outros nomes de desbravadores que, no século XIX
contribuíram com seus relatos de viagem, como o português Pedro Teixeira, que no
princípio do século viajou pela Pérsia, Filipinas, visitou Goa, Ormuz e recorreu a
Eufrates. Anos depois navegou o Rio Amazonas desde a costa oriental e chegou a
Quito em 1638. Seu percurso acompanhou outro viajante, o jesuíta espanhol Cristóbal
de Acuña que escreveu em 1941 o Nuevo descubrimiento del gran rio del Amazonas.
Mulheres viajantes
Observa-se que, não há um protagonismo das mulheres nos relatos de viagem até o
século XIX. As mulheres não participavam das expedições com missões específicas, mas
havia as esposas que acompanhavam seus maridos naturalistas, artistas, entre outros.
Assim relata a pesquisadora Miriam Lifchitz Moreira Leite (1997), que escreveu a obra
Livros de Viagem (1803 – 1900) (1997), em que ela divulga as atividades de pesquisa sobre
os relatos das mulheres viajantes que estiveram no Brasil no século XIX.
O livro estuda os textos das modistas, que vinham “fazer a América”, turistas,
jornalistas, professoras, acompanhantes ou cientistas - provenientes dos países
europeus ou dos Estados Unidos. A pesquisadora surpreende-se em pensar que,
naquela época essas mulheres aceitassem ir para o Brasil. Segundo ela, neste período
as viagens ainda eram muito difíceis, as embarcações eram à vela e havia o mito de
que mulher na embarcação trazia azar.
A autora lembra que, as primeiras mulheres que viajaram tiveram que se
disfarçar de homens, mas já no final do século XIX, houve alguma mudança, podendo
Narrativas de Viagem
ser citado o caso da jornalista Marie Robinson Wright, que veio para o país patrocinada
pelo presidente da época e que, através de seus livros, fazia propaganda do Brasil.
Ela também destaca a naturalista Tereza da Baviera, prima de D. Pedro II que
recebeu dele um grande auxílio, orientando Emílio Goeldi e D´Orvielle a auxiliarem-
na em suas pesquisas - diferente de outras mulheres cientistas que tinham mais
dificuldades e que tinham que trabalhar com recursos próprios.
Outro destaque é para a austríaca Ida Pfeiffer, que fez uma viagem de
circunavegação, já viúva. Era dona-de-casa e dava aulas de piano. Quando a mãe
369 faleceu, ela conseguiu muitas cartas de recomendação que permitiram sua entrada
em vários países. A pesquisadora sublinha que como os viajantes eram malvistos por
serem comerciantes ou considerados espiões, essas cartas foram fundamentais. Com
poucos recursos, a austríaca conheceu vários países e escreveu muitos livros sobre os
países visitados. Acabou sendo aceita na Sociedade de Geografia de Paris e Berlim e
teve muitos de seus livros traduzidos:
Há quem diga que os livros de mulheres eram sobre “como” e “por que”,
enquanto os dos homens atinham-se ao que. É uma exterioridade e uma
interioridade dos fatos. Elas procuram mais a interioridade. Mas ambos
usavam diários, correspondência e narrativas breves, com raras exceções.
Meus estudos referem-se às mulheres que viviam no Brasil e às mulheres
viajantes, as quais fazem comparações entre as mulheres que encontraram no
país e sua própria condição feminina no século XIX. (PALLONE, p.1, 2006).
Com o passar dos anos, a forma de divulgar os relatos de viagem foi mudando e
a maneira de narrar as viagens foi se adaptando a cada estilo dos autores. A narrativa
de viagem foi se profissionalizando e se integrando ao jornalismo, reportando fatos de
interesse comum, prestando serviços relevantes a comunidade.
As publicações de viagens, além de integrarem os meios impressos e audiovisuais,
passaram a invadir a web. Alguns meios continuam colocando os mesmos conteúdos
que publicam no meio impresso adaptado a web ou de forma mista. Para Dreves
(2004), o mundo virtual conta com maior vantagem que os meios impressos, pois
apresenta maior variedade de formatos para os leitores como textos, imagens, vídeos,
áudios e, principalmente, a capacidade de interatividade.
Narrativas de Viagem
Conclusão
É fato que o jornalismo está ligado à história e que os relatos de viagem, resumos
historiográficos feitos acerca dos fatos notáveis sobre as façanhas dos reis, a vida
cotidiana descrita pelos narradores da antiguidade são um dispositivo pré-jornalístico
(SOUSA, p.17, 2008).
Podemos dizer que, os conteúdos e as formas de se dar as notícias hoje são
frutos de um longo processo histórico. Os jornalistas de viagens possuem traços dos
grandes desbravadores da antiguidade. Muitos tornaram-se referência sobre locais
de viagem trazendo informações relevantes não só sobre entretenimento e lazer, mas
371 também dados históricos, críticas sociais, análises políticas, denúncias, entre outros
recursos que o jornalismo reporta.
REFERÊNCIAS
The act of traveling has become a form of entertainment promoting travel and
tourism industry. Much of the existing empirical research on journalism focuses
on news journalism at the expense of their less traditional forms, particularly the
entertainment journalism areas and lifestyle.
Chang and Holt (1991), tourism and travel writing is often seen as a frivolous
topic, not worthy of serious research. The authors classify tourism as a recreational
activity, devoid of social and political significance because it involves the private and
not the public sector.
The location of travel journalism at the intersection between information and
entertainment, journalism and advertising as well as its increasingly significant role in
the representation of foreign cultures, makes it a significant site for academic research.
In research studies on journalism, a little discussed topic is the travel journalism,
maybe not so much for its presence in the studies, but the “relevance” that they have
the theoretical fields when taking such journalism as object (Hanusch & Fürsich, 2014).
Therefore, the current reflections on this specialization are characterized
because it is a new subject in the field of study and at the same time, the influence that
he is suffering for his “confused connection with tourism and also for its undeniable
ties with literary rhetoric “(Jané, 2002, p.109).
This article proposes a study of travel narratives throughout history highlighting
the major works of the great names of antiquity that serve as reference to the
bloggers who do travel journalism today. As systematize Jorge Pedro Sousa (2008), to
understand the contemporary studies of journalism, involves realize their challenges
and how it has evolved throughout history.
Specifically, the thematic framework proposed here is to show that since ancient
times already practiced the travel journalism, through the travel accounts of the
great explorers of history and how their works were essential for scientific discovery,
geographical and many other contributions to the advancement of technology and
local discoveries never before explored.
The travel accounts throughout history show that man has the need for brave,
Travel Narratives
know different places, out of his room to find. One of the most intense forms of
collecting experiences is the act of traveling.
The researcher Mariano Belenguer Jané (2002), defines the act of traveling with a
work of courageous beings who wish to survive and live better, a time to face the dangers
1 Journalist, lecturer and teacher in Communication from the Anhembi Morumbi University (UAM) - Capes
scholarship. It is a doctoral student in Information Science in Journalism and media studies specialty at the Uni-
versity Fernando Pessoa (UFP). His area of research
is related to Travel & Tourism Journalism.
373 and demonstration of courage to become a sort of hero and then report your journey .
Traveling merchants, diplomats, farmers, correspondents and today also the
citizen. The traveler who want to satisfy their curiosity, out of monotony and detached
from everyday life.
For Pedro Eduardo Rivas Nieto (2006), those traveling opens your heart and
mind, the need to feel fully human, outdoor adventure. According to the author, there
is no free travel adventures without myths and heroes. If today, the journey can not
be a source of knowledge and not of prodigious talents that were considered before,
it is at least a return to ancestral nomadic instinct.
Our ancestors lived without borders, no nations or states. They lived grouped in
tribal societies relied on their instincts and their ability to hunt and thus maintain their
survival. The man ignored the territories and was at the mercy of everything. However,
they were integrated into the living nature in perfect harmony (NIETO, 2006, p.18).
Man forced to survive went through woods, forests and valleys. Climbed hills
and mountains, sailed the seas, rivers and slopes. In the midst of all kinds of adversity
in outer space. Jané (2002) points out that this was the first instinct that drove the
man to travel, but it can not be considered the only one. For him, there is the question
of innate curiosity, Ghana to learn and find out what is beyond the horizon, the
passion to know and possess, ultimately, the adventure for yourself.
Since ancient times that Herodotus texts highlighted the travel reports. In
400 a. BC, the Greek historian described his journeys across the world. The act of
documenting the trips has always been as important as the journey itself. The act of
traveling began as a necessity and today is seen as an object of consumption and also
an attempt to escape the routine and collect experiences.
Jané (2002) also argues that a significant change has meant that there was a
proliferation of publications on travel and tourism. For the researcher, the trip
not only presents a wide field of human history as a physical necessity, but also a
psychological need is linked to adventure and the hero myth.
It is not necessary to make a transfer in the history of literature to prove that
the trip is present in many of its manifestations, and this presence of the trip is most
clearly linked to the concept of adventure coinciding with the loss of the name space.
The literature in this case does more than feed a psychological need so obvious
that even the fact of death is shown in almost all cultures, as well as health care site.
A trip to which there is to prepare through the rite, as well as each nation had its own
ritual to deal with their dead.
It is a fact that the myth remains well established in society, in such a way
Travel Narratives
that resists disappearing. This explains the debate and the confrontation between the
tourist figures and traveler. The myth also explains this search for new ways to travel
to exotic places, religious, expeditions and adventure sports.
This also explains the proliferation of a number of cultural events in the cinema, in
the media, particularly in books, magazines and blogs. Both photography, travel reports
and literature reinvent the adventure and the journey in order to regain hope. Among
these manifestations is the travel journalism phenomenon that is at the heart of this study.
374 Pathfinders travel reports
When it comes to discovering the world, it means the great age of navigations
and Western discoveries of the XV and XVI, driven by Portuguese and Spanish.
However, from Herodotus to Strabo, notably the Egyptians, Phoenicians and Greeks
can understand how old this need to break through and report the findings that drove
civilizations. Even with few documents, it is known that Stone Age ancestors also
made notable discoveries across the planet.
For the investigator Jorge Pedro Sousa (2008), journalism is a discursive
representation of human life in which humans began to transmit information and
stories, as a matter of necessity, he said no society, even primitive managed to live
without information . The travel accounts are instruments of preserving memories
for future generations, which also ensures immortality symbolically.
It can be said that, historically, the first major phenomenon that helped to secure
the matrix of what came to be journalism came from the ancient Greeks. Indeed,
it is thanks to the Greeks and later the Romans, we have nowadays Western
Civilization (we are children of Athens and Rome!) (SOUZA, p.13, 2008).
According to Nieto (2006), which can be ensured is that the Egyptians were the
first to document their travel accounts, as was the scribe Ortega, who was by definition
the man of Egypt documenting the public life, he gave faith elaborated reports and
noticiava. Their hieroglyphics and recordings in the temples describe realistically his
travels. It can be said that Ortega has practiced journalism in those times.
The Phoenicians people surpassed the Egyptians in their travels in antiquity.
In the year 3000 BC a Semitic tribe has developed into a coastal region that is now
Israel and Lebanon, they became seafarers and merchants created the first in the
world maritime empire. The Phoenicians built ships that could go anywhere, using
all Mediterranean venturing further the British Isles and Cape of Good Hope, two
thousand years earlier than had Vasco da Gama.
Greek storytellers
It can be said that the Greeks had a huge desire to brave the unknown, as there
are many authors and genres over time that have left its rich heritage traveler. Among
them are Pytheas, the North Sea explorer, Hecateo of Miletus who traveled widely in
the Achaemenid Empire (Asia Minor, Persia, Mesopotamia and Egypt) and wrote a
book about Egypt and Asia, among others.
Travel Narratives
But Herodotus, the Greek historian most cited and considered the “Father of
History” by his famous work Stories (published between 430 and 424 BC). The work
is classified into nine books, the first five describe the Persian Empire, and the others
discuss the wars.
The researcher José Acosta Montoro (1973), highlights the various accounts of
Alexander the Great, which for eleven years of the IV century. C., traveled 32,000
kilometers with his army in an unprecedented expedition. Arrived in India opening
375
their routes and spreading Greek culture in much of western Asia, he introduced
his name in literature from dozens of countries, from the peninsula of Malaya to the
British Isles, founding more than seventy cities, including the flagship Alexandria.
One can not fail to highlight the importance of Xenophon, who wrote the
Anabasis, which is nothing more than a series of chronic, sometimes reported on
the saga of the withdrawal of the Army of the Ten Thousand, a group of mercenaries
hired by Cyrus the Younger, Persian prince, who wanted to take the throne of the
Empire that was in possession of his brother, Artaxerxes II.
The unfolding of the seven compounds books by Xenophon account the facts
that led, built and deployed the Cunaxa Battle where the confrontation between the
brothers is realized. In this context, Xenophon, the Próxeno invitation, accompanying
the army side of Cyrus and depart then to Sardis, as “foreign correspondent”.
For the first time a Greek author writes for the Greeks over another people, the
persas- a strong reference pre-jornaismo. The Greek soldier and disciple of Socrates,
narrated events between 401 and 399 BC, including the Peloponnesian War, its
maritime work that par excellence is fundamental to reconstruct the history of both
the travel narrative as the travel journalism.
It is observed that what matters most in this investigation is not the subject itself,
but the story is drawn along the path of these pioneers through their adventure and
discovery itineraries. It is across the sea to the Greeks and Egyptians aportam their
narratives and at the same time feel at home, that is, they travel when they browse.
Roman storytellers
Travel reports practiced by the Romans were of such importance that contributed
to the development of another way of narrating travels, so says Nieto (2006), which
points out that in the year 25 BC, the Emperor Augustus ordered the emperor of Egypt,
Elio Rooster, to organize an expedition to distant Arabia to conquer the kingdom of
Sheba, one of the most prosperous in the world between centuries VIII and I. W.
This trip resulted with many difficulties and accidents because of the bad
weather, with the loss of several vessels, diseases which involved an expeditionary
force of more than 10,000 men and 100 ships. The expedition was disastrous and
lasted 10 months, returning the Red Sea with the hungry and sick troops.
Who wrote and described these travel accounts was Strabo, one of the survivors
and book writer Geography2, An encyclopedia of 17 books of geographical knowledge
of the early Christian era. “Even with the failed attempt of the Romans to invade
Travel Narratives
Arabia, they achieved a great benefit that was to know the people, the region and its
geography.” (NIETO, 2006, p. 92).
2 The work covers the whole world known to the Greeks and Romans height. Has a constant defense of the poet
Homer as a geographical source, not taking into account more recent writers such as Herodotus, who normally wit-
nessed what reported; a normally argumentative concern and criticism of these other writers, at first with an attitude
a priori in relation to the facts, typically Greek, causing it to derive the pure exercise of reason. However, this argu-
ment, which is sometimes criticized, offers modern scholars a valuable historical information on ancient geography
methods and knowledge of older geographers who otherwise would not have knowledge. Loeb Classical Library edi-
tion, 1924 (public domain). Available at: <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/home.html>.
376 The Romans narrators who stood out were Pliny the Elder, a Roman officer who
was historian, grammarian, naturalist, writer and administrator. Of all his works,
the only one that survived was a treatise called Natural History, a huge compilation
consists of 37 volumes, containing some original passages on the destiny of man
in nature and offers an excellent overview of the geography, zoology and botany
in antiquity . Pliny was a great detail observer and died of historical eruption of
Vesuvius as they approach the volcano.
There is no talk of Rome not to mention Julio Cesar, one of the greatest men of
all time. Considered by Ortega as the inventor of journalism, the aristocrat, politician,
general, writer and great Roman warrior was a modern man in an ancient world.
Ortega gives an example of the daily newspaper sessions, invented by the Emperor,
who was to join Rome with all orb - Urbit et Orbi.
Nieto (2006) concludes that the Julius Caesar’s writings on military campaigns
were organized as a great and difficult journey. His works were not only valuable
historical sources, but can also be considered a travel journalism remote antecedent.
The dawn of the Middle Ages was marked by a period which is traditionally seen
as a regression of civilization in the social and cultural terrain. For Jané (2002), was not
at all a parking step, what happened was a shift of people to exchange their cultures
more or less peaceful and violent ways when the Germanic raids come at a time that
Rome had converted at the epicenter of a network of routes and communications
that went much beyond the borders of the empire, connecting East and West. This
connection remains cut up when Islam takes its cultural reins of the old humanism.
Eastern reports
It is common to resort more frequently to the West to trace the origins of any
subject, but the Asian continent, including Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, India and China,
were the cradle of all civilizations, with the exception of Egypt. There are several
examples of travel accounts of those rich, fruitful and technically advanced lands.
There were many records of nautical charts that received a poetic name “water
stories” that were used as a guide. It can also highlight the Silk Road, a road that was
known since ancient times and allowed trade relations between the civilizations of
the Mediterranean and China.
The author points out that the great Chinese travelers were Buddhist monks
who wandered through India and there were also the ambassadors who were sent to
establish alliances, among other missions. A lot of travel reports became known as
the Silk Road that put the East in contact with the Persian and Hellenistic world.
In the second century. C., Chiang Chien volunteered to try to establish an
alliance with the Huns. The ambassador was arrested but was later allowed to marry
probation. He escaped ten years later and reached Bactria (modern Afghanistan), but
the warriors of the countries did not accept the alliance against the Huns. His texts
have opened avenues for trade routes, increasing geographical knowledge of China.
The writer Peter Burke (2017) describes that, in the ninth century, the Japanese
monk Ennin traveled to China, where he spent nine years studying, copying scriptures
and reporting their experiences had with the Buddhist monks. After this long period
traveling, he returned to Japan to translate and disseminate knowledge about the
Tantric tradition of meditation.
Travel Narratives
The Age of Islam Gold was inaugurated in the middle of the eighth century
by the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate and the transfer of the capital from Damascus
to Baghdad. During this period the Muslim world was a cauldron of cultures which
collected, synthesized and advancing significantly the inherited knowledge of
ancient civilizations such as the Romans, Chinese, Indians, Persians, Egyptians,
Greeks and Byzantines.
378 In the Middle Ages, the exiles and expatriates have played an important role in
the Islamic world as well as in the ancient world, this was a time when the boundaries
were much less importance than would have later. There are few that stood out the
impact that his ideas had on Western intellectuals on his fellow Muslims or on both.
Burke (2017) highlights the Persian astronomer Abu Ma’shar (known in the West
as Albumasar) who went to Benares and worked in Baghdad, the Persian philosopher
Al-Farabi, known at the time as the second Aristotle was that of Kazakhstan and was
in Baghdad and Damascus. Also the Al-Idrisi geographer who left Morocco to work
in Palermo, among others.
The Arabs were great travelers, geographers and medieval cartographers, but
according to Nieto (2006), is not always easy to distinguish between pure geographical
science and travel accounts, for the development of geography at that time had
large dimensions, ie a science mathematics, a literary or descriptive geography. The
very titles of some of the works confirm this claim as the Book of the routes and
the provinces, which is a geography of the Muslim world, but it has a wealth of
information of all kinds.
There is also the case traveler Ibn Hawqal, which held numerous trips for thirty
years that allowed the direct knowledge of you that reported he wrote a description
of the Islam countries and Configuring the Islam countries, this work contributes
significantly to the geography.
Another work considered one of the most popular of the Muslim world, is a
historian, geographer and traveler Al-Masudi, golden meadows The book is stuffed
travel reports and historical data.
There are several examples of Arab travelers who told their stories at the time
when the East and West had few references. Remember that one of the most important
Arab travelers Ibn Fadlan, as already mentioned in the text, is one of the most
emblematic narrators because narrated in an unprecedented way their impressions
and dangers experienced with the Vikings, especially because as Arab and Muslim
who was Fadlan He had to leave at times their religious convictions to survive.
Of note also that, thanks to Ibn Battuta that the world knew the streets of
Constantinople, the personality of the Sultan of Delhi and help those in need of
Damascus. Your documents also served to show the lack of communication between
the Christian and the Muslim culture, as in the nineteenth century did not know the
territories of Islam.
European christians
Travel Narratives
In Christian Europe during the Middle Ages, the oral transmission returned
to occupy a prominent place, for man has always had the need to communicate and
convey the news, especially in a time when illiteracy was widespread, due to the
monopolization of knowledge practiced by the clergy and the nobility.
As highlights Nieto (2006), who was in charge of transmitting the news at that
time were the troubadours, the goliardos and joglares, who with his art entertained
379 and informed on many subjects.
According to the author, people needed to know what happened beyond that
medieval world. There were many reasons for the trips and had their communications,
the desire to evangelize, to perform pilgrimages to holy places, conquer new lands,
exchange products, improve trade, among others.
For Nieto (2006), you can discover history of travel reports tracking the wars in
the Middle Ages, particularly in the Christian period. According to him, the war was a
flattering element traveler texts. The restless Europe, against the forces of the Tartars,
intentava know their fighting techniques and thus convert them to Christianity to
have them as allies against the Islam.
Already Le Goff (1980), points out that the writers of the medieval West did not
separate clearly fictional text of teaching or scientific literature by the very nature of
that world. Thanks medieval travel in Europe, began to discover a universe that only
then was known fables. It is also worth noting that, especially were the nobles who
dedicated themselves to the task of traveling as well as the Crusaders, diplomatic,
clerics and adventurers.
Considered one of the travelers more prominently in the medieval era, Marco
Polo wrote the work the greatest impact of its time The Book of Wonders, which
contained as much truthful information that caused questions in the scientific and
geographical knowledge of the time.
Marco Polo was a visionary and inventor who gave news of an exotic world that
was pale Venetian. He described the customs and inventions of the East and described
his food, their wine, their wives, battles and treasures as a journalist who has the
opportunity to report first facts of amazing places.
Nieto (2004) points out that the Marco Polo reports had journalistic qualities,
but it was not he who wrote The Book of Wonders, also called the Million, but rather
by Rusticello of Pisa, his cellmate that for three years heard their stories in prison in
Genoa. Marco Polo dictated his stories, which Rusticello wrote in a scroll.
The skills of Marco Polo were own journalistic work because it was a curious
man who took notes and wanted to persevere in their achievements. His work
powerfully influenced future generations of European travelers, who had no other
descriptions of the East who were not Alexander’s time, the Great.
It is the fifteenth century, between the years 1400 and 1600 that begins the golden
age, the great discoveries, along with humanism and the birth of modern states. The
Travel Narratives
critical and rational thinking develops in universities where they study the classics
in Latin and Greek, the questions regarding the Church’s dogmas are questioned,
the press allows the dissemination of culture and writing, so the commercial and
industrial bourgeoisie shall decide about new interests of society.
At that time Europe was a continent sparsely populated, too wooded living
mainly from agriculture. Nieto (2006) points out that the average European Space
380 notion was very curious, because at the beginning of the great discoveries, the average
distance that a person should go to reach other people was about twelve kilometers
and the trip longer average a person did in his life was thirty kilometers.
Faced with such difficulties, the press was considered a wandering profession
and juglares - the “proto journalists” at the time, were traveling and they published
the reports that had lived, musicians, gypsies, students and scholars also had this
function .
During this period, there is Erasmus of Rotterdam which was one of the great
travelers and scholars who traveled throughout Europe when the old pilgrimage
routes began to fall into disrepair and a new form of pilgrimage was established - the
delegate who could not or not had the pleasure of doing so some travelers were paid
for this office.
Among the most famous explorers of this period, it highlights Christopher
Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Cabral, Bartolomeu Dias, Amerigo Vespucci, John Cabot,
Ferdinand Magellan, Willem Barents, Zheng He, Abel Tasman, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón
and James Cook . Nevertheless, there were many other anonymous names of people
from different backgrounds and origins who formed the bulk of the crews began to
flow to the New World.
Christopher Columbus deserves a relevant prominence as one of the major
browsers, in addition to design their trips, also reported. Although it is assumed that
the discovery of America may have occurred long before the Vikings, Turks, Chinese
and even the Jews, there are many documents, mainly travel reports showing that
Columbus was the one who paved the way to the New World.
For the investigator Nieto (2006), it was precisely the relationships and chronic
and travel accounts of India who developed the nascent pre-journalism of the time.
According to him, these communications are both the source of journalism as the
international information. The author highlights the soldier Ferdinand Cortez, Bernal
Diaz de Castilho who was the chronicler of his conquests he wrote True Chronicle of
the Conquest of New Spain, one of the most complete historical works written about
the conquest of Mexico.
The author also highlights several works as Mondus Novus, written by Amerigo
Vespucci in reporting his travels between the years 1501 and 1502. Also the writings
of Richard Hakluyt who was the chronicler of the great English travelers and their
3 free translation of the original text graft following: Sin embargo, Pedro de Valencia was considered un “obscure
chronicler,” desconocido, who never cross them reelaboró seas y lo que le contaron. Hacia geographical Descrip-
ciones historic urban elements y, de la administración of her political demography y sólo a través de investigación
y análisis. Nonetheless, sus informaciones son completísimas like them un journalist table that turns her gross
información en análisis, studio and interpretación to darle direction (NIETO, 2006, p.136).
381 discoveries in the sixteenth century, he who wrote the work Main expeditions, travel,
business, trade, and discoveries of the English nation. Still, the chronicles written by
Pero Vaz de Caminha on the large Portuguese expedition headed by
Pedro Alvarez Cabral in 1500 is undoubtedly one of the most important
documents on the discovery of Brazil.
The Letter of Pero Vaz de Caminha The King D. Manuel, also known as Letter
of the finding of Brazil, is the initial document the country’s history, written in Porto
Seguro, between April 26 and May 2, 1500 reporting on the land of Vera Cruz and
his first contacts with the Indians, who caused strangeness to their Catholic and
European design.
It is in the seventeenth century that the entire discovery process turns and
begins a new stage in adventurous exploration that will give more steps systematized
projects, organized by shipping companies, better funded companies, congregations,
among others. Exploration and colonization activities are gradually becoming
adventures that are carefully calculated and controlled by advice from stakeholders,
ie the states themselves, the Church, the bourgeois, businessmen, scholars, sailors,
among others (JANÉ, 2002, p.74).
At that time, they highlight a few names who visited the North American
continent, such as the English navigator Henry Hudtson, who traveled the seas of
the Arctic at the beginning of the century in search of a route to the northwest.
Also another traveler, explorer and adventurer, was Samuel de Champlain, founder
of Quebec and explorer of vast territories of Canada, contemporary it also stands out
John Smith, settler of Virginia.
The list could expand to other Pathfinders names in the nineteenth century
contributed their travel accounts, as the Portuguese Pedro Teixeira, who at the
beginning of the century traveled through Persia, the Philippines, visited Goa,
Hormuz and resorted to Euphrates. Years later sailed the Amazon River from the
east coast and arrived in Quito in 1638. His route followed another traveler, the
Spanish Jesuit Cristóbal de Acuña, who wrote in 1941 Nuevo descubrimiento del
gran del rio Amazonas.
Women travelers
Some say that women’s books were about “how” and “why”, while men
atinham to what. It is an exterior and interior of the facts. They seek more
interiority. But both wore diaries, correspondence and brief narratives, with
rare exceptions. My studies refer to women who lived in Brazil and to women
travelers, which make comparisons between the women found in the country
and their own feminine condition in the nineteenth century. (PALLONE, p.1,
2006).
The work of the researcher also contains articles concerning the scientific
work conditions of naturalists and the relationship between the iconography
of travelers and memory. The author assumes that the traveler in his foreign
national, and not part of the cultural group visited, was better able to understand
things, inconsistencies and contradictions of everyday life of the inhabitants, who
considered as natural and permanent.
Both this travel literature, as the iconography produced by scientists and
travelers artists helped to form the image of Brazil abroad and influenced the formation
of national identity.
Over the years, how to disseminate the travel accounts was changing and the
way to narrate the trips was adapting to each style of the authors. The travel narrative
was professionalizing and integrating journalism, reporting facts of common interest,
providing relevant services to the community.
Travel publications, as well as integrate the print and audiovisual media, began
to invade the web. Some media keep putting the same content they publish in print
media adapted to web or mixed form. To Dreves (2004), the virtual world has greater
383 advantage the printed media, it presents greater variety of formats for readers as text,
images, video, audio and especially interactivity capacity.
Nevertheless, as well as communications media migrated to the internet also
begun emerge travel blogs that serve as guides also offering great contribution on the
reports and findings of its creators.
Notebooks newspapers, magazines, TV shows and blogs have taken space in
the media for this purpose. In this context it is that they are inserted journalists and
travel bloggers - the today’s great storytellers. To Mattoso (2003), blogs or weblogs
are considered one of the most important phenomena of digital culture, since, from
its inception, has reached millions of fans worldwide.
The author stresses that the popularity is due to the democratic content, because
anyone can have access to freedom of expression through this feature. The author
also considers the blog as a journalistic medium that is able to overcome the other
vehicles, which may occur by the speed and immediacy with which spreads the news
content, capturing a certain group of people with interests in a particular topic, such
as the travel journalism case.
Also according Mattoso (2003), there is a division between entertainment
blogs, blogs that would be used as personal diaries and information blogs containing
journalistic features. Some authors disagree that it can exercise journalism in blogs,
but according to the author is possible, as long as there is the placement of the current
events that bring novelty and address issues that arouse public interest.
It is observed that the most important factor in the blog materialize as journalism
is the veracity of the information and the provision of service, either as a travel
guide, complaints, political relevance, economic, social and many other services that
journalism produces .
Conclusion
REFERENCES
BURKE, Peter. Gains and losses: exiles and expatriates in the history of knowledge
in Europe and the Americas, 1500-2000. SciELO-Editora UNESP, 2017.
Chang Hui-ching; HOLT, G. Richard. Tourism the consciousness of struggle:
Cultural representations of Taiwan. Critical Studies in Media Communication, in
1991, 8.1: 102-118.
CRICHTON, Michael. Eaters of the dead, Porto Alegre, 2008.
Dreves, Aleta Tereza. Blog and online journalism: Professional Capabilities in
contemporary technological [Monograph]. Paraná Pato Branco School - 145
Hanusch, Folker; FÜRSICH Elfriede (ed.). Travel journalism: exploring production,
impact and culture. Springer, 2014.
JANÉ, Mariano Belenguer. Periodismo de viajes: Análisis de una PERIODISTICA
Especialización. Seville: social Comunicación, 2002.
LE GOFF, Jacques. The medieval West and the Indian Ocean: a dreamlike horizon.
Le Goff, Jacques. For a new concept in the Middle Ages: time, work and culture in the
West. Lisbon: Stamps, 1980, 263-280.
MATTOSO, Guilherme de Queirós. Internet, journalism and weblogs: a new
alternative information. Online Library of Communication Sciences, 2003. Available
at: <http://www.bocc.uff.br/pag/mattoso-guilherme-webjornalismo.pdf>. Accessed
on 15 April 2019.
MONTORO, Jose Acosta. Periodismo y literature: Madrid, Guadarrama, 1973.
NIETO, Pedro Eduardo Rivas. Historia y naturaleza del journalism de viajes.
Desde el Antiguo. Madrid: Ediciones Miraguano, 2006.
PALLONE, Simone. With Science. Electronic Journal of Science Journalism. Available
at <http://www.comciencia.br/comciencia/handler.php>. Accessed on: March 11,
2019.
Travel Narratives
Marcela Cartolano1
Marco Bonito2
O início da trilha
Contextualizando o problema
O problema em uma pesquisa, segundo Bonin (2011), está relacionado com questões
orientadoras que funcionam como eixo ordenador de toda a estruturação de um projeto de
investigação. Sendo assim, o objeto de interesse dessa pesquisa foi o chamado “jornalismo
de viagem” e ao nos depararmos com suas idiossincrasias surge a seguinte questão
problema, norteadora dessa pesquisa: de que forma as técnicas de produção jornalísticas
são aplicadas nos portais que trabalham com conteúdos de viagem?
A contextualização faz parte do momento contemporâneo de uma pesquisa, ou
seja, ela ajuda a encontrar nexos no objeto estudado. Ainda para Bonin (2011, p. 27),
“o contexto é parte constitutiva da formulação do problema, ele define as relações do
objeto investigado com a realidade na qual está inserido”, em se tratando de jornalismo
de viagem, é importante ressaltar que a existência de relatos sobre turismo não é
um fenômeno recente, pois as narrativas estiveram relacionadas às descobertas de
territórios, novas populações, curiosidades e estranhamentos.
No Brasil, após o surgimento dos primeiros jornais, o espaço para as narrativas
de viagem se dava por meio da publicação de obras literárias e a escrita possuía mais
características da literatura do que especificamente do texto jornalístico (RODRIGUES,
2008). Como exemplo disso, há os livros que se destacam na categoria de turismo
como “A Volta ao Mundo em 80 dias”, “A Democracia na América”, “As Viagens de
Marco Polo” e “De Moto pela América do Sul”.
Todo viajante tem um potencial para ser narrador, deste modo, nota-se que
atualmente os relatos e as reportagens se expandiram, dos livros à internet, dando
espaço para novas publicações serem realizadas e em diferentes formatos, isso explica
o porquê muitas pessoas compartilham suas experiências em locais turísticos através
de blogs. Consequentemente, a necessidade do jornalismo em se adaptar e explorar
esse espaço gera uma oportunidade para os profissionais da área, “percebendo
o interesse do público pelos relatos de viagem, a mídia teve papel de destaque na
divulgação desta modalidade jornalístico-literária” (MARTINEZ, 2012, p. 44). Portanto,
Narrativas de Viagem
Como visto o turismo e o jornalismo não são apenas dois campos distintos, mas
sim dois setores relevantes para o funcionamento atual da sociedade. O jornalismo,
ao trabalhar diretamente com a informação tem como tratar qualquer assunto, sendo
assim, quando se fala em narrativas de viagem ligadas diretamente ao turismo, há
um leque de possibilidades que permite que a comunicação, com um viés jornalístico,
possa abordar. Desde que essas narrativas explorem o contexto local, cultural,
econômico e social.
Há uma dificuldade em definir um conceito para o que é o jornalismo de viagem
389 e a necessidade de analisar em como estão sendo trabalhados os seus conteúdos. Mas
isso pode estar relacionado ao que diz Ballerini (2015) sobre o jornalismo cultural a
partir da virada do século XIX para o século XX, na questão da baixa qualidade de
produção, pois ao mesmo tempo em que se encontra em inúmeros sites conteúdos
voltados à viagem, não há um padrão sobre como as produções deveriam estar
sendo realizadas, fazendo com que faltem informações e o cunho jornalístico em si
desapareça dentro das narrativas.
Outra forma de entender o que acontece nas editorias especializadas, como
visto por Pena (2017), é considerar a falta de um preceito do jornalismo de resistência,
que está relacionado a fazer uma autocrítica do antes e depois da reportagem; isso
envolve questionar a interpretação dos fatos, estereótipos e limitações. Isto é, será
que se esse procedimento de autoavaliação crítica do profissionalismo fosse realizado
constantemente, as produções disponibilizadas nos sites jornalísticos não teriam
outros efeitos e resultados?
É notório que através do turismo surgem vários temas que precisam ser apurados
e aprofundados. Por isso, sabe-se muito do jornalista e do veículo de comunicação ao
acompanhar suas matérias, já que aspectos como a responsabilidade do serviço para
com o cidadão; a apropriação e organização das pautas; a utilização das técnicas de
reportagem; as pesquisas exploratórias contextuais; os dados informativos, fontes e
entrevistas fazem parte da elaboração de uma pauta.
Para melhor compreensão de como a função da comunicação pode ter efeito
nas produções das editorias de viagem, Nielsen (2002) explica que o papel da mídia para
um turismo estável, seguro e confiável são motivos que poderiam ser considerados a
partir de três pontos de vista: busca de bem estar econômico; segurança quanto aos
destinos; práticas seguras de turismo. Deve-se lembrar, novamente, que o jornalismo
consegue aderir vários assuntos para a composição de conteúdo, mas nestes casos
específicos, não deve ignorar pontos importantes do turismo, para que possam render
um material de qualidade.
Consequentemente, ao abordar sobre narrativas de viagens, deve-se esperar
que o leitor tenha uma presença constante como forma de feedback e a produção
dos conteúdos também esteja voltada para atender a solicitação do próprio público.
Afinal, o tema está ativo em diversas plataformas, sendo consumido por pessoas de
diferentes perfis. Portanto, ao lidar com informação, é preciso entender como ela está
chegando para o leitor.
Narrativas de Viagem
A moda de viajar segue em voga e para atender esse público ávido por
novidades as narrativas de viagem estão presentes em publicações semanais,
de interesse geral, revistas masculinas, femininas e para adolescentes, entre
outras, bem como em sites, como o UOL Viagens, além dos cadernos de
turismo de jornais de todo o país, como o Estado de S.Paulo e a Folha de
S.Paulo. (MARTINEZ, 2012, p. 46)
Narrativas de Viagem
jornalismo de viagem, para assim, identificar nas produções esses requisitos citados
pelos autores. Visto que nem todas as reportagens são realizadas por jornalistas, é
preciso ficar atento à construção de roteiros e às novas formas de relatos.
Para entender na prática como essas técnicas são empregadas, foi realizada uma
coleta de dados informativos sobre conteúdos turísticos, por meio de um formulário do
Google. A definição para esse procedimento foi a seleção de cinco portais jornalísticos
que trabalham com as editorias de turismo, que foram selecionados conforme um
questionário executado com base no ranking da Pesquisa Brasileira de Mídia (2016)
e na observação de sites que destacam-se pelo público, quais sejam: Catraca Livre
(54,2%), Viagem e Turismo (50%), UOL (41,7%), G1 (39,6%) e O Estadão (22,9%). A
392 coleta foi realizada com base nos seguintes critérios:
a) Técnicas de produção: Pesquisa exploratória; Uso de dados e/ou infografia;
Apuração: fontes oficiais, oficiosas, contraditórias e/ou independentes; Entrevistas
dentro do formato de texto, vídeo, áudio e/ou foto.
b) Técnicas de redação: Título jornalístico; Uso correto da norma culta da
Língua Portuguesa; Texto informativo; Objetividade; Clareza; Concisão; Adjetivos.
c) Tipo de conteúdo: Conteúdo de serviço público; Conteúdo de acontecimen-
to jornalístico; Conteúdo de informe publicitário; Conteúdo comercial; Conteúdo co-
laborativo; Conteúdo misto.
d) Estética do conteúdo Multimídia (de 1 a 5 - Ruim, Razoável, Boa, Mui-
to boa, Excelente): Foto; Vídeo; Áudio; Infográfico.
e) Pauta e abordagem jornalística: Perfil: Culinários; Históricos; Esporti-
vos; Naturais; Urbanos, Rurais; Acessíveis às PcD; Roteiros: Culturais; Culinários;
Históricos; Esportivos; Naturais; Urbanos, Rurais; Acessíveis às PcD; Contextuali-
zação: histórica, local, social, política, tecnológica, econômica, cultural, esportiva;
Curiosidades: Culinários; Históricos; Esportivos; Naturais; Urbanos, Rurais; Aces-
síveis às PcD.
Esses critérios são essenciais para proporcionar um parâmetro de como o
webjornalismo de viagem está sendo executado.
REFERÊNCIAS
Marcela Cartolano1
Marco Bonito2
Trail start
This text intends to develop questions pertinent to the journalistic techniques used
for the composing of the trip narratives in Brazilian news portals. The present research
is a fruit of the Final Paper (TCC – Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso), of the course of
Journalism in Universidade Federal do Pampa (Unipampa), and seeks to investigate about
how the “Travel Journalism” appropriates from the report techniques in tourism contents.
The piece is conceived from three dimensions: the discussion about the subject
matter, the content analysis and the Journalistic portals analyzed. These segments allow
reaching a parameter about the travel narratives, given that the general objective consists
of classifying it through questionings about the production and the specific objectives
try to identify the journalistic bias inside the travel editors, aiming to contribute with
the improvement in the quality of the productions through critic reflection about
the content made. Therefore, initially, from systematic observation and exploratory
research about the subject-matter, it’s been possible to understand about how the
journalistic portals lack of a critical look when the subjects are related to tourism. The
proposal was to discuss the subject-matter from these points which guide the research
construction and critically establish a comprehension of what is being investigated.
Thus, since the research demands the exploration of other knowledge
fields, the logic of transmetology was used (MALDONADO, 2002) as a form
of methodological procedure, bringing the dialogue and logics from the areas
of Applied Social Sciences, Human Sciences, Economic Sciences and the
Technological scope, where appropriations of Journalism, Tourism, History,
Geography, Culture, Sociology, Philosophy, Economics and Technology are made.
In other words, the object has been treated in the techno social ambit, with the
exploitation of other knowledge areas, which allows collaboration - in different
angles and points of view – with the academic research in Social Communication.
Travel Narratives
To be put in practice this proposal used an online form for the execution of the
data gathering. This form, which was answered by the researchers themselves, was
1 Graduate degree in Journalism from Universidade Federal do Pampa and postgraduate in Media, Information
and culture from Universidade de São Paulo. E-mail: mmcartolano@gmail.com.
2 PhD. Marco Bonito: Doctorate degree in Communicational Processes from Unisinos and Master’s degree
in Media Culture in UNIP, Professor of the course of Journalism, Publicity and Propaganda in Universidade
Federal do Pampa - Unipampa. E-mail: marcobonito@unipampa.edu.br. Scientific Repository: www.marcobonito.
academia.edu. Social Network: @marcobonito.
398 composed by categories and criteria that allowed to identify, with the data computing,
the journalistic elements from five Brazilian portals, where their own indication was
based in the exploratory research and the Brazilian Media Research.
precepts so that it is not only an entertainment. For that reason, the sites that work
with this genre have an urgency to restructure the narratives production methods,
remembering that the journalist has a fundamental role in the society and must
produce the tourism guidelines from the development he/she brings.
The journalism and the tourism at the beginning of the XXI century, and their
interrelationships, represent the development of two powerful structures of
399 the modern world. While tourism solidifies as the third most job creator
economy of the planet (direct and indirect), journalism presents itself as the
fourth power (RODRIGUES, 2008, p. 5).
The cultural, economic and social developments are approaches that the
journalism should bring to these editors by investigative journalism. Even though
these narratives have more loosen features, from its written form to the composition
of the materials, the importance of the information stills the same, for the travel reader
searches for service contents. Furthermore, seeing that in 2016 there was an arrival
of 6,6 millions of tourists in Brazil, as stated in the Ministry of Tourism (Ministério
do Turismo / MTur), it is noticed that the travel industry is directly associated as way
to make a profit, generate jobs and culture.
Thus, information becomes a determining tool in the life of thousands of tourists.
According to Ignarra (2011, p. 19) “For these tourist movements (in their more varied
forms) to take place, there’s a need for the existence of a few elements. The main
one is the tourist destination, that is, the place searched by the tourist”, soon, the
responsibility of the journalist to indicate the place to be visited demands previous
study and exploratory research about the economic and sociocultural context, so that
it contemplates the reader’s need.
The objectivity and depth of the elaborated guidelines make them differ;
some of the characteristics that Pena (2017) considers is the struggle to transform
the significant fact in relevant guidelines and the journalism obligation of working
with the truth. That way, if the conflict is in the travel content production in the
journalistic portals, it’s indispensable to identify these characteristics. And, if
currently the internet provides the easy access to journalistic material dissemination
- like the circulation of content in multiple platforms – and the tourism contributes
to the country development, having a field to be explored, it makes no sense that
these editors have their material segregated or disqualified.
Therefore, when content is thought for the web, the journalist has the chance to
go deeper into the subject, thinking about a script that adds elements and multimedia
formats such as texts, photos, videos, podcasts and info graphics, amongst other that
may be correlated, making it more concise and attractive to the reader. To Mielniczuk
(2000) “perhaps an alternative tool that could enable the usage of the link in the
journalistic narrative would be the one that contemplated the fragmentation of the
text in informative cells already aat the moment of writing”, that is, this link is what
relates and binds one material to another, giving meaning to the narrative; differently
from what has been found in travel content currently, where they are, in big part,
shallow and incomplete.
Travel Narratives
Since some editors which are considered to be less important started losing
space in the media, the internet has been a tool that makes it possible to compensate
this segregation. If tourism is such a relevant area in society, the travel editors need
to start demonstrating that by a more practical bias in the articles. Piza (2004) brought
up an interesting aspect to be analyzed in relation to how the journalistic genres
publication needs to offer a set of looks.
400 Consequently, if the tourism is a fundamental part of the economy and the
marketing industry is behind the consumption that will generate more profit,
journalistic portals only tend to win by investing in specialized travel productions,
for it would contemplate the reader with the information, the culture through the
contact with the new, the economy with the tourists flow and the historical aspect
and social with the visibility of and familiarity with the place. In other words, these
areas are related and the journalism is one of the only professions that can show how
this is established in practice.
Initially, it’s crucial to understand that philosophy is behind any human practice,
because it causes a reflection about the man and the world, since they involve questions
like ethics, the meaning of life and the logic of such actions. “What is tourism? How is
knowledge produced in tourism? What are the bases on which knowledge in tourism
is based?” (NETTO, 2005, p. 28) Questions that make it clear that this scope needs a
definition, so that it can later be related in other dimensions such as communication,
history, society, economy, culture, among many others possible to work with.
It is known that it is viable to explore the tourist field in several aspects, but
Travel Narratives
when associated to communication its importance for local development has a chance
to be recognized. Castrogiovanni (2008) maintains the link of geography with the
tourist space and understands that without communication, it may be impossible to
understand them and also maintains the conception of how communication is needed
on the awareness of a tourism culture:
402 The media try to schedule a tourist culture of consumption for certain
places. In other words, there has been the manipulation of the geographical
space, through a discourse, which leads to the consumption need of a Place,
therefore is latent the discussion of what should be understood by tourism
culture. (CASTROGIOVANNI, 2008, p.3)
The fashion of traveling keeps is in vogue and to serve this public eagering for
novelties, travel narratives are present in weekly publications, general interest,
men’s magazines, women’s and teenagers, among others, as well as on sites
such as UOL Viagens, besides tour booklets of newspapers throughout the
country, such as the State of São Paulo and Folha de São Paulo. (MARTINEZ,
2012, page 46)
That is, the publishing companies specialized in tourism have long been joining
audiences to consume this kind of content. To complement and develop on tourism,
Avighi (1992) explains that after industrialization, communication bloomed on the
transformations terrain, including social ones, and with this, communication began
to organize the tourism sector.
Therefore, tourism journalism is currently one of the genres that has been
highlighting, although its importance is not from today. It goes beyond personal
interest and leisure, as a historical and contemporary tool, where people are based to
get more information about tourist areas. Next, it will be presented the importance of
the use of journalism techniques in content productions.
Travel Narratives
After studying the association between journalism and the tourist area and
understanding its theories, it is necessary to highlight and problematize the reporting
techniques that need to be found in journalistic productions, where it covers the agenda,
canvass, interview, amongst others. Floresta and Braslauskas (2009) understand that
in the process of building a schedule, it is necessary that professionals use creativity
403 and that one should not go to the field with previous judgments.
The research and readings on the topic are seen as important points, besides the
fact that the reporter can propose new approaches. Still, for Floresta and Braslauskas
(2009) the article becomes richer when the professional can report, in an interview,
the reaction of the interviewees, which enriches the journalistic production and the
final content, especially if developed in the multimedia sphere. Therefore, the process
of producing an article requires different facts and trends. At first, the construction of
an article must go through a previous stage which involves the team responsible for
the editing, checking, data collection and information checking.
In order to understand the techniques, it is also necessary to use Lage (2011)
which deals with the theory, technique of interview and journalistic research that
contribute to the deepening of journalism productions, helping to construct studies
on the subject in depth, since the necessity starts from the problem of how these
techniques are applied within the travel contents of the analyzed portals.
It should also be remembered that they are part of the construction of news,
because it is they who give the guidelines of how to put into practice and establish
relevant elements within the agenda. According to Lage (2011, p. 18) the news had
its modern form from the valuation of the most important aspect of an event “In
the case of published text, this main information should be the first, in the form of
a complete lead proposition, meaning, with the circumstances of time, place, mode,
cause, purpose and instrument”, that means that in the publication of an article,
these steps must be evident in order to have the transparency and clarity of what the
newspaper is proposing to the reader.
Thus, the relevance and the necessity of analyzing the products of travel
journalism are justified, in order to identify those requirements mentioned by the
authors in the productions. Since not all the reports are carried out by journalists, it is
necessary to be attentive to the construction of scripts and the new forms of reports.
In order to understand in practice how these techniques are employed,
an informative data collection about tourism contents was carried out, using a
Google form. The definition for this procedure was the selection of five journalistic
portals that work with the tourism publishers, which was acquired according to a
questionnaire executed based on the ranking of the Brazilian Media Research (2016)
and the observation of sites that stand out by the public, they are: Catraca Livre
(54.2%), Viagem e Turismo (50%), UOL (41.7%), G1 (39.6%) and O Estadão (22.9%). The
collection was performed based on the following criteria:
Within the five analyzed portals, 15 journalistic materials were collected³, being
three contents of each site, being the main subjects that were highlighted by the
publishing houses. Based on what was observed in the responses, 92.2% of the subjects
contained exploratory research, 85.7% the use of data, but didn’t use info graphics;
interviewing, 28.6%, in a textual format only, with official and/or independent sources.
About the Writing Techniques, it is stated that 53.3% of the contents have the
journalistic title, 100% correct use of the cultured norm of the Portuguese Language,
80% work with the informative text, having 53.3% of objectivity, 60 % clarity and
46.7% conciseness. In addition, 53% 3 articles admit adjectives.
As for the narratives, from 15 articles (in brackets the computed quantity),
present Journalistic narrative (8), Literary narrative (5), Hyper textual narrative (11),
being Conjunctive (3) and Disjunctive (8), remembering that the contents may have
those criteria in the same text.
Turning specifically to the type of content, it is verified that the majority is
aimed at the public service with 86.7%, 53.3% contain advertising report and 20%
commercial, being 33.3% mixed contents, that is, the mix of these items. It was also
concluded, through the result (0%), that these analyzed materials did not deal with
journalistic events or collaborative content.
Regarding the aesthetics of multimedia content, all materials have photos,
however, the quality of the images vary between Reasonable (2), Good (4), Very Good
(4) and Excellent (4)3. It is important to note that among the fifteen articles analyzed,
only one contained video, classified as “Good”, that is, no audio or info graphic were
identified within the content.
The last topic filled out is about the Guideline and Journalistic Approach, the
first step verified in relation to the profile, script and curiosities. In “profile”, the results
Travel Narratives
are: historical (1), natural (7), urban (5) and cultural (3); no profile was found aimed at
culinary (0), rurality (0) and accessibility (0). In “scripts”, we find culinary (2), historical
(1), natural (6), urban (5), cultural (7) and accessible to People with Disabilities (3),
again excluding the rural scope. In the part of “curiosities”, the criteria of culinary (4),
historical (1), natural (2), urban (2) and cultural (3) are met. As for the second stage
3 The numbers 1 to 5 refer to the quality of the aesthetic content visible in the contents.
405 of the approach, the results obtained were about the contextualization within the
subject, being found the historical categories (2), local (8), social (2), technological (1),
economic (5) and cultural ), leaving out the sports contextualization (0).
From what is visibly shown by these data, it is noticed that journalistic sites
did not meet half the criteria of the form, beginning with the production techniques,
where the majority appropriates the exploratory research and the use of data (in the
sense of numbers within the text), but does not use info graphics as a way to convey
the information. Much of it also lacks the use of sources, which would allow for the
insertion of interviews. There is a need to explore the interviews and/or elements of
the content beyond the textual, making use of audios, videos and photos. Just as it is
necessary that these sites take care of the links made available within the narratives,
because in general, when put in large quantity, it risks being only an advertising
report, devaluing what the site has to offer within its own editorials , since these
portals seek to treat public service.
In relation to the multimedia aesthetics, all the materials have photos, few with
the highest quality and, as for the other questions they leave much to be desired,
becoming mediocre in this scope. Content, when exploited in a multimedia way,
contributes to product completeness, adding a better understanding of the destination
being treated and broadening the options for the readers.
The last criterion, not less important, is related to the agenda and the journalistic
approach of these travel narratives. Stressing that in this category, there are different
useful options that should be in the materials. According to the results, it is understood
that the materials work with a similar bias, although they contextualize the place,
they lack to explore historical, cultural, social, and political aspects, and there is the
lack of curiosity of these points as well. It is noticed that these subjects are oriented
to scripts, however, from this perspective, the elements contained within the content
are lacking, since of fifteen subjects analyzed only three contained accessibility for
People with Disabilities, being clear the lack of inclusion within the contents. The
following are the general considerations of the work.
This research sought to know, address and investigate how travel narratives are
developed by journalism, specifically within the journalistic sites: the Viagem e Turismo
magazine (Abril), G1, Universo Online (UOL), Estado de São Paulo (Estadão) and
Catraca Livre. The proposal to understand the outcomes related to the use of reporting
techniques has expanded, providing a critical perspective on the subject. If the objective
Travel Narratives
was to classify and analyze how journalism has been treating the travel narratives in
relation to the productions of the contents made available in the Brazilian sites, we
can state, based on what has been analyzed, that they are developed in a shallow and
superficial way; what manifests the inquiry not only for the lack of journalistic bias in
the productions, but on how this information is being passed to the reader.
Thus, the problem and guiding question of the research: “In what way journalistic
techniques of production are applied in the portals that work with travel contents?”
406 allowed a more comprehensive conception, going beyond the understanding of the
techniques, but to a reflection of the commitment the journalist has to the society.
Therefore, the existence of this type of journalism is verified; however, it is not
possible to affirm that the same one develops from the use of all the techniques of
production and reportage.
According to the problem presented and the procedures used to solve it, we
noticed that the applied form facilitated to reach a parameter of how these techniques
are being applied and which exactly are the most used by the sites. Through the
analysis, the use of exploratory research, data use and image exposure in most of
the contents is verifiable, but this is little compared to the rest of the techniques
demonstrated. Another important factor is the lack of depth in these portals, and it
is possible to make these editorials more interesting if properly explored, since they
would offer the reader more useful subjects.
It is undeniable that tourism publishers need to include the “step by step”
within a roadmap and clarify the type of agenda, as well as to obtain information
about local, cultural, historical, economic, political, and social contexts. After all, if
the main characteristic of the journalistic profession is to work with the information,
this cannot generate doubts in the publication of a news/report, otherwise, it does
not fit the functionality of a journalist, since the professional commitment is in
informing and portraying the reality.
Therefore, we consider that the tourism editor is subject to be pointed out less
important than the others in the journalistic sites, because it can be seen only as a leisure
area. There is a lack of understanding of the magnitude that tourism brings to local
growth, and the media should take advantage of it to explore new types of information
content and axes. Therefore, as a profession that must carry the information to the
citizen, the journalist must perform a quality work with the travel narratives.
REFERENCES
Lian Tai1
ficavam com muito ruído, já que todos os lugares eram barulhentos, além de que
as melhores conversas surgiam nos momentos informais pós-entrevista. Como eu
estava o tempo inteiro cercada de viajantes, o trabalho de observação participante
era constante e eu apenas fazia anotações, além de acompanhar os informantes
paralelamente nas redes sociais.
Em ambos os momentos da pesquisa buscamos analisar os discursos sobre
viagens e os usos da internet, embora o segundo tenha possibilitado de fato observar
as práticas dos viajantes em suas jornadas.
410 Turista ou viajante: uma questão de autenticidade
século XVIII expressa um ideário de retorno à natureza muito diferente daquele que
se tinha até então. A natureza passa a ter seu valor não em virtude da simplicidade ou
rusticidade, mas pelo que ela desperta em nós.
Essa virada expressivista tem papel fundamental no ideário romântico e,
consequentemente, na noção de autenticidade que nos chega hoje e se mostrará
presente de forma importante nos relatos dos viajantes. É preciso que a voz interior se
torne manifesta. Porém isso não implica que algo já elaborado ou pronto seja exposto,
mas a própria manifestação contém em si o processo de significação. Damos forma
e criamos ao mesmo tempo, e essa realização me permite comungar com o impulso
412 interior, ou a voz da natureza em mim. Aqui se realiza a ideia de que cada indivíduo é
único e original, e é essa originalidade que vai guiar nosso modo de vida.
Devemos viver, portanto, de acordo com esse impulso interior que nos é único
e, a partir dele, trilhar um caminho original. É nessa originalidade que reside a
autenticidade. Com a diluição dos papeis sociais definidos por hierarquia, próprios
das sociedades pré-modernas, o reconhecimento passa a ser pautado pela descoberta
de jeitos originais de ser. E assim a autenticidade passa a ter valor central para a
construção do self nas sociedades individualistas.
Há, entretanto, uma relação íntima entre a ética romântica e o espírito do
consumismo moderno. Este, classificado como hedonismo autoilusivo (Campbell,
2001), resulta em uma peculiar insatisfação com a vida real e um incessante consumo
de novidade, que se acha no cerne de muitas condutas típicas da vida moderna e
reforça as bases de instituições fundamentais como a moda e o amor romântico.
Portanto o movimento romântico, a noção de autenticidade e o consumismo moderno
apresentam relação íntima e inevitável entre si, chegando ao ponto em que a realização
da autenticidade deve passar pelo consumo para se concretizar.
Essa busca por autenticidade através do consumo será de importância
fundamental ao tratarmos do turismo e especialmente do viajante contemporâneo.
A princípio, pode parecer que não há relação forte entre o consumo e o viajante, já
que este se mostra, em seus discursos, avesso ao consumismo exarcebado. Porém,
quando analisamos cuidadosamente, vemos que a realização da autenticidade se dá
pelas formas de consumo, que adquirem características específicas.
Uma das opções de consumo muito presentes entre os viajantes e que ilustra
bem como a autenticidade é ligada ao consumo é a opção entre mala ou mochila. Esta
pode ser mais útil em caso de trilhas ou percursos off-road, embora em contextos
urbanos as malas possam ser até mais práticas. Porém o contexto simbólico em que
malas e mochilas estão inseridas acaba por ter um peso considerável. Enquanto
malas remetem a viagens turísticas, as mochilas remetem a viagens alternativas,
desprendidas, como podemos ver em relato de um dos informantes sobre uma viagem
a trabalho:
Normalmente eu viajo de mochilão, mas, como era a trabalho, tive que levar
mala, o que já me deixou de mau humor. E eu tinha que ficar acompanhando
uns caras engravatados, tudo muito careta. Foi a pior viagem que eu já fiz, não
tinha nada a ver comigo.
Narrativas de Viagem
Onde você está, está cheio de japoneses com câmeras enormes tirando fotos.
Eles nem olham nada, só fotografam e vão embora.
Os japoneses são muito rígidos, eles não sabem aproveitar a viagem. Eles
só vão onde o guia manda e não fazem nada fora da programação. A única
preocupação deles é fotografar. Você vê que os japoneses e os próprios
indianos são os que mais fazem selfies.
Quando você vai ao Louvre, você nem consegue ver a Mona Lisa. É um quadro
pequenininho lá atrás e um monte de japoneses tirando fotos na sua frente,
com câmeras de última geração. Eles nem apreciam o quadro.
Narrativas de Viagem
Pelos relatos, percebemos que não apenas o que se consome tem valor simbólico
fundamental para definir o tipo de viagem e um suposto nível de autenticidade dela,
como também quem e como se consome. Há uma diferenciação que distingue grupos
sociais e também países centrais de emergentes, ou países ocidentais de orientais.
É essencial percebermos que a noção de “quem sabe se comportar” ou “quem sabe
a forma certa de se consumir” parte de uma noção ligada a grupos sociais e exclui
grupos periféricos. O “ser viajante autêntico” cabe a alguns que sabem se comportar de
414 determinada maneira e parte de lugares e classes sociais específicas. Aos periféricos,
cabe a autenticidade local, como o nativo ou exótico, mas não no lugar do viajante.
Como destino de viagem, os lugares não-centrais (central, aqui, definido como
moderno ocidental) são considerados os mais autênticos, de acordo com os relatos dos
viajantes. Exemplificamos com o relato de um jovem europeu, que passara um ano
viajando pela Europa e Ásia:
Eu senti uma diferença enorme na minha viagem depois que cheguei ao Nepal.
No Nepal e na Índia minha experiência é muito mais profunda, é diferente. Os
outros lugares são mais turísticos. Os viajantes aqui são diferentes. As minhas
relações aqui ficaram mais profundas. Na Tailândia e na Indonésia, por
exemplo, era mais festa e drogas. Aqui eu fumo maconha de vez em quando,
mas com um propósito muito diferente.
Ela não será a pessoa mais bem vestida por aí, porém a pele queimada de
sol e o corpo com os músculos naturalmente desenhados de tantos dias
nas montanhas combinados com brincos sulamericanos, uma mochila
da Espanha e sapatos da Ásia farão uma combinação de estilo tão única,
tão vibrante, que você já saberá alguma coisa sobre ela antes mesmo de
perguntar seu nome. Não jogue com ela, não diga que ela é linda, pergunte
de onde vem essa camiseta que ela veste, escute-a, veja a simplicidade da
resposta e não se preocupe: você viajará com os causos dela antes mesmo
que perceba isso. Ela lê livros de viagens, escuta Eddie Vedder na estrada,
sabe nomes de lugares maravilhosos dos quais você nunca havia ouvido
falar antes.
Analisando este texto, que apresenta a imagem do que seria uma viajante
autêntica, podemos dizer que ela é uma viajante de origem ou valores ocidentais que
viaja por lugares periféricos e, consequentemente, consome produtos desses países:
brincos sulamericanos, sapatos da Ásia. Espanha, país europeu, é o único nome de
país citado, em vez do continente. A “pele queimada de sol” nos indica que a viajante
Narrativas de Viagem
tem especial relevo tanto no tipo de viagem realizada quanto em suas narrativas,
especialmente pelas interfaces de comunicação oferecidas pela internet.
Como já vimos, essa autenticidade é característica importante da identidade
moderna e, apesar de ter surgido de certa maneira como contraponto à massificação
imposta pelo capitalismo, ela acaba intrinsecamente ligada ao consumo. Daí que uma
das maneiras centrais de se buscar autenticidade é pelos produtos que se consome.
Nesse processo o próprio sujeito torna-se, também, um produto a ser gerenciado, em
consonância com o movimento, já descrito por Sibilia e Bezerra, de mudança de eixo
417 da subjetividade. Neste movimento, o paradigma da interioridade psicológica vai se
enfraquecendo, à medida que a subjetividade migra para a superfície.
As novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação vão ter papel importante
nesse processo, porque através delas o sujeito vai construir sua subjetividade e
negociar identidade:
diz respeito ao mais íntimo de cada um, mas que esse íntimo é também produto, que,
dotado das qualidades e habilidades exigidas no mundo em rede, ganha valor.
Os viajantes pesquisados tem em comum a aspiração de transformar o ofício
de viajar em trabalho, ou de pelo menos vincular seu trabalho com as viagens. Essa
aspiração possui um elo com um imperativo vigente entre as classes médias e altas
na atualidade de que o trabalho deve ser uma fonte de prazer e fruição pessoal. Essa
visão carrega uma imensa influência do romantismo e expressivismo, que valorizam
a expressão da subjetividade como realização pessoal.
418 Fala-se em imperativo da felicidade (Freire Filho, 2010) para designar o
momento atual, em que o bem-estar se torna questão relevante, estando presente nas
mídias e nas pesquisas científicas, proliferando a busca pela psicologia, por terapias
e religiosidades alternativas e por fármacos que controlam o humor, a ansiedade e a
atividade. Podemos dizer que o discurso de que todos podem ter um emprego que dê
prazer é um dos reflexos desse imperativo da felicidade. Ligado a essa aspiração do
trabalho prazeroso está o ideal de transformar o trabalho em viagem.
Nesse ideal, a atividade por excelência é a “produção de conteúdo”, ou seja,
utilizar a mídia, especialmente as mídias digitais, para criar e expor narrativas de
viagem. O ideal, portanto, é transformar a viagem em espetáculo, de forma que
ela possa ser capitalizada e gerar dinheiro. Porém, em um mundo cada vez mais
conectado, há poucos lugares inacessíveis, naquilo que alguns chamam de “fim do
exótico”. Se partirmos do princípio de que quase tudo foi visto, o que fará, então,
com que o conteúdo produzido pelo viajante tenha público suficiente para ser bem
sucedido como trabalho? É este o ponto central dessa aspiração e como ela se conecta
ao novo espírito do capitalismo. Para que o conteúdo produzido seja interessante,
é preciso que o viajante se construa como personagem, ou melhor, como produto
atraente. Como é cada vez mais comum e mais disputado esse espaço, o que definirá
um empreendimento bem sucedido será uma boa administração de si, sendo a
autenticidade o principal valor agregado.
O viajante que se empreende e administra a própria imagem, que não é tida
como meramente uma imagem, mas como a própria “interioridade” ou subjetividade,
já que o autêntico será aquele que mais se aproxima do “verdadeiro eu”, o que
aparenta ser mais espontâneo, profundo, sincero, é aquele com maior valor de venda
e possibilidade de conexão. De acordo com a lógica do “novo espirito do capitalismo”,
para que o sujeito estabeleça conexões ele precisa ter o que oferecer. Neste caso,
podemos identificar a “autenticidade” como moeda de troca ou atrativo para o
estabelecimento dessas redes.
Conclusão
REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
Lian Tai1
“It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The
furniture insists we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting
keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who
we essencially are.” . (Alain de Botton, 2000, p.68).
The above passage from Alain de Botton’s book “The Art of Travel” is an
example of how travel has been considered a means of accessing a so-called “true
self.” Although this conception is not new, the way in which such access is interpreted
varies throughout history, insofar as the very conception of what is the “true self”
also changes: the way human subjectivity is treated and, therefore, what is considered
its “essence” or “nature” has been transformed over the centuries.
Based on the assumption that travel narratives can help us outline the subjectivity
of a time, we can think of how contemporary subjectivity is shown through the travel
stories that are produced today. In order to deepen this research, in 2016 I defended
the PhD thesis entitled “Alternative Travelers and the Internet: Construction,
Management and Entrepreneurship of Subjectivity”, under the guidance of PhD
Prof. Bruno Campanella. Such research revolved around the following questions:
How does the contemporary traveler build its identity from travel? What is the role
of digital technologies in this process? How have these technologies transformed
travel modes? What does this way of traveling and narrating travels reveal about
contemporary subjectivity?
I will therefore draw from the results obtained in my PhD research to develop
reflections about travel narratives as a way of building and managing the self. I focus
on the narratives exposed on the internet, especially in blogs and social networks,
considering that the network connection is paradigmatic of contemporaneity, as will
be developed below.
In both moments of the research we tried to analyze the speeches about travel
and the uses of the internet, although the second one has made it possible to observe
the travelers’ practices personally in their journeys.
the nature’s voice in me. Here is the idea that each individual is unique and original,
and it is this originality that will guide our way of life.
We must live, therefore, according to this inner impulse that is unique and,
from it, to tread an original path. It is in this originality that authenticity lies. With
the dilution of the social roles defined by hierarchy, typical of pre-modern societies,
recognition is based on the discovery of original ways of being. And so authenticity
becomes central to the construction of the self in individualistic societies.
424 There is, however, an intimate relationship between romantic ethics and the
spirit of modern consumerism. This kind of consumption, defined as self-illusive
hedonism (Campbell, 2001,) results in a peculiar dissatisfaction with real life and an
incessant consumption of novelty, which is at the heart of many modern life typical
behaviors and reinforces the foundations of fundamental institutions, like fashion and
romantic love. Thus, the romantic movement, the notion of authenticity and modern
consumerism are intimately and inevitably related to each other, reaching the point
where the accomplishment of authenticity must pass through consumption in order
to materialize.
This quest for authenticity through consumption will be of fundamental
importance when dealing with tourism and especially the contemporary traveler.
At first, it may seem that there is no strong relation between consumption and the
traveler, since they show, in their speeches, averse to exaggerated consumerism.
However, when we analyze carefully, we see that the accomplishment of authenticity
is given by the forms of consumption, which acquire specific characteristics.
One consumer choice that illustrates well how authenticity is tied to consumption
is the choice between suitcase or backpack. Backpacks may be more useful in case of
off-road trails or routes, although in urban contexts the suitcases may be even more
practical. But the symbolic context in which bags and backpacks are inserted ends
up having a considerable weight. While suitcases refer to tourist trips, the backpacks
refer to alternative and detached trips, as we can see in one of the informants’ speech
about a work trip:
I usually travel with a backpack, but, as it was a work trip, I had to carry a
suitcase, which already made me in a bad mood. And I had to keep up with
some guys in suits and ties, all very tidy. It was the worst trip I ever had, it had
nothing to do with me.
In this speech, we find a relation between the terms “suitcase” and “suits and
ties”. Those terms also support the image of conservatism. In contrast to this image,
the traveler claims to prefer wearing a backpack, revealing his predilection for trips
that are considered freer and more authentic. This is a clear example of how the
symbolism of consumption products is linked to the idea of authenticity and how
such choices do not necessarily connect with the travel practice, but with imagination
in regard to the pursuit of pleasure. These are preferences that would characterize
internal idiosyncrasies, that is, subjective interiority, but which, in order to be
accomplished, have to turn out to be visible, in this case through the consumption
product “backpack”, which connotes more authentic travels than the suitcase.
Travel Narratives
When it comes to food, the choice that seems most authentic can range from
the typical dish, with tradition and local ingredients, to a food based on processed
products, as long as they are as cheap as possible. At this point, the two strands are
very present, as we see in the accounts of two travelers below:
I stayed at a family home in Bolivia, on Lake Titicaca. I did not want to stay
in those common places, so I stayed for a few days in a little known place in
425 their house. So I ate their food every day. The meal was just several kinds of
baked potato, without even salt.
People think you need to have a lot of money to travel, but they are wrong. It’s
that they have a very different travel standard than I do. If you are traveling
comfortably, staying in hotels, eating at expensive restaurants, it really gets
expensive. But I travel the poorest way as possible. I spend days eating cup
noodles, but I save money to do other things.
Regarding cameras and image recording devices, the logic seems to be the
opposite. The bigger and more professional the cameras, the more linked to an
authentic type of trip, and it is usually better to shoot with a camera than with a
multipurpose device, such as a tablet or cell phone. That happens because cameras
are seen as possible instruments of art, while tablets and cell phones are seen as tools
of self-promotion, so that the images made by these devices would have the sole
purpose of being displayed on social networks without a more “noble” purpose.
In the research carried out in Varanasi, we find as exception of the valuation
of the camera to the detriment of the cell phones, the reports that cited the Japanese
travelers. As there is a very strong tourism of Japanese in India, there was also a clear
differentiation between them, who were seen as tourists, and the western ones, who
considered themselves travelers. Several mentions were made to the Japanese travelers:
Everywhere is full of Japanese with huge cameras taking pictures. They do not
even look at anything, just photograph and leave.
The Japanese are very strict, they do not know how to enjoy the trip. They
only go where the guide says and do nothing out of programming. Their
only concern is taking pictures. You see that the Japanese and the Indians
themselves are the ones who take selfies the most.
When you go to the Louvre, you cannot even see the Mona Lisa. It’s a little
frame back there and a lot of Japanese taking pictures in front of you, with last
generation cameras. They do not even appreciate the picture.
Through the speeches, we realize that not only what is consumed has fundamental
symbolic value to define the type of trip and a supposed level of authenticity, but also
who consume and how. There is a differentiation that distinguishes social groups,
as well as central from emerging countries, or Western from Eastern countries. It is
essential to realize that the notion of “who knows how to behave” or “who knows
the right way to consume” starts from a notion linked to social groups and excludes
Travel Narratives
She will not be the best dressed person out there, but sunburned skin and
body with the naturally drawn muscles of so many days in the mountains
combined with South American earrings, a Spanish backpack and Asian shoes
will make a combination of such a unique style , so vibrant, that you will
already know something about her before even asking her name. Do not play
games with her, do not say she is beautiful, ask where the t-shirt she wears
comes from, listen to her, see the simplicity of the answer and do not worry:
you will travel with her stories even before you know it. She reads travel
books, listens to Eddie Vedder on the road, knows names of wonderful places
you’ve never heard of before.
When we analize this text, which presents the image of what would be an
authentic traveler, we can say that she is a girl who has Western values and travels to
peripheral places and consequently consumes products from these countries: South
American earrings, shoes from Asia. Spain, the European country, is the only country
cited by name instead of the continent. The “sunburnt skin” tells us that the traveler
is probably white. We must therefore consider that even though travelers’ symbols
and what they define as authenticity are not localized, since it is a shared vision
among travelers from various parts of the world and cosmopolitan, the reference
of authenticity has a pattern: the white Western person, although there are many
travelers of other ethnic groups
Benilton Bezerra Jr. (2002) and others, that modern Western societies are currently
experiencing a moment of paradigm shift, regarding subjectivity. Such a change
consists in a dilution of the boundaries between the public and the private, in which
the human essence is no longer considered as that of the premodern public man, in
which its identity was attributed according to function in the social group, nor remains
with the same characteristics of the private and of the psychological interiority, that
marked the individual from the modernity.
427 As intimacy and subjectivity become more open and exposed, the boundaries
between public and private become fluid. This dilution of frontiers reaches its paroxysm
with the creation and popularization of the Internet, in which people expose what
was previously considered to be private, in a process called by Guy Debord(2011) as
“spectacularization of the self”.
Through this spectacularization of self, the person constructs oneself as a
commodity, in what Zygmunt Bauman (2007) calls “consumer society”, which is no
longer the same “consumption society”. According to him, this society is characterized
by a “reconstruction of human relations based on the pattern and similarity of the
relations between consumers and objects of consumption” (p.18). The individual,
there, assumes a double role, from being only a consumer to becoming, also, an object
of consumption.
Digital technologies appear in this context as great accomplices of the movement
of turning man into commodity, with its many tools that allow us the exposure of
tastes, preferences and images, such as social networks, image sharing networks and
blogs, serving as perfect windows for the new good. Thus, we would be not only the
consumption object, but our own marketing agent, supported by the possibilities of
the internet.
In this society of consumers, the person at the same time sells and builds an
image of himself, so that he becomes attractive to the market and, at the same time,
gives meaning to its subjectivity. This construction has a double meaning: that of
recognition by the other, but also of self-identification. By becoming visible, the
subject not only becomes visible to the other, but creates meaning for one’s own
existence, in a process that increasingly permeates the visibility instruments.
This is a very important phenomenon when we try to understand the
contemporary traveler who uses digital technologies in the negotiation of one’s
identity and in the creation of meaning in one’s travel experiences. The identity
negotiation of those travelers happens through such technologies and from the
narratives built on these instruments. At the same time, however, they only make
sense because they are about “deep” experiences, that is, they belong to the universe
of psychological interiority, according to which the essence of the person resides
within him.
The contemporary traveler is the one who seeks, in his travels, deep experiences,
that will reveal his “inner self.” But such experiences can only be complete and
make sense as they are spectacularized, made visible through images and narratives
that are constructed, exposed and re-signified in digital media. This fluidity of the
boundaries between the public and the private, the intimate and the exposed, the
Travel Narratives
deep and the surface, is evidenced, therefore, in the construction of the subjectivity
of the contemporary traveler.
For travelers, it is not just the travel practice that defines them, but the “traveling
spirit,” which is also revealed by practices, but which would be part of the “essence”
of the person, even when one is not in a travel situation. Being a traveler would
be an inner and subjective condition, and one way to “accomplish” that spirit is to
bring it to the surface. The “bring to the surface” can often be literal, as is the case of
428 tattoos that mark the person as a traveler or register a special place. In most cases
this construction appears not only on the surface, but on the surface of the surface,
since in many cases the traveler not only has his skin tattooed, but also exposes the
photograph of the tattoo immediately on the internet.
Most travelers seeking authenticity in their travels are aware of the need
to make the subjective self visible, which ultimately causes a conflict. On the one
hand they criticize those who they judge to care deeply about “showing off”, those
who take many pictures, especially selfies, which they consider empty ostentation
and narcissism. This makes them show some contempt for the excessive use of
technological devices and communication in general. On the other hand, even if
they criticize, they do not cease to be part of this distinctive search and then they
have to find ways to strengthen the traveler identity, which is often done by the
communication tools. Therefore, most use the same tools as those who they criticize,
but with excuses and reservations. To do so, one will have to look for negotiation
tactics in order to legitimize their authenticity, making their images, narratives and
exposure on the internet seem unpretentious.
We have found, so far, some essential features that make the contemporary
traveler a representative par excellence of a type of subjectivity that takes shape
nowadays. It is a traveler model that seeks to differentiate himself from the said tourist,
through, mainly, the notion of authenticity. This search has special importance both
in the type of trip carried out and in its narratives, especially by the communication
interfaces offered by the internet.
As we have seen, this authenticity is an important characteristic of modern
identity, and although it has arisen in some way as a counterpoint to the massification
imposed by capitalism, it has become intrinsically linked to consumption. Hence
one of the central ways of seeking authenticity is by the products one consumes. In
this process the person itself becomes, also, a product to be managed, in line with
the movement already described by Sibilia and Bezerra of change in the axis of
subjectivity. In this movement, the paradigm of psychological interiority is weakening,
as subjectivity migrates to the surface.
The new information and communication technologies will play an important
role in this process, because it will be through them that the person will build one’s
subjectivity and negotiate identity:
Travel Narratives
... the process of making the self an affective and public matter finds its
most potent expression in the technology of the internet, a technology that
presupposes and sets in motion a public affective self, and which, in fact, even
makes this public affective self precede and constitute the private interactions
(ILLOUZ, 2011, p.12)
The internet also becomes the main instrument by which the contemporary
subject is managed and sold as a product. This way of dealing with subjectivity is
429 aligned with what Boltanski and Chiapello (2009) call the “new spirit of capitalism”,
centered on the ideals of autonomy, flexibility and decentralization, in which network
connectivity is fundamental. However, the authors point out that the supposed
autonomy has a high price. Flexibilization would have loosened the criticism of
capitalism, which would have found in this new model a way to escape from labor
duties, reducing guarantees to the workers, and not reducing social inequalities.
This new model of social management, when valuing relational, emotional and
creative attributes, also colonizes aspects of the worker’s life that were previously
reserved for personal and domestic life, making boundaries fluid and compromising
all the characteristics of the human being at work. Also the types of relationships
that were previously considered clear are now mixed, since affective relationships
mix with work connections, because it is in this relational capacity that the quality of
the professional resides. We have, therefore, a model in which each one is seen as an
entrepreneur and, above all, an entrepreneur of oneself.
The demands of the companies, previously designated hierarchically, now
pass to the self-control of each one. It is the worker, seen as an entrepreneur, who
must “give himself” and use his abilities to serve them, being led to believe that
it is an initiative of his own. This self-management is consonant with the uses of
communication technologies, both because network connections play an essential
role in this paradigm and because through these technologies, especially in social
networks, the entrepreneur manages his own image and subjectivity. We see that
subjectivity concerns the most intimate of each one, but that this intimate is also a
product, which, endowed with the qualities and skills demanded in the networked
world, gains value.
The researched travelers have in common the aspiration of turning the travels
into work, or at least linking their work with travel. This aspiration has a link with a
prevailing imperative between the middle and upper classes in the present time that
work should be a source of personal enjoyment and pleasure. This view carries an
immense influence from romanticism and expressivism, which value the expression
of subjectivity as personal fulfillment.
We call happiness imperative (Freire Filho, 2010) to designate the present
moment, in which well-being becomes a relevant issue, and shows up in the media
and in scientific research. The demand for psychology, alternative therapies and
religiosities increse, as well as for drugs that control mood, anxiety, and activity.
We can say that the discourse that everyone can have a pleasurable job is one of the
reflexes of this happiness imperative. Linked to this aspiration of pleasurable work, is
the ideal of traveling as a job.
Travel Narratives
In this ideal, activity par excellence is the “content production”, that is, use
the media, especially digital media, to create and expose travel narratives. The ideal,
therefore, is to turn the trip into a spectacle, so that it can be capitalized and generate
money. But in an increasingly connected world, there are few inaccessible places,
in what some call “the end of the exotic.” If we assume that almost everything has
been seen, what, then, will the content produced by the traveler need to have enough
audience and be successful as work? This is the central point of this aspiration and
430 how it connects to the new spirit of capitalism. For the content produced to be
interesting, it is necessary that the traveler turns himself into a character, or rather,
as an attractive product. As this space is more and more common and competed,
what will define a successful enterprise will be a good administration of oneself, with
authenticity being the main added value.
The traveler who manages one’s own image, which is not seen merely as an
image, but as the “interiority” itself or subjectivity, since the authentic one will be
the one closest to the “true self”, which appears to be more spontaneous, profound,
sincere, is the one with greater value of sale and possibility of connection. According
to the logic of the “new spirit of capitalism”, for the person to establish connections
one must have something to offer. In this case, we can identify “authenticity” as the
exchange currency for the establishment of such networks.
Conclusion
BIBLIOGRAPHY REFERENCES
arte e política: ensaios sobre literatura e história da cultura. São Paulo: Editora
Brasiliense, 2012.
BEZERRA, JR. O ocaso da interioridade e suas representações sobre a clínica.
In: PLASTINO, C.A. (org.) Transgressões. Rio de Janeiro: Contracapa, 2002. P.229-239.
BOLTANSKI, Luc; CHIAPELLO, Éve. O novo espírito do capitalismo. São Paulo:
Martins Fontes, 2009.
431 BONDÍA, Jorge Larossa. Notas sobre a experiência e o saber de experiência.
Revista Brasileira de Educação, n.19, 2002.
BOTTON, Alain de. A arte de viajar. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2000.
CAMPANELLA, Bruno; CASTELLANO, Mayka. Cultura terapêutica e Nova Era:
comunicando a “religiosidade do self”. Comunicação, Mídia e Consumo, v.12, n.33, 2015.
CAMPBELL, Colin. A ética romântica e o espírito do consumismo moderno. Rio
de Janeiro: Rocco, 2001.
DEBORD, Guy. A sociedade do espetáculo. Rio de Janeiro: Contraponto, 2011.
DESCARTES, René. Meditações metafísicas. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2011.
FREIRE FILHO, João. Fazendo pessoas felizes: o poder moral dos relatos midiáticos.
XIX Encontro da Compós: Rio de Janeiro, 2010.
__. Ser feliz hoje: reflexões sobre o imperativo da felicidade. Rio de Janeiro: FGV,
2010.
ILLOUZ, Eva. O amor nos tempos do capitalismo. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2011.
LINDHOLM, Charles. Culture and authenticity. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
MACCANNELL, Dean. The tourist: a new theory of the leisure class. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999.
RIESMAN, David. A multidão solitária. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1995.
ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Discurso sobre a origem da desigualdade. Ridendo
Castigat Mores, 2001.
SIBILIA, Paula. O show do eu: a intimidade como espetáculo. Rio de Janeiro: Nova
Fronteira, 2008.
VAINIKKA, Vilhelmina. Rethinking mass tourism. Tourist studies, novembro,
2013. Disponível em: http: // tou.sagepub.com. Acesso em: 18 mar. 2014.
Travel Narratives
432 COMO ESCREVER UMA NARRATIVA
DE NÃO FICÇÃO DE VIAGEM?
Viajar é um paradigma humano
Parece intrínseco a nossa civilização querer conhecer como as coisas se passam
num âmbito que lhe é pouco familiar. O fascínio por paragens distantes move aqueles
que se aventuram a estenderem seus horizontes, lançarem-se ao mar, embrenharem-se
pelas florestas e superarem o temor do mistério e dos mitos, que falam sobre sereias
nas profundezas das águas, dragões e ciclopes, guardiões de terras desconhecidas. O
chamamento para deslocar-se para outros territórios permanece tão assentado no
imaginário coletivo, que a viagem adquiriu um valor arquetípico em nossa sociedade.
Até hoje, se rumarmos a um lugar incógnito, uma sensação ancestral nos invade,
preenchendo-nos de apreensão e curiosidade. Quando viajamos, um processo de
estranhamento se realiza, experienciamos outros ritmos, outros protocolos, outros
códigos. Para absorvermos o lugar de forma mais profunda, é preciso aguçar os
sentidos, observar com atenção, ouvir os sons que emanam ao nosso redor, sentir
e tocar os elementos mais prosaicos com os quais nos deparamos pelo caminho. Em
trânsito, somos convidados a desenvolver nossa habilidade de adaptação, a dilatarmos
nossa capacidade de empatia, a entendermos o diferente. Resta saber se estamos
dispostos a abraçar esse convite.
Segundo o filósofo francês Michel Onfray (2007), cedo ou tarde, identificamos em
nós mesmos o modo como encaramos os deslocamentos. Nos inscreveríamos, então,
em um de dois arquétipos diametralmente opostos: o do camponês ou o do pastor. O
Narrativas de Viagem
1 Graduada em Jornalismo pela Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), mestra em Letras, Escrita Criativa
pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS) e doutoranda em Estudos Literários pela
Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR) onde pesquisa relações entre literatura e imprensa.
433 ameaça à sua segurança, ou ao seu futuro, ele continuará inamovível, em contato com
os hábitos da comunidade, envelhecendo à sombra das árvores que vira crescer. Por
outro lado, aquele que viaja se expõe aos perigos do mundo não mantém raízes, recusa
o tempo social coletivo e limitador, toma para si o direito inalienável ao lazer, declara
guerra à cronometragem da existência. Por isso, as sociedades tendem a rechaçar o
estilo de vida nômade, devido a sua capacidade de desequilibrar as lógicas de trabalho
vigentes, que obrigam ao sedentarismo e à circunscrição a uma cidade, para que os
indivíduos sejam facilmente localizáveis por uma autoridade (ONFRAY, 2007)
O arquétipo do nômade empresta à figura do viajante muitos de seus aspectos,
uma vez que “viajar pressupõe não tanto o espírito missionário (...), limitado, mas uma
vontade descentrada, etnológica, cosmopolita e aberta”, diz Onfray (2007, p. 61). Tal
qual o pastor, o viajante se compraz com o movimento e com a mudança. É alguém à
disposição do mundo e, por isso, é aquele que conserva a “felicidade do desenraizamento,
do nomadismo, do espaço de um infinito prometido” (KRISTEVA, 1994, p.12).
Algumas das qualidades de um bom viajante residem justamente no fato de não
procurar verificar em que medida o sítio visitado corresponde à ideia antecipada que se
fazia dele. Afinal, duas características fundamentais do estado de espírito do verdadeiro
viajante são a receptividade e a humildade. Se acaso se ativer às comparações com o
que está habituado em seu lugar de origem, perceberá contrastes acentuados, mesmo
nas pequenas coisas. É por essa razão que o travel writer Cees Nooteboom enfatiza a
ideia de que a viagem traz embutida a premissa de amadurecimento psíquico, isto é,
mais do que deslocar-se para fora, a viagem é também do indivíduo ao centro de si
mesmo; uma atividade que pressupõe negociação constante sobre a qual ele ressalta:
Viajar é algo que você tem que aprender. Trata-se de uma constante negociação
com as outras pessoas, durante a qual você se encontra sozinho. E aqui reside o
paradoxo: você se move sozinho em um mundo que é controlado pelos outros.
São eles os donos da pensão onde você precisa alugar um quarto. (...) Eles falam
línguas que você não pode compreender, lhe barram a entrada em uma balsa
ou sentam-se ao seu lado em um ônibus, vendem-lhe comida no mercado e
indicam um caminho que pode ser certo ou errado; às vezes eles são perigosos,
mas em geral não são, e tudo isso está lá para ser aprendido: o que você deve
fazer e o que não deve jamais fazer (...). E cada lugar é diferente, nenhum deles
vai se parecer com aquilo que você está acostumado no país de onde veio.
(NOOTEBOOM, 2007, p. 10, tradução nossa)
rio estrangeiro2 não é uma característica do viajante; trata-se, sim, do lado mais nega-
tivo da figura do turista. Conforme sintetiza Onfray (2007, p. 61), “o viajante separa, o
turista compara”. Sobre isso, Umberto Eco sustenta, no artigo Ir ao mesmo lugar3, que
nunca se viajou tanto quanto agora, mas esse fluxo incessante faz, cada dia mais, com
que os lugares se pareçam uns com os outros. Acabamos por viajar para confirmar o
que já vimos na tela da televisão (ou nos posts do Instagram), de maneira a nos trans-
formarmos em turistas permanentes.
2 Toma-se, aqui, estrangeiro por um lugar que enseje o estranhamento do viajante.
3 Do original: Andare nello stesso posto (tradução nossa).
434 Quando tudo estiver igual a tudo, não se fará mais turismo para descobrir o
mundo verdadeiro, mas para encontrar sempre, e onde quer que estejamos, o
que já sabíamos de antemão e o que poderíamos ter facilmente assistido em
casa, em frente à televisão (ECO, 2001, para. 7, tradução nossa).
O filósofo, dessa forma, joga luz sobre uma situação bastante corrente no
contexto atual: os lugares do mundo parecem, por vezes, sofrer a pasteurização que
sufoca todas as particularidades locais, levando o visitante a ter impressões pouco
originais e a contentar-se em apreender um lugar idealizado, reduzido ao mundo das
aparências. Onfray (2007) sugere que isso geraria um ciclo vicioso, por meio do qual a
idealização acaba reverberando na realidade.
Um exemplo de figura conhecida que cultivou atitudes de turista, foi a poeta
estadunidense Elizabeth Bishop. Apesar de ter passado quase vinte anos vivendo no
Brasil, ela pouco conseguia se comunicar e escrever em português. “Sinto-me como
um cachorro, que entende tudo, mas não consegue falar”, disse em entrevista4. É
provável que a postura de Bishop de supervalorização de sua origem norte-americana
a tenha impedido de absorver e compreender aspectos cruciais da cultura brasileira,
que incluíam o idioma. Ela frequentemente interpretava o país como subdesenvolvido,
selvagem e exótico, na pior acepção da palavra. Já afirmara, inclusive: “O Brasil é
mesmo um horror5”.
Para prevenir-se dessa ótica prenhe de preconceitos, Michel Onfray aconselha
que uma viagem comece pelo sedentarismo de uma biblioteca:
4 Bishop foi entrevistada pela jornalista Ashley Brown em 1966. In: MONTEIRO, George (org.). Conversations
with Elizabeth Bishop. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1996, p. 19.
5 BISHOP, Elizabeth; LOWELL, Robert. O Brasil é mesmo um horror. piauí, Rio de Janeiro, n.35, agosto/2009.
Disponível em http://revistapiaui.estadao.com.br/edicao-35/correspondencia/o- brasil-e-mesmo-um-horror. Aces-
so em maio/2019
435 compilação de suas reportagens de viagem, publicadas originalmente no El País: “As
viagens verdadeiras carregam consigo uma mudança de consciência”6 (MONTERO,
2008, p. 11, tradução nossa). A transformação de compreensão se refletiria no modo
como interpretamos o destino escolhido:
Pode até haver outros lugares mais conhecidos por mim como turista, mas
uma coisa é o conhecimento e outra o entendimento. Quando você entende,
se funde com a realidade estrangeira, que, a partir desse momento, deixa de
ser estranha. É esse o verdadeiro sentido das viagens: perder os sentidos, sair
do seu pequeno mundo cultural, contemplar as coisas com um olhar alheio.
Viajamos porque queremos ser outros. (MONTERO, 2008, p. 9-10, tradução
nossa)7.
pica. De acordo com Onfray (2007), para esses, a apreensão de um país não necessa-
riamente se obtém através de um longo investimento temporal, mas segundo a ordem
irracional e instintiva de pura subjetividade imersa no aleatório desejado. Todavia, por
mais perspicaz que o viajante seja, é bastante improvável que esteja apto a decifrar, em
poucos dias, a complexidade de um ambiente. É o que expõe Montero (2008) ao citar
6 Do original: Los verdaderos viajes conllevan un cambio en la consciencia.
7 Do original: Puede haber otros lugares que quizá me sean más conocidos como turista, pero una cosa es el conoci-
miento y otra el entendimiento. Cuando entiendes, te fundes con la realidad extranjera, que desde ese momento deja de
ser extraña. He aquí el verdadero sentido de los viajes: perder tu sentido, salir de tu pequeño mundo cultural, contem-
plar las cosas con una mirada ajena. Viajamos porque queremos ser otros.
436 Simone de Beauvoir: “se você viaja uma semana a um país, pode redigir um livro sobre
o lugar; se permanece um ano, só uma breve crônica; e se fica uma década, é incapaz
de escrever algo”8 (p. 11-12, tradução nossa).
Michel Onfray (2007, p. 65) garante, no entanto, que a assimilação de um local
se dá “sem maiores explicações, graças a um impulso natural, que se alimenta de in-
tuições e da penetração imediata da essência das coisas”. Ele afirma ainda que: “Todos
os passeantes, os escritores de viagem, os artistas do nomadismo experimentam esta
evidência, pois todos eles vivem como iluminados, exaltados, incandescentes” (ON-
FRAY, 2007, p. 65).
Muito provavelmente, poderíamos encaixar Marco Polo como um desses “ar-
tistas do nomadismo”, intensos e observadores, capazes de captar, de modo rápido,
o espírito que permeia os cenários visitados. É certo que, quando empreendeu sua
famosa expedição às Índias, em 1271, a viagem foi motivada, sobretudo, por razões
econômicas. Entretanto, uma vez a bordo, decidiu ser levado ao sabor do vento. Ape-
sar dos riscos implicados em tal manobra, isso não atrapalhou sua chegada ao destino
almejado e, ainda, lhe trouxe algumas vantagens: desfrutou com mais calma das pa-
ragens e aprendeu uma série de idiomas, estimulado pelos novos contatos que travou.
A postura adotada por Marco Polo é muito similar àquela do verdadeiro viajan-
te de hoje. Em suas considerações sobre o assunto, Modernell também aponta o que
seria a contraparte de Marco Polo, expressada pela figura de Cristóvão Colombo. O
explorador genovês deixa entrever, por meio de seu diário de 1492, alguém que tem
pressa e objetividade nas incursões ao mar. Ele “quer chegar às Índias o mais rápido
possível, para trazer de lá as riquezas que prometera aos reis espanhóis; com isso,
imagina, sua vida será elevada a um novo status.” (MODERNELL, 2011, p.53). Por isso,
pouco desfrutava das coisas pelo caminho, tal qual a mentalidade de um turista.
Apesar de agirem de modos diferentes, existem evidências de que Marco Polo tenha
sido uma grande inspiração para Colombo. Em meio ao espólio deixado pelo expedicioná-
rio, foi encontrado um exemplar bastante grifado e repleto de comentários nas bordas de Il
Milione9, livro de autoria de Marco Polo, no qual o viajante reproduz sua longa viagem de
Veneza ao Oriente. Os casos fantásticos relatados fizeram com que a publicação, de 1299,
ganhasse prestígio. Afinal, em pleno século XIII, poucas eram as pessoas que poderiam
contar histórias sobre horizontes longínquos. Referido informalmente como “O Livro das
Maravilhas”, trata-se de uma narrativa paradigmática na longa trajetória dos relatos de
viagem, porém, não a única. De Heródoto a Werner Herzog; de Voltaire a Cortázar; de Go-
ethe a Amyr Klink, muitos foram os viajantes que, depois de se aventurarem pelo mundo,
decidiram abraçar a outra aventura, que é relatar o que fizeram e o que viram.
Narrativas de Viagem
Seu funcionalismo informativo se, por um lado, lhe dá a sua melhor virtude
literária, por outro, lhes impõe uma escravidão (...). Certamente a valorização
destas obras sofreu com o velho preconceito de reconhecer importância
literária somente ao fantástico, ao inútil e ao íntimo; mas hoje podemos preferir
um informe a um poema de oitavas reais (VALVERDE apud CHILLÓN, 1999,
p. 122, tradução nossa).
Apesar de elementos reais terem servido como substrato para enredos ficcio-
nais, isso, por certo, não implica comprometimento das obras com a fidedignidade
factual. Sob essa ótica, Lima (2011) diferencia as produções de ficção – classificando-
-as como “literatura de viagem” – das explicitamente não ficcionais –, as quais es-
tariam inseridas no âmbito do jornalismo literário. Segundo ele, podemos identificar
um relato de viagem afinado com a não ficção e com o jornalismo literário quando se
fazem presentes em suas linhas:
gênero10 foi se reinventando de tal modo que, a partir do século XX, os relatos de via-
gem adotaram um tom muito similar ao da reportagem jornalística (CHILLÓN, 1999).
Durante esse período, expoentes como John dos Passos (Adventures of a young
man, 1939), Ernest Hemingway (As verdes colinas da África, 1935; Paris é uma festa,
1964), George Orwell (Na pior em Paris e Londres, 1933; O caminho para Wigan Pier,
1937), Henry Miller (Colosso de Maroussi, 1939) e, mais recentemente, Bruce Chatwin
10 Modernell (2011) considera a narrativa de viagem um texto com poética e características próprias e, sendo
assim, adequada aos parâmetros de um “gênero de transição”. Tal termo foi proposto, originalmente, na obra
linguista Roman Jakobson em seu Questions de poétique (1973).
439 (Na Patagônia, 1977) ficaram célebres por expandir as possibilidades estilísticas desse
tipo de texto.
Cada vez mais, jornalismo literário e narrativas de viagem se esbarravam nas
esquinas de confluência. Sendo assim, hoje, apesar de ocuparem um mesmo nicho
na Literatura, podemos encarar as narrativas de viagem como um tipo de texto pro-
teiforme, que se transforma através do tempo. Isso é nítido se compararmos o diário
de viagem à Itália de Goethe com o relato da vivência de Hemingway em Paris é uma
festa, escrito na metade do século XX. Podemos ir ainda mais adiante se exemplificar-
mos o diário psicodélico Caminhando no gelo, sobre a expedição na neve do cineasta
Werner Herzog, publicado em 1982.
As modificações no relato de viagem também se devem às perspectivas aber-
tas pela narrativa do romance realista de Balzac (1799-1850), Dickens (1812-1870),
Flaubert (1821-1880) e Zola (1840-1902). Igualmente, devem-se ao crescente refina-
mento da narrativa jornalística entre os séculos XVIII e XX. Brasileiros como Eu-
clides da Cunha (1866-1909), João do Rio (1881-1921), Lima Barreto (1881-1922) e os
norte-americanos Joseph Mitchell (1908-1996), John Hersey (1914-1993) e Lillian Ross
(1926-2017), por exemplo, inovaram nos modos de contar um fato, utilizando recursos
literários para incrementar e tornar mais instigante sua leitura. Abraçando tal desafio,
muitos deles contribuíram para a diversificação de recursos na escrita de textos com-
promissados com a realidade. A proximidade da pena com o ofício também ajudou:
jornalista e escritor de ficção são a mesma pessoa, nesse caso.
Anos depois, alguns jornalistas alargam ainda mais os horizontes do jornalismo
literário com o advento do New Journalism. Corrente radical surgida nos Estados Uni-
dos em plena revolução de costumes dos anos sessenta, foi insuflada por profissionais
da área do Jornalismo, dedicados à tarefa de tornar a narrativa jornalística algo cada
vez mais interessante e reconhecido. Naquela época, de acordo com o novo jornalista
Tom Wolfe (2005, p. 18), “se um jornalista aspirava a status literário, o melhor era
ter o bom senso e a coragem de abandonar a imprensa popular e tentar entrar para a
grande liga”.
“A reportagem realmente estilosa era algo com que ninguém sabia lidar, uma
vez que ninguém costumava pensar que a reportagem tinha uma dimensão estética”,
acrescenta Wolfe (2005, p. 22) a respeito do boom do estilo no livro Radical Chique
e o Novo Jornalismo. Coube a ele declarar e sistematizar as principais características
emprestadas da ficção a serem aplicadas no texto jornalístico:
Narrativas de Viagem
REFERÊNCIAS
BISHOP, Elizabeth; LOWELL, Robert. O Brasil é mesmo um horror. piauí, Rio de Ja-
Narrativas de Viagem
It seems intrinsic to human nature the strong desire for getting to know about
things that occur in an unfamiliar ambiance. The fascination for far away destinations
moves humanity forward in order to prolong their horizons, to throw them to the
seas, to enter deep into the forests and to overcome the fear of mystery and myths
about sirens in the depth of the seas, about meeting dragons, cyclopes and guardians
of unexplored lands. The calling of heading for other territories relies so seat on the
collective imaginary that travelling acquired an archetypical value in our society.
Until today, if we move to an unknown place, an ancestral feeling invade us, filling us
of apprehension and curiosity.
When we travel, a process of defamiliarization takes place, we experience other
rhythms, other protocols, other codes. In order to absorb the place in a deeper way, it
is necessary to sharpen the senses, to observe carefully, and to hear the sounds that
emanate around us, to feel and to touch the most prosaic elements which we face
through the way. While in transit, we are invited to develop our ability of adapting,
to enlarge our capacity of empathy, and to understand the differences. The only thing
left is if we are willing to embrace that invitation.
According to French philosopher Michel Onfray (2007), soon or later, we
identify deep in ourselves the way we interpret the displacements. We would be
inscribed in one of two archetypical structures diametrically opposed: the peasant or
the shepherd. The first is sedentary, linked to the origins, to the land, to the traditions.
It is the one who is entrenched to their field. The latter, by its turn, is nomad and
crosses vast extensions. A rebel who claims for freedom and independence.
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We may recognize a bit of both in our personality, once, despite being opposed
to each other, both sides also endorse each other. However, one of them will always
be preponderant in one’s personality. Who prefers to be steady develops the State, the
Laws and the Politics. Save if she/he feels frightened for the security or for the future,
1 Has a degree in Journalism from the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), Masters in Creative Writing
from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS) and is a doctoral student in Literary Studies
from Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) where she researches the relations between literature and press.
445 she/he will remain immobile, always in contact with the habits of the community,
aging in the shade of a tree, which she/he watched grow.
On the other hand, who travels is exposed to the dangers of the world.
Those are the ones who don’t keep any roots, who refuse social limited time, who
seize the inalienable right to leisure, who declare war to the chronometers of
existence. That is why societies tend to reject nomad lifestyle due to its capacity
of unbalancing the current logics of work that obligate sedentariness and the
circumscription to a city; hence the individuals may be easily localized by an
authority (ONFRAY, 2007).
The nomad archetype provides to the image of the traveler lots of aspects,
once “travelling entails not much of the missionary spirit (…), limited, but an off-
centered, ethnological, cosmopolitan and opened will2”, says Onfray (2007, p. 61,
our translation). Just like the shepherd, the traveler pleases the movement and
the change. It is somebody willing to take the world and, because of that, it is
who maintains the “happiness of tearing away, of racing, the space of a promised
infinite” (KRISTEVA, 1991, p. 4).
Some of the qualities of a good traveler relies on the fact that they don´t aim to
verify in which extent the visited place corresponds to the anticipated idea conceived
before the trip. Consequently, two fundamental characteristics of the spirit of the
authentic traveler are receptiveness and humility. If for a reason, the traveler sticks to
the comparison with what she/he is used to in her/his place of origin, some important
contrasts will noticed, even in the smallest things. That is the reason travel writer
Cees Nooteboom (2007) emphasizes the conception that travelling brings along the
premise of psychic maturity: more than just displacing to the outside, travelling is
also a movement one does towards the center of herself/himself; an activity that
implies constant negotiation about which he highlights:
2 From the original: voyager suppose moins l’esprit missionnaire, nationaliste, eurocentré et étroit, que la volonté
ethnologique, cosmopolite, décentrée et ouverte.
3 We consider as “foreign” a place where the feeling of defamiliarization is present.
446 p. 61, our translation) synthesizes: “the traveler separates, the tourist compares”4.
On that, in his article Andare nello stesso posto [Going to the same place, in a free
translation], thinker Umberto Eco (2001) supports that never in History we travelled
so much as now, but this incessant flux enables the places to look more and more like
one another.
For Eco, we may have gradually become permanent tourists ending up by
confirming the expectations based on we have watched on the television screen (or
on Instagram posts). He asserts:
When everything will be turned into the same spot, there will be no longer the
practice of tourism in order to discover the real world, but, instead, in order
to search constantly, anywhere we go, for what we had already knew and that
we could watch being at home in front of the television (ECO, 2001, para. 7,
our translation)5.
What the Italian philosopher sheds lights upon is a situation that often takes
place in our current context: the places of the world seldom appear to suffer the
pasteurization that suffocates all the local particularities. That drives the visitor to
have few original impressions and to relinquish in apprehending an idealized place,
reduced to a world of appearances. Consequently, Onfray (2007) argues that this
would raise a vicious circle whereby the idealization ends up reverberating in reality.
An example of public figure that had cultivated a tourist behavior was the North
American poet Elizabeth Bishop. Despite having lived in Brazil for twenty years, she
almost could not speak and write in Portuguese. “After all these years, I’m like a dog: I
understand everything that’s said to me, but I don’t speak it very well”6, she once said
in an interview. It is probable that Bishop’s attitude of overrating her North American
origin had prevented her to absorb and to comprehend crucial aspects of the Brazilian
culture – even the language.
She frequently would interpret the country as underdeveloped, savage and
exotic, in the worst connotation of the word. She once also stated: “Brazil is a
horror!”7. In order to prevent ourselves from this regard full of prejudices, Michel
Onfray advices that a journey must begin by the sedentariness of a library:
There may have some places known by me as a tourist, but one thing is
knowing and other is understanding. The more you understand, the more you
melt yourself with the foreign reality, and from that moment on, the place
is no longer strange. That is the real meaning of travelling: losing senses,
leaving our small cultural world, contemplating things with an outsider gaze.
We travel because we want to be someone elses. (MONTERO, 2008, p. 9-10,
our translation)10
The difference between the tourist and the traveler is very expressive. The
first is a happy creature who sets sail to the world with a camera, a tourist’s
guide aside and a very strict vocabulary between the teeth: their destination
is to walk on the surface of things (…) detached and without commitment.
(…) The traveler is a less happy creature, of slighter movements, all attached
to affection, craving for inhabiting in every new spot; for going under the
origin of everything, wanting to crazily love every aspect of the journey (…).
The traveler discovers resemblances, differs languages, drills dictionaries
8 From the original: Le papier instruit les émotions, active des sensations et augmente les possibilités des perceptions
préparés. (...) Toute documentation nourrit l’ iconographie mentale de chacun. La richesse d’un voyage nécessite,
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en amont, la densité d’une préparation (...). La lecture agit en rite initiatique elle révèle une mystique païenne. (...)
Arriver sur un lieu dont on ignore tout condamne à l’indigence existentielle. Dans le voyage on découvre seulement
ce dont on est porteur. Le vide du voyageur fabrique la vacuité du voyage; sa richesse produit son excellence; donc les
livres (...), les atlas (...). Avec une carte, on commence notre premier voyage, sans doute le plus magic, certainement
le plus mystérieux.
9 From the original: Los verdaderos viajes conllevan un cambio en la consciencia.
10 From the original: Puede haber otros lugares que quizá me sean más conocidos como turista, pero una cosa es el
conocimiento y otra el entendimiento. Cuando entiendes, te fundes con la realidad extranjera, que desde ese momento
deja de ser extraña. He aquí el verdadero sentido de los viajes: perder tu sentido, salir de tu pequeño mundo cultural,
contemplar las cosas con una mirada ajena. Viajamos porque queremos ser otros.
448 (…) discovers historical, philosophical, religious and poetical in apparently
trivial words, enters bookshops, libraries, buys some book collections,
dazzled by gazing old shabby papers and takes the very same amount of
time to make a note than a tourist takes to cover an entire city (…). He or
she stands in front of a monument and starts, once again, to discover things:
whether it is a piece of column, a door that had been in another place, the
outline of a window, a statue whose family has been spread out in the world,
a head of an angel which tells you about his existence, the images that come
out of the tables and tell about the relation between life and painting (…).
The tourist had already walked miles, had burnt all the rolls of a camera
– while the traveler is still standing there, imprisoned, inert, camera-less,
prospects-less, pencil-less, only with their eyes, their memory, their love
(MEIRELES, 1998, p. 60-63, our translation)11
família anda dispersa pelo mundo, é o desenho de uma janela, é a cabeça de um anjo que lhe conta sua existência, são
as figuras que saem dos quadros e vêm conversar sobre as relações entre a vida e a pintura. (...) O turista já andou
léguas, já gastou todos os rolos da máquina – e o viajante continua ali, aprisionado, inerme, sem máquina, sem
prospectos, sem lápis, só com os seus olhos, a sua memória, o seu amor.
12 From the original: si vas de viaje una semana a un país, puedes redactar un libro sobre el lugar; si permaneces un
año, sólo una breve crónica; y si te quedas una década, eres incapaz de escribir nada.
13 From the original: Le nomade-artist sait e voit en visionnaire, il comprend et saisait sans explications, par impul-
sion naturelle, celle qui se nourrit d’ intuitions et de la pénétration immédiate de l´essence des choses.
14 From the original: Tous les promeneurs, les écrivains de voyage, les nomade-artistes expérimentent cet évidence,
car chacun vive éclairé, exalté, incandescent.
449 that pervades the visited scenarios. It also certain that, when he embarked on his
notorious expedition to the Indies, in 1271, the journey was motivated mainly for
economic reasons.
Nevertheless, once on board, he decided to be driven wherever the wind would
blow. Despite the risks implicated in such maneuver, that did not jeopardized his venue
to his expected destination and, still, brought him some advantages: he seized with
more calm the spots and also had learned to speak a series of languages, stimulated
by the new contacts he made.
The posture adopted by Marco Polo is very similar to the real traveler of our
days. In his reflections on the subject, Modernell in Em trânsito [In transit in a free
translation] points out who would be the counterpart of Marco Polo, incarnated by
the archetype of Christopher Columbus. Through his diaries of 1492, the Genovese
explorer reveals himself as being someone who is in haste and who is also very
objective in his excursions in the sea. He “wants to arrive to the Indies the fastest
he can in order to collect the wealth he promised to the Spanish kings; that way,
he figures, his life will be elevated to a new status”15 (MODERNELL, 2011, p. 53, our
translation). That is the reason why he would barely seize things along the journey,
somehow consonant to the mentality of a tourist.
In spite of both acting in dissonance, there are evidences that Marco Polo had
been a great source of inspiration for Columbus. In the middle of the spoil left by the
expeditionary, it was found a volume with lots of notes in the margins of Il Milione16, book
written by Marco Polo in which he recounts his long adventure from Venice to the East.
That compilation of fantastic cases published in 1299 had earned prestige. Afterwards,
by that time, few were the people that could relate stories about distant horizons.
Informally called “The Book of Marvels”, the narrative is paradigmatic in the long
path of travel literature. Either way, there are many books which conform the genre:
from Herodotus to Werner Herzog; from Voltaire to Cortázar, from Goethe to Amyr
Klink, many were the travelers that, after living adventures around the world, decided
to embrace another challenge: reporting what they had done and what they had seen.
The literary topos of travelling is one of the most ancient and essential forms
of oral and written narratives. In fact, Homer’s classic, the Odyssey, is the first
lapidary travel report and dates back to the Ancient Greece. It is said that he had done
researches in the battlefields during the Greco-Persian Wars, besides having visited
the regions of Egypt, Babylon, Italy and Ukraine (MODERNELL, 2011).
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15 From the original: quer chegar às Índias o mais rápido possível, para trazer de lá as riquezas que prometera aos
reis espanhóis; com isso, imagina, sua vida será elevada a um novo status.
16 Facsimile available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ColombusNotesToMarcoPolo.jpg. Retrieved in:
May/2019
450 this period, encompass the already mentioned book of Marco Polo (1299), The Log of
Christopher Columbus (1492) and the accounts on the shipwrecks [Naufragios] written
by Cabeza de Vaca in the XVI century (CHILLÓN, 1999). Such reports nurture a sort
of naivety, a touch of objectiveness, but they are mainly committed to inform for and
about an epoch. In that sense, Chillón formulates some possible reasons why those
texts are not always considered literary:
Their functionality to inform if, on one hand, impart them best literary virtue,
on the other, enslave them (…). Undoubtedly, the valorization of those works
had suffered with an old prejudice of recognizing the literary value only in
the fantastic, in the useless, in the intimate; thought today we prefer a report
than a poem with ottave rime (VALVERDE apud CHILLÓN, 1999, p. 122, our
translation)17
The consolidation of the travel reports openly literary would only come later,
up to the XVIII century. After an obscure period in the Middle Age – when “nobody
would be willing to move from one place to another, unless there was an imperious
reason to do so”18 (MODERNELL, 2011, p. 27, our translation) –, the illuminists
instilled in the spirit of the age the idea of liberation of the mind. In order to find the
way to the Enlightenment, it was necessary to get to know different cultures, new
countries, preferentially those ones considered exotics to the French, English and
German people, such as Spain, Greece and Italy (CHILLÓN, 1999).
Those incursions to other places used to be advised to young aristocrats who
would search for supplementary apprenticeship than the one from the regular school.
That ritual used to precede a future commitment with the “adult world”. The upper-
class young fellows would perform what it is by convention called The Grand Tour –
i.e., a voyage season undertaken by a certain social extract in a specific period of life.
The flourishment of the Grand Tour has even increased the number of inns and
lodgings. In addition, the figure of the preceptor was invented in the same period:
they were in charged to plan the trip for their young gentries, to book their hotels, to
research the main tourist points to be visited, etc. (MODERNELL, 2011).
It is during that phase of valorization of the displacement when the first travel
reports come out with broad distribution in Europe. The texts not only distracted the
readers, but also stimulated the public to travel. Thus, there was an increasing desire
to confirm or reorganize in loco the imaginary built by the strolls of Byron in Greece,
of Gauthier in Spain, of Boswell in Scotland. The production of travel reports was
intense and, just by mentioning the ones written between the XVIII to XIX century
about Italy, we can list Montaigne (The journal of Montaigne’s travels in Italy, written
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between 1580 and 1581, published in 1774), Goethe (Italian Journey, 1816), François-
René Stendhal (Rome, Naples and Florence, 1817), Chateaubriand (Voyage en Italie,
17 From the original: Su funcionalismo informativo, si por un lado les da su mejor virtud literaria, por otro les im-
pone una servidumbre: la cantidad, la extensión (…). Cierto que la valoración de estas obras se ha resentido del viejo
prejuicio de reconocer entidad literaria sólo a lo fantástico, lo inútil y lo íntimo; pero hoy podemos preferir un informe
a un poema en octavas reales (…).
18 From the original: ninguém se animava a se mover de um lugar para outro, se não tivesse uma razão imperiosa
para fazê-lo
451 1833), Hippolyte Taine (Italy, Rome and Naples, 1868; Italy, Florence and Venice, 1867),
among others. The idyllic tone attributed to the Italian territory was consolidated
and remains until the current days with Julio Cortázar (Autonauts of the Cosmoroute,
1983) and even with North American best-sellers like Under The Tuscan Sun (1996) of
Frances Mayes and Eat, Pray, Love (2006). The popularity of those last two titles was
so vast that they were adapted to the big screen and became instant hits.
In the XIX century, due to the rise of Realism, many authors became aware
that the immersion in scenarios could make their stories even more credible. That
approach resulted in masterpieces of the Western Canon.
Belong to that current of thought cases like Herman Melville who in 1841
flung in a 18-month excursion on board of a waling ship, experiencing what
would bring inspiration to his classic Moby Dick; and like Joseph Conrad
who would seize some maritime and fluvial incursions to the sea in order to
borrow elements for his oeuvre, especially for his classic Heart of Darkness
(LIMA, 2011, p. 15-16, our translation).19
Nonfiction and the travel report bump into each other in the next corner
Despite real elements were used as substrate for fictional plots that does
not imply the commitment of literary works with factual reliability. Under that
perspective, Lima (2011) differs fictional productions by classifying them as “travel
literature” from the ones explicitly nonfictional. The latter, he supports, would be
inserted in the field of literary journalism. We would be able to identify a travel report
aligned with nonfiction and with literary journalism when there are:
19 From the original: São dessa corrente os casos exemplares de Herman Melville, que, em 1841, partiu numa excur-
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são de 18 meses a bordo de um navio baleeiro, experiência que lhe renderia a inspiração para seu clássico Moby Dick;
e o de Joseph Conrad, que aproveitaria suas inúmeras incursões marítimas e fluviais como elementos para toda sua
obra, com destaque para o clássico O coração das trevas.
20 From the original: [as] características da modalidade, como a imersão, o estilo, a humanização, o emprego de
recursos narrativos múltiplos, de um lado, mas atrelados ao compromisso de reprodução fiel da realidade, do outro. O
autor que se preza, nessa categoria, não ficcionaliza eventos, cenas, personagens, falas.
21 Modernell (2011) considers the travel narrative as a text with its own poetics and characteristics. Therefore
being adequate as a “genre of transition”, term originally proposed by the linguist Roman Jakobson in his Ques-
tions de poétique (1973).
452 By that time, many renowned writers expanded the stylistic possibilities of that
kind of texts, such as John dos Passos (Adventures of a young man, 1939), Ernest
Hemingway (Green Hills of Africa, 1935; A moveable feast, 1964), George Orwell (Down
and Out in Paris and London, 1933, The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937), Henry Miller (The
Colossus of Maroussi, 1939) and, more recently, Bruce Chatwin (In Patagonia, 1977).
Progressively, literary journalism and travel narratives would bump into each
other in the corners of confluence. Thus, nowadays, despite occupying the same
niche in Literature, we can understand travel narratives as a multifaceted genre that
transforms itself as time passes by taking into comparison Goethe’s travel journal to
Italy, in the beginning of the XVIII century, and Hemingway’s experiences described
in A moveable feast, in the middle of the XX century. We can even go further, by
exemplifying Of Walking in Ice, Werner Herzog’s psychedelic journal about his
expedition in snow published in 1982.
The modifications of the travel report are also attributed to the perspectives
opened by the rising of the realistic novel of Balzac (1799-1850), Dickens (1812-
1870), Flaubert (1821-1880) and Zola (1840-1902). The modifications also rely on
an increasing complexity of the journalistic narrative between the XVIII and XX
centuries. Brazilian writers like Euclides da Cunha (1866-1909), João do Rio (1881-
1921), Lima Barreto (1881-1922) and North Americans like Joseph Mitchell (1908-
1996), John Hersey (1914-1993) and Lillian Ross (1926-2017), for example, had
innovated in the ways of reporting a fact by making use of the literary resources in
texts. That way, they would gain in complexity and become more instigating.
By embracing that challenge, many writers had contributed to the diversification
of resources in the composition of texts committed to reality. The proximity of the
pen with a remunerated activity also helped: journalists and fiction writers were the
same people.
Years later, some journalists enlarged even more the horizons of literary
journalism with the arrival of the New Journalism. It was a radical current emerged in
plain counterculture of the sixties, devoted to the mission of transforming journalistic
narrative into something more interesting and acknowledged. By that time, according
to new journalist Tom Wolfe (1972, para. 13), “if a journalist aspired to literary status
– then he had better have the sense and the courage to quit the popular press and try
to get into the big league”.
It also due to New Journalism that the journalistic report enhanced its status
and its stylistic refinement. As Wolfe (1972, para. 17) recalls regarding the boom of
the current in New York magazine: “stylish reporting was something no one knew
how to deal with, since no one was used to thinking of reporting as having an
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aesthetic dimension”. Wolfe is also notorious for being the one who had declared and
systematized the main characteristics borrowed from fiction that can be applied when
writing literary journalism. They would be composed by:
When writing immersive reportage, Tom Wolfe (1972, para. 30) also innovated
by making use of onomatopoeias to better grasp the sound of the ambiance and
people’s interjections (“There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored
(Thphhhhhh!) Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Rahghhh!) Around the Bend
(Brummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm)” and because he was in favor to a sort of
stream of conscious that looked for dissecting the chosen character’s vision of the
world (“Sometimes I used point-of-view (…) in which fiction writers understand it,
entering directly into the mind of a character, experiencing the world through his
central nervous system throughout a given scene”22). That posture sometimes inflicts
the conceptions of generations that came before those new journalists, as in the case
of strong oppositionist, old school New Yorker reporter Lillian Ross, known for being
“the mother of literary journalism”.
The choices of reporting as it was acknowledged by New Journalism’s
emergency converges so often with the travel report to an extent that Wolfe (2005)
attributes its roots in travel literature from the XVIII century and from the beginning
of XIX. Wolfe considers writer and diarist James Boswell (1740-1795) one of the most
important for the genre. That is probably because, by that time, many of those writers
took for themselves the autobiography, using it as tool for narrating their experiences
and adventures in challenging and exotic locations.
Thus we can find in that case parallels to a good journalistic production: a very
original perspective of the character, a daring narrator, a sequence of instigating facts,
and a unique agenda. Wolfe (2005) analyses that, before the risen of New Journalism,
it was unusual for journalists the idea of inserting autobiographical notes and a more
personal signature to reporting.
Taking into consideration the distinctive content that was being produced by
that time, it is not possible to escape the importance of some outstanding magazines
such as New Yorker, Esquire, Rolling Stone for consolidating the idea of feature stories
in the scenario of the press. After all, turning those narratives into something viably
commercially has always been very challenging, once those articles are usually very
slow to cover, to write and to check.
In Brazil, piauí, is one of the few vehicles that publish feature stories. Also
it is one of the few in which journalists are well-paid for ideas that mingle their
métier with Literature. Still, it is even more unusual to find magazines and websites
that demand travel reports with in-depth narratives. Then, some of the solutions
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a beam of reflections about such a worthy full of possibilities topic. The genre of
travel narratives still keeps miles and miles of its routes still unknown: just like the
shepherd and the nomad their insubordinate and multifaceted character permits to
be unveiled only by the courageous ones who try to transmute the action of the
displacement into the fascinating practice of the written word.
23 From the original: baseia-se mais num improviso que num padrão estrutural
456 REFERENCES
BOTTON, Alain de. The Art of travel. London: Hamish Hamilton/Penguin, 2002
CHILLÓN, Albert. Literatura y periodismo. Barcelona: Aldeia Global, 1999.
ECO, Umberto. Andare nello stesso posto. Roma: l’Espresso, 02/22/2001.
LIMA, Edvaldo Pereira. Páginas Ampliadas: o livro-reportagem como extensão do
jornalismo e da literatura. Barueri, SP: Manole, 2004.
______. Viagens, Textos, Interfaces. In: MODERNELL, Renato. Em trânsito. Um ensaio
sobre narrativas de viagem. São Paulo: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, 2011.
MEIRELES, Cecília. Crônicas de viagem. v. 1. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1998.
MODERNELL, Renato. Em Trânsito. Um ensaio sobre narrativas de viagem. São Pau-
lo: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, 2011.
MONTERO, Rosa. Estampas bostonianas y otros viajes. Madrid: Punto de Lectura,
2008.
MONTEIRO, George (org.). Conversations with Elizabeth Bishop. Jackson: Univer-
sity of Mississippi, 1996.
NOOTEBOOM, Cees. Nomad’s Hotel: Travels in Time and Space. London: Vintage, 2007.
ONFRAY, Michel. La Théorie du voyage: Poétique de la géographie. Paris: Librairie
Générale Française, 2007.
KRISTEVA, Julia. Strangers to ourselves. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
TRAVISANO, Thomas; HAMILTON, Saskia (org.). Words in Air: The Complete
Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. New York: Farrar,
Strauss and Giroux, 2008.
WOLFE, Tom. The Birth of ‘The New Journalism’: Eyewitness Report by Tom Wolfe
New York Magazine. New York: New York Magazine, 02/14/1972. Available at: nymag.
com/news/media/47353 Retrieved in: May/2019
______. Radical chique e o novo jornalismo. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras,
2005.
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457 NOS LIMITES DA EXPERIÊNCIA TURÍSTICA:
PLANEJAMENTO E NARRATIVAS DE VIAGENS
Caroline Brito1
1 Doutoranda em Ciências Sociais pela Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), mestre em Sociologia
e Antropologia pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) e Bacharel em Turismo pela Universidade
Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). Atua principalmente nas áreas de antropologia do turismo e antro-
pologia da religião. E-mail: carol@contoaberto.org .
2 Evento realizado entre 13 e 15 de junho de 2012, em Foz do Iguaçu, que constava da programação do Festival de
Turismo do Iguaçú e propunha uma agenda de palestras e debates em torno da profissionalização dos blogueiros
de viagens.
458 de Viajantes3) e acompanhou as redes formadas em torno do movimento de
profissionalização que ocorria em concomitância com a pesquisa e que, por sua vez,
culminou na formação de duas entidades: a Rede Brasileira de Blogueiros de Viagens -
RBBV, e a Associação Brasileira de Blogs de Viagens - ABBV. A pesquisadora também
lançou mão de entrevistas em profundidade concedidas por três blogueiros, e do
áudio de uma entrevista realizada pelo canal online Brainstorm9 com Ricardo Freire,
que se tornou uma espécie de guru dos blogs de viagens em razão de sua trajetória
de pioneirismo e sucesso profissional com a página Viaje na Viagem.
O campo de pesquisa revela uma relação particular dos blogueiros com as viagens
que planejam. A organização prévia e minuciosa das viagens é prática corriqueira
entre eles. Dela podemos depreender certos sentidos e valores compartilhados, como
a máxima racionalização do tempo, a autonomia do viajante, ou o enaltecimento da
experiência de antecipação, que envolve sonho, imaginação e uma representação
idealizada do destino. A narrativa da viagem, por sua vez, tanto se constrói em torno
da memória do viajante quanto aponta para um universo de relações com o seu
público leitor.
A minha primeira vez em Sintra foi assim: um dia e nada mais, com aquelas
clássicas saídas de Lisboa pela manhã e retorno no final da tarde.
Que frustrante! Mal tive tempo de rodar um pouco pelo centro e de visitar o
Palácio da Pena… E o Castelo dos Mouros? E a Quinta da Regaleira? Não vai
dar pra comer um outro “travesseiro”?
Eu precisava voltar a Sintra e destinar a ela o tempo que ela merece: dois dias
inteiros! Aí sim! Tive tempo de visitar tudo o que eu queria, sem me preocupar
com horários!4
6 INTERATA, Arnaldo. Dubai: Blogando ao vivo. Fatos & Fotos de Viagens. 09 ago. 2007. Disponível em: <http://
interata.squarespace.com/jornal-de-viagens/2007/8/9/dubai-blogando-ao-vivo.html>. Acesso em: 27 fev. 2014.
462 de, na hora, embarcar na certa, na hora você percebe ‘nossa, mas isso tem cara
de ser melhor do que aquilo que eu tinha pesquisado’.7
7 FREIRE, Ricardo. Entrevista concedida a MERIGO, Carlos; MILETI, Saulo; MAFRA, Guga. Braincast 73 – Blogs de
viagens: Como ser um turista profissional. Brainstorm9. 23 jul. 2013. Disponível em: <http://www.brainstorm9.com.
br/39257/braincast9/braincast-73-blogs-de-viagens-como-ser-um-turista-profissional/>. Acesso em: 26 ago. 2013.
8 INTERATA, Arnaldo. Planeje bem, viaje melhor. Fatos & Fotos de Viagens. 07 dez. 2008. Disponível em: <http://
interata.squarespace.com/jornal-de-viagens/2008/12/7/planeje-bem-viaje-melhor.html>. Acesso em: 27 fev. 2014.
463 Nunca um lugar vai ser tão bem explorado se não for vivido e presenciado,
mesmo que você leia todos os livros do mundo, veja todos os filmes do
mundo. Nunca! Nunca, jamais! É Impossível! (...) nada se compara a viver e
presenciar. Nada. O toque, a visão, o olfato, o cheiro, a experiência, ver 360
graus é completamente diferente de você ler um livro. (...) Não é a mesma
coisa que você sentir o cheiro do mato, que você subir o morro, você sentir o
vento, não é a mesma coisa. (...) Nenhum grande aventureiro, nenhum grande
expedicionário, de Marco Polo, Gengis Khan, conquistador, Darwin, quem
quer que seja, Amir Klink, nenhum deles fez sem planejar. Nada do que eles
fizeram teria sido possível sem planejamento. (...)
Para Graburn (1989), o turismo ocupa um lugar sagrado na vida moderna, lugar
que se depreende da organização da vida em termos da alternância e oposição entre
o ordinário e o extraordinário. O tempo sagrado do turismo é vivido em oposição
ao tempo profano do cotidiano de trabalho. É o período do extraordinário que faz o
restante da vida ordinária “valer a pena”. Para a sociedade ocidental, arraigada à ética
do trabalho, as atividades do tempo livre e do tempo obrigado ganham contornos
morais que caracterizam as ações como apropriadas ou não para cada um desses
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momentos. O turismo é uma atividade do tempo livre, ele permite uma quebra na
rotina, um distanciamento que proporciona alívio das obrigações cotidianas. Ele
simboliza o movimento, por oposição à permanência; a livre-escolha, por oposição
aos compromissos diários da vida obrigada; a diferença, no lugar da monotonia. É
nesse sentido que Graburn (ibid.) confere ao turismo um aspecto ritual, comparando-o
aos estudos antropológicos que se ocupam da relação sagrado/profano. Baseado
em Leach, Graburn (ibid.) propõe que além do tempo do sagrado e do profano, a
passagem do tempo nesses rituais contempla também os períodos de transição entre
464 estes estados. Esses momentos são ambivalentes. Aquele que antecede a partida é
preenchido por excitação, felicidade, euforia, mas também tensão, já que a viagem
envolve algum grau de risco de acidente e de morte. Na partida dizemos adeus, ela
encerra em si mesma uma morte simbólica. A reentrada na vida ordinária é repleta
de nostalgia, e, ao mesmo tempo em que significa o fim das férias e da excitação, ela
também implica em alívio por voltar a salvo para casa e por trazer um fim à tensão e
ao peso emocional do “estar fora” (GRABURN, 1989).
Com os processos de planejamento e narração, os blogueiros prolongam os
tempos de transição, muito embora a proximidade da viagem possa elevar a excitação
e a expectativa da partida, assim como a memória pode perder vivacidade com o
passar do tempo. Nesse sentido, o extraordinário da viagem é, tanto quanto possível,
estendido para o campo ordinário da vida, através, por um lado, da antecipação e do
planejamento, e por outro, da rememoração e narração. Camila afirma, em sua página,
que “nada melhor do que o blog para fazer a viagem durar mais tempo”, indicando
como a narração amplia o tempo de vivência da viagem através da memória.
A etapa precedente, do planejamento da viagem, não tem apenas um sentido
pragmático, ela é também compreendida como uma experiência da ordem da
imaginação, que faz parte do processo de viajar. Para muitos o planejamento é um
hobby, que existe com ou sem a concretização da viagem. Em todo o caso, é um passo
importante na criação de viagens possíveis. Ele estabelece o início de um processo
de tradução do outro para o mundo do viajante, uma forma de tornar familiar o
que é distante, e instaurar a possibilidade de comunicação com esse outro. Com o
planejamento, lugares povoados apenas por imagens vagas e indefinidas transformam-
se em destinos palpáveis, ainda que possamos afirmar, conforme Bruner (2007, p. 233),
que “o turismo tem menos a ver com o modo como os outros povos realmente são
do que como os imaginamos ser, e nesse sentido é como qualquer outra forma de
representação”.
O turismo mobiliza o sonho e a fantasia, e para os amantes das viagens, a
viagem não começa na partida, mas no planejamento, que é também imaginação.
O planejamento é percebido como uma antecipação hedonista da viagem. É a esse
tipo de devaneio, situado entre o desejo e o consumo de fato, que Campbell (apud
REZENDE, 2010) classifica como “hedonismo autoilusivo”. No entender de Campbell,
esse tipo de hedonismo gera uma tensão entre a fantasia, em sua perfeição e liberdade
imaginativa, e a realidade desencantadora. Evidentemente, os blogueiros conferem às
viagens em si, que são o foco de suas narrativas, uma centralidade em suas experiências
de felicidade. Para além do escopo dessas páginas pessoais e do imperativo da
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para que o ato de blogar não atrapalhe a viagem e tenha de fato conteúdo, é
fundamental planejamento anterior e preparo para que parte do texto a ser
publicado esteja escrito, alinhavado, de tal maneira que seja apenas atualizado,
eventualmente corrigido durante a viagem, confirmando ou não aquilo que
pesquisamos e colocamos no papel. Durante a viagem a gente vai apenas inserindo o
que sentiu, de maneira a que o texto tenha credibilidade e personalidade, não
meramente uma cópia aqui e acolá de textos extraídos por aí.9
9 INTERATA, Arnaldo. Dubai: Blogando ao vivo. Fatos & Fotos de Viagens. 09 ago. 2007. Disponível em: <http://
interata.squarespace.com/jornal-de-viagens/2007/8/9/dubai-blogando-ao-vivo.html>. Acesso em: 27 fev. 2014.
467 secretarias de turismo, ou por outros meios de divulgação de produtos e serviços
turísticos. Por outro lado, a narrativa fornece sentido à viagem, provendo-lhe forma e
coerência. Além disso, ela repercute na própria prática do viajar, sobretudo porque o
blog é um compromisso com leitores, e com uma rede da qual se faz parte, o que leva
o blogueiro a ter sua página virtualmente presente em seus percursos. Ainda que a
atualização da página não seja concomitante ao trajeto – e usualmente não é –, o blog
passa a fazer parte da experiência da viagem e a influencia. Em entrevista, a blogueira
Juliana, por exemplo, afirma que após ter iniciado o blog passou a ficar muito mais
atenta a detalhes que antes lhe passariam longe da vista, para que assim pudesse fazer
registros úteis a outros viajantes.
A existência dos outros à nossa volta não é um puro acidente. Os outros não
são simplesmente sujeitos solitários comparáveis ao eu mergulhado em medi-
tação; os outros também fazem parte dela: o eu não existe sem um tu. Não po-
demos chegar ao fundo de nós mesmos se daí excluirmos os outros. O mesmo
acontece com os países estrangeiros e as culturas diferentes da nossa: aquele
que apenas conhece a sua terra arrisca-se sempre a confundir cultura e natu-
reza, a erigir o hábito em norma, a generalizar a partir de um único exemplo
que é ele mesmo. (TODOROV, 1992, p. 99-100)
para a personagem de si do narrador. Não por acaso Benjamin (1994, p. 198-9) associa
a figura do narrador ao viajante ou também ao homem sedentário que conhece seu
passado e suas tradições. Ambos estão ligados ao gênero da narrativa, um através da
sua própria história, outro através da história de seus antepassados. Para Pimentel
(2001, p. 87), “desde o momento em que as pessoas começam a viajar pelo prazer de
viajar, é possível afirmar que elas passam a viajar também pelo prazer de dizer que
tinham viajado”. A narrativa, neste sentido, é uma forma de valorização da experiência
vivida, narrar é valorizar um fato que se considera digno de alguma atenção. Narrar
468 a própria viagem é validá-la enquanto experiência de vida, dotando-a de relevância
para o mundo.
Viajar, portanto, é ter histórias para contar. Narrar é fazer um percurso pelas
experiências acumuladas, a narrativa organiza as memórias e fornece sentido à
viagem. Através dela, o turista refaz mentalmente seu trajeto e suas experiências pelo
mundo. A narrativa é ordenadora, é por meio dela que sabemos como as pessoas
interpretam as coisas (BRUNER, 2005a).
Bruner (2005a, 2005b) questiona como os turistas ultrapassam o círculo
fechado das narrativas pré-turísticas. E conclui que “o objetivo dos turistas é caçar
experiências que produzirão histórias originais em que o turista é o personagem
principal, de modo a dramatizar e personalizar o passeio e reivindicar a jornada como
sua” (BRUNER, 2005a, p. 23, tradução minha). Para ele, muito das conversas entre
os turistas quando estão juntos em viagens em grupo diz respeito não aos lugares
visitados, mas aos hotéis, restaurantes, transportes, e outras especificidades do
cotidiano das viagens. Também nos blogs proliferam discursos, indicações e avaliações
sobre serviços considerados mais propriamente turísticos, e isso não escapa à relação
que o blogueiro estabelece com o leitor, uma vez que o blog tende a servir como
fonte de informação para a criação de roteiros. De qualquer modo, conforme Bruner
(2005a, p.23, tradução minha), “embora muitas das histórias turísticas sejam sobre o
cotidiano, as mais valorizadas são aquelas experiências que escapam do itinerário
regular e lidam com a improvisação, na medida em que introduzem espontaneidade
e elementos inesperados de aventura”. As narrativas de viagens resultam, assim, de
um recorte do autor sobre aspectos e momentos memoráveis da sua jornada. Se boa
parte das narrativas dos blogs é alimentada com o que Bruner trata por cotidiano
da viagem, as experiências que se creem diferenciadas ou inusitadas são igualmente
mais valorizadas nesses espaços. Os blogueiros estão em busca de uma história para
chamar de sua. Nesse sentido, a narrativa, como o planejamento, singulariza o turista.
Em páginas pessoais, a individualização ganha particular relevância.
Os blogs participam da lógica do sistema colaborativo na internet. Como já
apontado, buscamos suporte na sociedade antes de nos decidirmos e de partirmos
em viagens turísticas. Amigos, parentes, mídia, internet, publicidade e empresas
especializadas participam da construção de expectativas, direcionando, em alguma
medida, o olhar do viajante. Através desses outros, o turista estabelece uma primeira
relação com o lugar a ser visitado. A lógica da colaboração faz uso desse princípio. Ao
escrever relatos de viagens, o blogueiro contribui com a organização de roteiros de
outros viajantes. Do mesmo modo, ele tem à sua disposição o corpo de informações
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REFERÊNCIAS
CRAWSHAW, Carol; URRY, John. Tourism and the Photographic Eye. In: ROJEK,
Chris; URRY, John. (orgs.). Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory.
London: Routledge, 1997.
FOIS-BRAGA, Humberto. Narrativas de si e da alteridade: o relato de viagem na obra “O
Grande Bazar Ferroviário” (Paul Théroux). VIII Seminário da Associação Nacional
de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Turismo (ANPTUR), Balneário Camboriú, 2011.
GONÇALVES, Marco Antonio. Ficção, imaginação e etnografia: a propósito de Eu, um
negro. In: ______. O real imaginado. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2008.
470 GRABURN, Nelson. Tourism: The sacred journey. In: SMITH, Valene. L. (org.). Hosts
and Guests: the anthropology of tourism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1989.
INGOLD, Tim. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge, and Description.
Routledge: London; New York, 2011.
MACDOUGALL, David. Significado e ser. In: BARBOSA, Andréa; CUNHA, Edgar
Teodoro da; HIKIJI, Rose Satiko Gitirana. (orgs.). Imagem-conhecimento:
Antropologia, cinema e outro diálogos. São Paulo: Papirus, 2009.
MAUSS, Marcel. Ensaio sobre a dádiva. In: ______. Sociologia e Antropologia. São
Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2003.
PIMENTEL, Thais Velloso Cougo. Viajar e Narrar: toda viagem destina-se a ultrapassar
fronteiras. Varia Historia. Belo Horizonte, n. 25, jul. 2001.
REZENDE, Claudia Barcellos; COELHO, Maria Claudia. Antropologia das emoções.
Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV, 2010.
SIMMEL, Georg. A Aventura. In: SOUZA, Jessé; ÖELZE, Berthold. Simmel e a
modernidade. Brasília: UnB, 1998.
TODOROV, Tzvetan. A viagem e a narrativa. In: ______. As morais da história.
Europa-América, 1992.
VELHO, Gilberto. Projeto, emoção e orientação em sociedades complexas. In: _____.
Individualismo e cultura: notas para uma antropologia da sociedade contemporânea.
Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1997.
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471 AT THE LIMITS OF TOURIST EXPERIENCE:
TRAVEL PLANNING AND NARRATIVES
Caroline Brito1
1 PhD student in Social Sciences from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Master in Sociology and
Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and Bachelor in Tourism from the Federal
University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). Research areas of interest include anthropology of tourism
and anthropology of religion. Email: carol@contoaberto.org .
2 Event held between June 13 and 15, 2012, in Foz do Iguaçu, which was part of the Iguaçú Tourism Festival pro-
gram and proposed an agenda of lectures and debates on the professionalization of travel bloggers.
3 Travel bloggers social gathering held in Rio de Janeiro on August 25 and 26, 2012.
472 of two entities: the Brazilian Network of Travel Bloggers - RBBV, and the Brazilian
Association of Travel Blogs - ABBV. The researcher also used in-depth interviews
with three bloggers and an audio from an interview conducted by the online channel
Brainstorm9 with Ricardo Freire, who became a kind of travel blog guru because of
his pioneering career and professional success with his page, Viaje na Viagem.
The research field reveals a particular relationship of the bloggers with the
trips they plan. The prior and thorough organization of trips is a common practice
among them. From it, we can derive certain shared meanings and values, such as
the maximum rationalization of time, the autonomy of the traveler, or the exaltation
of the experience of anticipation, which involves dream, imagination and idealized
representation of destiny. The narrative of travel, in turn, is built around the traveler’s
memory and points to a universe of relationships with the reading public.
My first time in Sintra was like this: one day and nothing more, with those
classic departures from Lisbon in the morning and return in the late afternoon.
How frustrating! I barely had time to walk around downtown and visit the
Pena Palace… And the Moorish Castle? What about Quinta da Regaleira?
Can’t you eat another “travesseiro”?
I needed to go back to Sintra and give her the time she deserves: two whole
days! Oh yes! I had time to visit everything I wanted, without worrying about
schedules!4
The availability of free time and financial resources are some factors that limit
the stay and predominate in travel organization, often determining the inclusion or
exclusion of attractions, cities or regions in the itinerary. The intention to visit more
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or fewer destinations will influence the time dedicated to each of them. Anyway,
tourists don’t want to stay just in transit. The trip is mainly made up of stops, not so
much of displacement, especially if these routes are undertaken by air. On the other
hand, to stay in a place where “everything” has been seen and experienced is to limit
the field of experience, which could be expanded to other places. The tourist time is
intense and fleeting. Each day seems to be unique, a time that is lost or gained, that
is enjoyed or wasted.
Our first stop would be Playa Blanca, on the shores of Lake Caburgua.
I imagined a somewhat bucolic place, with a beautiful view of the
lake, surrounded by greenery and the view of some of the surrounding
volcanoes. We went down with the crowd and followed the flow along the
trail that leads to the lake. And, getting there, we were really on a beach!
Umbrellas scattered across the sand, children making castles, people selling
popsicles… Everything I didn’t expect to find in that region of Chile! And
we were there, in long pants and sneakers! Fishes out of water! We could
not be more misinformed! (...)
Our tour was a sequence of blunders, but it all happened for lack of
information.5
Planning rationalizes the trip precisely so that these issues do not arise during the
journey. What wasn’t foreseen, however, is exactly what can make a memorable trip.
Everything happens as if the effort to control unfortunate circumstances favored the
emergence of new and unusual experiences, as if rationalization opened the way for
emotion. Rationalization is called here not to domesticate but to potentiate emotions,
since travel would require a hedonistic surrender. Thus, anticipating and removing the
possibilities of setbacks along the way, the trip would become more enjoyable, take
a more natural course, as if the mishaps and frustrations were expendable overlaps,
which did not belong and should not be part of the journey. Despite the apparent
background marked by the dualistic thinking typical of modern-western society and
constructed in terms of the reason / emotion poles, the anticipation of travel, as we
shall see, is permeated by affective discourses, related to pleasure and happiness.
The pragmatic aspect of planning aims to optimize and maximize the pleasure
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involved in the tourist experience. A number of issues are then taken into account in order
to prevent adversity, such as: currency exchange; shuttle service; holidays, festivities and
local activities; costs, days and opening hours of spaces and services; climate conditions;
luggage storage; visitation itineraries; prior reservation of services and tickets; ideal
location for the stay; local means of transport; travel insurance, etc. Excessive control and
information are not intended to curtail the movement and materialize a pre-established
plan. What this traveler seeks is voluptuousness, the hassle-free experimentation since
5 NAVARRO, Camila. Pucón - Tour por la Zona. Viaggiando. 01 Jul 2012. Avaiable at: < http://www.viaggiando.
com.br/2012/07/pucon-tour-por-la-zona.html>. Acessed: 27 Feb. 2014.
475 troubles would send him back to daily life. The journey, like the Simmelian adventure,
has a beginning and an end. It is lived as a totality with its own meaning, which escapes
the linearity of everyday time and finds no continuity in earlier and later events of the
conventional course of life (SIMMEL, 1998). Accordingly to Arnaldo,
When we plan them properly [the trips], everything tends to go well and
surprises are more pleasant. When all of our time is naturally spent in knowing,
seeing, absorbing, and enjoying, the greater the pleasure and learning. The
time spent in resolving setbacks is time wasted, out of focus which should
always be the pleasure.6
Thus, to the bloggers, what enhances the travel experience is, to some extent,
its anticipation. Plan favors openness to the unexpected, the experience, and the
meaning. In a post devoted to the theme of planning, Arnaldo8 says he is certain that
“the greater the planning the greater the spontaneity during the trip. The more we
prepare, the better we will face the unexpected”. And he goes on to assert that “our
lives, as well as our travels - however planned and oriented they may be - are a natural
succession of occasional, unpredictable, supervening, anticipated, predictable events
that may or may not have anything to do with each other.”
The current availability of information on the internet about the most remote
regions of the planet and the consequent facility of travel planning call into question
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the place of spontaneity during the tourist journey. However, for bloggers, planning
does not mean to placate the experience with the shackles of rationalization, nor is
the journey unfolding as an update of the preconceived image of a route, which would
6 INTERATA, Arnaldo. Dubai: Blogando ao vivo. Fatos & Fotos de Viagens. 09 Aug. 2007. Avaiable at: <http://
interata.squarespace.com/jornal-de-viagens/2007/8/9/dubai-blogando-ao-vivo.html>. Acessed: 27 Feb. 2014.
7 FREIRE, Ricardo. Interviewed by MERIGO, Carlos; MILETI, Saulo; MAFRA, Guga. Braincast 73 – Blogs de
viagens: Como ser um turista profissional. Brainstorm9. 23 Jul. 2013. Avaiable at: <http://www.brainstorm9.com.
br/39257/braincast9/braincast-73-blogs-de-viagens-como-ser-um-turista-profissional/>. Acessed: 26 Aug. 2013.
8 INTERATA, Arnaldo. Planeje bem, viaje melhor. Fatos & Fotos de Viagens. 07 Dec. 2008. Avaiable at: <http://
interata.squarespace.com/jornal-de-viagens/2008/12/7/planeje-bem-viaje-melhor.html>. Acessed: 27 Feb. 2014.
476 at least result in a disastrous narrative, since “perfect trips make no stories” (FOIS-
BRAGA, 2011, p. 4). It is the imponderables that belong to the lived time, and not to
a plan previously outlined, that would be able to generate good stories. Like Arnaldo
Interata and Ricardo Freire, bloggers tend to value the unexpected and the idea that
travel anticipation paves the way for a hedonistic surrender. Travel is not taken as the
finished product of a mental or ideal image, but as a process, and planning takes part
of it. Privileging the ongoing process over final form, Ingold (2011, p. 6) suggests that
“production must be understood intransitively, not as a transitive relation of image
to object”. Whereas it is “conceived as the attentive movement of a conscious, bent
upon the tasks of life, the productive process is not confined within the finalities of
any particular project” (INGOLD, 2011, p. 6). Similarly, what bloggers emphasize in
their pages is that it is not the final result translated from a virtual plan that matters
to travelers, but the meaningful experiences carried on along the way, whether they
are planned or not to happen. In the description of these experiences appears, among
other aspects, the appreciation of the encounter with the unknown, the discovery of the
new. Considering a context in which information about the world and its most remote
places seems so accessible that one can almost always design detailed travel itineraries,
I ask Arnaldo what exactly the requisite experience of “discovery of the new” means,
to which he replies:
A place will never be so well explored if it is not lived and witnessed, even
if you read every book in the world, see every movie in the world. Never!
Never ever! It’s impossible! (...) nothing compares to living and witnessing.
Nothing. Touch, sight, smell, experience, 360-degree viewing is completely
different from reading a book. (...) It’s not the same thing than smelling the
bush, climbing the hill, feeling the wind, it’s not the same thing. (...) No great
adventurer, no great expeditionary, Marco Polo, Genghis Khan, conqueror,
Darwin, whoever, Amir Klink, none of them did it without planning. Nothing
they did would have been possible without planning. (...)
Arnaldo emphasizes the distance between seeing and living, imagining and
experiencing. Seeing provides an experience of a different order than being there,
the image anticipates a journey that is something else, not a reproduction of itself.
Seeing through the lens of others is something else than seeing with one’s own eyes.
It’s necessary to be there to make one’s own discoveries. The new in tourist travel is
no longer a reality to be unraveled, it becomes a perspective. Knowing involves more
than the virtualization of images, involves bodily displacement and engagement of all
senses, involves testing the images produced by others and creating new images and
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new meanings for oneself. Bruner (2005b) understands that while pre-tour narratives
provide a template for travel, there is always an arena for creativity in which tourists
modify the dominant narratives and create their own interpretations. It is also worth
reiterating that planning, far from constituting pure rationality for bloggers, is above
all valued as an experience, an experience of such an order that allows the anticipation
of other experiences through imaginary. Therefore, there is some ambivalence in the
opposition between experience and imagination suggested by Arnaldo, since it can
also be understood as a differentiation between modes of experiencing the world,
rather than a reality/representation or real/virtual antinomy.
477 Anticipation, experience and narration
Graburn (1989) states that tourism occupies a sacred place in modern life,
a place that emerges from the organization of life in terms of the alternation and
opposition between the ordinary and the extraordinary. The sacred time of tourism
is lived in opposition to the profane time of daily work. It is the period of the
extraordinary that makes the rest of ordinary life “worth it”. For Western society,
rooted in the ethics of work, the activities of free time and forced time gain moral
contours which characterize actions as appropriate or not for each of these moments.
Tourism is a free time activity, it allows a break in routine, a distance that provides
relief from everyday obligations. It symbolizes movement as opposed to permanence;
free choice, as opposed to the daily commitments of the obliged life; difference,
instead of monotony. It is in this sense that Graburn (ibid.) gives tourism a ritual
aspect, comparing it to anthropological studies that deal with the sacred/profane
relationship. Based on Leach, Graburn (ibid.) proposes that, beyond the time of sacred
and profane, the passage of time in these rituals also contemplates the transitional
periods between these states. These moments are ambivalent. Before departure, it is
filled with excitement, happiness, euphoria, but also tension, as the trip involves some
degree of risk of accident and death. When leaving we say goodbye, departure retains
a symbolic death. Reentry into ordinary life is full of nostalgia, and while it signifies
the end of the holidays and excitement, it also implies relief from safe return home
and an end to tension and emotional burden of being away (GRABURN, 1989).
With the planning and storytelling processes, bloggers lengthen the transition
times, although the proximity of the trip can raise the excitement and expectation with
departure, just as memory can lose liveliness over time. In this sense, the extraordinary
of travel is as far as possible extended to the ordinary realm of life through anticipation
and planning on the one hand and recollection and narration on the other. Camila
states on her page that “nothing is better than the blog to make the trip last longer”,
indicating how storytelling extends the travel experience through memory.
The preceding stage of travel planning assumes not only a pragmatic sense, but
it is also understood as an experience of imagination, which takes part of the travel
process. To many, it is a hobby, so that it exists regardless of the realization or not of
the trip. In any case, it is an important step in creating possible trips. It establishes
the beginning of a process of translating the other into the traveler’s world, a way
of making familiar what is distant and founding the possibility of communication
with the other. With planning, places populated only by vague and undefined images
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because you believe you are doing original stuff then you find five hundred thousand
identical images on the Internet”. This irony is that of the naturalized perception of
individuality in modern-western society, which leads to an incessant search for a
singular self, which in turn is immersed in a socially conditioned way of inhabiting
the world. MacDougall (2006) warns that the way we see things is deeply structured,
but our perception, though culturally oriented, is the mechanism by which our values
and interests are transformed.
With space dedicated to narration, the travel blog is a medium for sharing
479 speeches and images about other peoples and places. Blog comment boxes reveal
readers’ engagement in virtual travels through the storyteller’s paths, and bloggers
are aware that their stories serve to build other travels. The narrative of the blog
would then allow for a double travel experience. The first, the journey through the
text, the imaginary aroused by the reader’s virtual path through the narratives; the
second, the real journey the reader builds for himself with the support of these same
narratives. Readers are always saying that they have changed their routes because of
the discoveries they made on the blog, decided on destinations based on the tellings,
and felt inclined to follow the same path taken by the blogger. In addition to their
influence on readers’ choices, there is the perception that narratives about the other
weave images and representations about the other, and all this incurs some degree
of responsibility to the narrator. The refuge of the bloggers lays on the discourse of
subjectivity and personality of their narratives. By taking the blog as a space of the
self, bloggers reinforce the personal character of their impressions, emphasizing the
variability of perspectives and experiences on the different pages and the reader’s
responsibility on researching and composing a trip for themselves. Thus, if planning is
based on the experience of others, it is also presented as a new process that singularizes
the individual with the autonomous construction of a trip for themselves. This is how
from the blogger’s narrative other trips can be created and therefore narrated.
Building imaginary through the search for information, emotion and experiences
of others, bloggers, in their process of planning, populates their memory with
meanings that will guide them on their journey and participate in their later narration.
By providing narratives about the world, planning feeds and participates not only in
the experience of the trip itself but also in the stage that follows the bloggers’ return
to their place of residence, that which concerns the recollection and narration of the
trip. The often extensive bloggers’ research serves their own production of stories
and narratives. This aspect becomes literal and remarkable when Arnaldo claims to
produce part of his texts even before departure. During a “live blogging” trip, he tests,
compares, verifies, and adapts, adds, and modifies whatever he deems necessary.
For blogging not to disrupt the trip and actually have content, it is essential
to plan ahead and prepare yourself so that part of the text to be published is
written, aligned, in such a way that it is only updated, eventually corrected
during the trip, confirming or not what we have researched and put on paper.
During the trip we will just insert what we felt, so that the text has credibility
and personality, not merely a copy here and there of texts extracted somewhere.9
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Returning from the trip involves souvenirs, photographs, and memories that
will feed the later writing. Writing, as well as planning, is lived as an important part
of the travel experience, so that we find in blogs the pleasure and appreciation of
writing and its role in the construction of travel memory. Bloggers spend a lot of time
imagining and planning trips, or reporting memories and adventures lived on their
journeys. At the close of a cycle of posts about the latest adventure, new upcoming
trips tend to be announced on the page.
9 INTERATA, Arnaldo. Dubai: Blogando ao vivo. Fatos & Fotos de Viagens. 09 Aug. 2007. Avaiable at: <http://
interata.squarespace.com/jornal-de-viagens/2007/8/9/dubai-blogando-ao-vivo.html>. Acessed: 27 Feb. 2014.
480 In the blog space, travel and narrative intertwine and influence each other. On
the one hand, travel provides raw material for the narrative. The experience lived by
the traveler on his routes is claimed as the main substratum of travel blog narratives,
especially when they are accused of reproducing content published by official
institutions, such as the tourist offices, or by other means of disseminating tourist
products and services. On the other hand, the narrative gives meaning to travel,
providing it with form and coherence. Moreover, it has repercussions on the practice
of traveling, especially because the blog is a commitment to readers and to an online
network, which leads the blogger to have the page virtually present in his journeys.
Even if the page refresh is not concomitant with the journey - and usually it is not -
the blog becomes part of the travel experience and influences it. In an interview, the
blogger Juliana, for example, states that after starting the blog she became much more
attentive to details that would otherwise be out of sight, so that she could make useful
records for other travelers.
Produced in attention to a network of relationships, the blog’s narrative is
marked by the appreciation of the narrator’s subjectivity and experience. The blogger
builds their traveling character to the world through an autobiographical narrative.
Todorov (1992) demonstrates that, historically, travel has been taken as both an
uplifting and, on the contrary, derogatory experience, depending on whether it was
associated or not with a process of inner transformation. The conception that belittles
the spatial displacement takes the traveler by a vain adventurer, their narrative is only
a reflection of this state of mind. “The very existence of a narrative necessarily implies
the valorization of its object (since it deserves to be evoked), and therefore a certain
satisfaction of its narrator” (TODOROV, 1992, p. 97). From this perspective, man’s
search for elevation is an internal search, and one needs not physically move to reach
it. On the contrary, external travel only distracts and makes the person dependent
on the outside world. The prism that values displacement, in turn, does not oppose
external to internal travel, it seeks to reconcile them, valuing the knowledge of the
world as a way of access to self-knowledge. In this perspective,
The existence of others around us is not a pure accident. Others are not simply
solitary subjects comparable to the self immersed in meditation; others are also
part of it: the self does not exist without a you. We cannot get to the bottom of
ourselves if we exclude others from it. The same is true for foreign countries and
cultures that are different from ours: one who only knows one’s land always
risks confusing culture and nature, erecting the habit as a rule, generalizing
from a single example that is oneself. (TODOROV, 1992, p. 99-100)
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isolation. Not without purpose, Ricardo Freire encouraged a group of regular readers
to create their own pages and share their experiences, and some of the blogs that are
on the net today were born from this core. The RBBV, in turn, gathers publications
from different blogs, aggregating them by tourist destinations to facilitate the reader’s
research. Blogs participate in this logic of collective construction, although unlike
the Wikipedia model, the individuality, authorship and personal character of the
narrative are protected and privileged.
In light of the Maussian gift (MAUSS, 2003) it is understood that the relationship
482 with other travelers on these pages does not concern a merely utilitarian exchange.
The exchange of gifts between groups and individuals is not restricted to the
utilitarian universe of commodities but penetrates the domain of human relations.
There is a complexity of nuances in the relationships between travel bloggers, which
involve an alliance for the construction of the public good, ostentation, sociability,
individualization, monetization, in short, an intricate range of human motivations.
Also present in this exchange system is the notion that bloggers are helping to build
and make available knowledge about the world.
Therefore, in blogs we find subjects who do not recognize themselves as being
alone in the world, and the construction of oneself’s narrative makes sense in the
relationship with others. To be unique one must exist in the midst of a multiplicity,
and the condition of existence of the self passes through the simultaneous existence
of the unique other. As a result, the singularities experienced by the different selves
make up the multiplicity of knowledge and modes of existence that the blog, as a
blank page, welcomes. The narrative of oneself is thus accompanied by a shared and
idealized project of knowledge construction and democratization. This availability
of information would empower the average traveler by making them less dependent
on the intermediaries of the tourist industry. Armed with a wealth of plans and
imaginaries, the tourist-storytellers aim to conquer and bring freedom and autonomy
to the world. They do not go alone in their walks, they long for the multiplication of
the freedom of being and building themselves. To do so, one must disentangle from
the modus operandi of conventional tourist travel and invent oneself.
REFERÊNCIAS
Introdução
“Que Deus nos abençoe e nos guarde a todos que estão no trecho com a gente e
aos nossos que ficaram em casa. Amém”. A oração recitada pelo guia ao som da música
pop americana Maneater (Daryl Hall e John Oates, 1982), tocada com frequência nas
discotecas brasileiras nos anos 80, marca o início da viagem de pesquisa de campo -
entre os dias 22 a 25 de novembro de 2018 - ao Parque Estadual de Preservação do
Jalapão. A área de proteção ambiental localizada no estado de Tocantins, Região Norte do
Brasil, até pouco tempo desconhecida pela maioria dos brasileiros, recebeu um número
expressivo de visitantes após a veiculação da novela O outro lado do paraíso4 e de duas
edições do Jornalístico Globo Repórter5, ambos produzidos pela Rede Globo de Televisão.
Contudo, a Região já foi tema de outros produtos midiáticos que possivelmente também
contribuíram para atrair curiosos, pesquisadores e aventureiros. Entre os principais
estão as séries de reality show de sobrevivência Survivor, produzida pela rede de TV
norteamericana CBS, cuja temporada no Jalapão foi exibida em 2009; e Largados e
Pelados, cujo episódio Jalapão estreou no início de 2018 pelo canal Discovery Channel6.
As belezas naturais do Tocantins foram utilizadas na obra de ficção escrita por
Walcyr Carrasco como mise-en-scène da trama da telenovela O outro lado do paraíso,
um drama que, além de mostrar questões afetivas, sociais, políticas e econômicas,
apresenta ao consumidor do folhetim a natureza quase selvagem do estado brasileiro
criado em 1988. O cerrado, com suas árvores retorcidas, cortado por estradas com
pedras e areias soltas de cores avermelhadas, dunas compondo uma paisagem
impressionista, formações rochosas que lembram catedrais, elefantes, ruínas de
castelos, com animais selvagens correndo nos campos e suas nascentes de águas claras
e quentes, tornou-se um lugar atrativo especialmente em virtude dos imaginários
produzidos pelas produções midiáticas.
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não apenas a experiência pessoal do turista, mas, a partir do momento que se agrega
à outras narrativas e aos sites de agentes do turismo local, conformam um imaginário
sobre a região bucólica que tem a menor densidade demográfica do Brasil, um dos
motivos pelos quais a área é chamada de deserto.
7 A planta de cor que lembra o ouro e que pode ser encontrada em região do cerrado dos estados de Mato Grosso,
Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Tocantins e Bahia.
8 A Comunidade Quilombola de Mumbuca é responsável por uma produção artesanal com o uso do capim
dourado. O uso desse capim é herança indígena do povo Xerente, repassada aos moradores de Mumbuca há cerca
de 80 anos. Este artesanato tornou-se a identidade da Comunidade Mumbuca para o restante do Brasil.
9 Para efeito metodológico, as fontes serão identificadas como guias, a saber: GUIA A; GUIA B; GUIA C; GUIA D.
486 Buscamos, assim, entender as interfaces imaginárias (pessoais, midiáticas, locais)
que se sobressaem nas narrativas sobre o Jalapão postadas no Instagram, buscando
ainda problematizar o conceito de economia da atenção presente no mundo digital/
virtual, uma vez que há uma intencionalidade das empresas de turismo da região em
tornar o destino ainda mais atrativo.
O turista tem vindo muito por modismo. Aumentou este perfil após a novel
[Do Outro lado do Paraíso]. Por exemplo, não olhar ao redor da viagem,
contemplar a natureza ou se interessar pelas histórias da cidade ou do parque.
Preferem só os atrativos e neles posam pra fotos como principal atividade.
O outro é o perfil aventureiro que pesquisa antes sobre o local e as fotos são
tiradas apenas após a contemplação do lugar (GUIA D. Entrevista concedida
às autoras em 25/11/2018).
Pudemos, assim, conferir que boa parte dos cenários das fotografias que
encontramos reproduzem imagens postadas já por outros usuários das redes sociais e
aplicativos de viagem, mas também de um dos produtos midiáticos citados no início
deste capítulo, como verificamos na imagem abaixo.
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Considerações finais
Nos nossos tempos as palavras parecem cada vez mais obsoletas. Comunicamo-
nos muitas vezes mais por meio das imagens e suas representações postadas nas redes
sociais do que pelos comentários agregados a elas, que por vezes apenas repetem, com
a devida economia dos vernáculos, a ideia central que iniciou o “diálogo”, por vezes
apenas dando anuência ao que foi “dito”. Na “Era do Acesso”, o tempo é crucial e as
estratégias de atenção devem ser pensadas como um produto, conforme assinalou
Cruz (2016).
As imagens que seguem determinados motivos de pontos atrativos e performances
midiáticos também não podem ser tomadas como mera representação, uma vez que,
conforme vimos em De Certeau (1994), a circulação de uma representação não indica
que ela seja seguida pelos demais usuários, que não fabricaram tais representações,
neste sentido deve-se, antes de tudo, entender que a produção secundária de uma
representação traz consigo inúmeros processos pessoais e culturais distintos da
produção primária de uma imagem.
As imagens que vimos, em seus diferentes contextos e objetivos, chamam a
atenção de outros que se interessam pelas narrativas da viagem como forma de forjar
a sua própria experiência futura. E o fato de as agências manterem estas imagens de
diferentes usuários autentica seus serviços. Assim, as narrativas das imagens, tanto
das agências quanto dos turistas, propiciam a ideia de sucesso e felicidade plenos, de
convívio harmonioso na operação gente versus natureza na região.
Obviamente, as influências midiáticas marcam muitas destas representações,
mas foram as tendências encontradas nas imagens das agências de turismo, com suas
semelhanças na representação das experiências de distintos usuários narradas nas
imagens analisadas, que revelaram o potencial mobilizador, ou ao menos influenciador,
na nossa sociedade, pelas redes sociais.
Por fim, percebemos que os roteiros acabam reproduzindo o circuito oficial
divulgado pelo estado. Assim, comunidades quilombolas e outros locais turísticos que
compõem o circuito do deserto das águas acabam sendo ignorados, entre eles ainda as
peculiaridades culinárias de restaurantes, tanto situados nas cidades quanto nas entradas
Narrativas de Viagem
REFERÊNCIAS
Introduction
“May God bless us and protect all of us in this stretch and all of ours who stayed
home. Amen”. The prayer recited by the tour guide to the sound of the American
pop song Maneater (Daryl Hall and John Oates, 1982), frequently played in Brazilian
discos in the eighties, marks the beginning of the field research trip – between the
22nd and 25th of november 2018 – to Jalapão State Park. The environmental protection
area located in the state of Tocantins, Northern Brazil, until recently unknown by
most Brazilians, received an expressive number of visitors after the broadcast of the
telenovela O outro lado do paraíso3 and two editions of the journalistic work Globo
Repórter4, both produced by Rede Globo de Televisão. However, the Region was the
theme of other media products that possibly contributed in attracting the curious,
researchers and adventurers, the most notable ones being the reality show series
Survivor, produced by American television network CBS, whose Jalapão season was
broadcast in 2009; and Largados e Pelados (Naked and Afraid), whose Jalapão episode
premiered in the beginning of 2018 through the Discovery Channel5.
The natural beauty of Tocantins were utilized in the fictional work written by
Walcyr Carrasco as mise-en-scène of the plot of telenovela O outro lado do paraíso,
a drama that, beyond showing the affective, social, political and economic factors,
presents the show’s consumer the almost wild nature of the brazilian state created
in 1988. The Cerrado biome, with its twisted trees, cut by roads with stones and
loose sand of a reddish tint, dunes making up an impressionists’ landscape, with rock
formations that remind one of cathedrals, elephants, castles’ ruins, with wild animals
running in the fields and its clear and warm water springs, became an attractive place
especially in virtue of the imaginary produced by the media.
1 Doctor in Communications through the University of Brasília (UnB). Permanent teaching staff in the Postgraduate
Course in Communication in Media and sociocultural practices in the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) and of the
Travel Narratives
Communication – Publicity and Advertising course of the Arts and Culture Institute (ICA) of UFC.
2 Journalist and master in Sociology through the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS). Doctor in Communications
through the University of Brasília (UnB). Professor of the Bachelor course of Journalism and the Academic
Master’s Degree in Communication and Society in the Federal University of Tocantins (UFT).
3 Telenovela by Walcyr Carrasco produced by Rede Globo, broadcast from October 23rd 2017 to May 12 th 2018,
in 172 episodes.
4 Broadcast on May 1st 2018 and May 13th 2018, available at: https://globoplay.globo.com/v/6730668/ and https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMr7lGVWs_U.
5 https://www.largadosepelados.com/Tags/largados-e-pelados-jalapao/; https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=x91SHHhGsqI
500 Another attractive aspect touched on by television programs is capim dourado
(golden grass)6, a very spread out species found in the Japalão Park region, used in
the manufacturing of handicrafts, which also served as allegory for other Rede Globo
productions. The importance of this species of grass goes beyond ornamentation,
supporting economically poor communities of Quilombolas, who now make up the
tourists visiting roadmap, such as, for example, Mumbuca.7 “It is believed that the
residents of the central region of Jalapão probably learn the art of working the golden
grass from the indigenous people of the Xerente ethnicity, who left the region almost
a century ago” (SILVA; SILVA, 2009, p. 12).
In this context, the social Medias of tourism operators in Jalapão, personal
visitors’ profiles and travel apps significantly increased the images of the so-called
“desert of waters”. This paper’s main objective is to analyze the imaginary produced
about Jalapão from images posted in the social media Instagram by tourism companies
that conduct trips to the Park, and attempt to understand what the experiences that
project themselves upon the eyes of observers of those images are. As a chosen
methodology, we opted to work semi-structured interviews with owners of tourism
operators and two tour guides8. As well as the interviews, images posted by visitors
on the companies’ Instagram and documental research from the official Tocantins
State website, amongst them the Secretariat of Tourism and Tocantins Nature
Institute (Naturantins) were analyzed. We also looked to discuss if (and which) of the
media productions influenced on the choice of these locations and the framing of the
posted images. This social media was created with the purpose of showing, especially
through photographs, details of daily life and, in a subjective way, to narrate the day-
to-day life of its users (MUSSE, 2017).
Theoretical foundation was taken from the works of Walter Benjamin (2009),
Ítalo Calvino (2003) and Irlys Barreira (2012) to base the concepts of journey
narratives. About the concept of imaginaries, the works of Armando Silva (2014) and
Fabio de la Rocca (2018). We looked for more in-depth research about the use of
Instagram in the works of Paula Sibila (2008), Erving Goffman (2013), Han Byung-
Chul (2017) and Mariana Musse (2017). The different approaches about the location
and the everyday took De Certeau as basis, amongst other authors that subsidized
the theoretical-methodological orientation. The categories observed in the images,
from this benchmark, were the oneness/redundancy of the image-experience, the
performance of the character and the media attribution.
This paper traces an outlook over the tourist experiences with Jalapão and
what choices they make when selecting photos and images to share the moments
they had in their trip. These published images constitute other texts that tell the story
Travel Narratives
of not only the personal experience of the tourist, but, from the moment it aggregates
with other stories and with the websites of local tourist agencies, create an imaginary
6 A plant with a color reminiscent of gold and that can be found in the Cerrado region of the states of Mato
Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Tocantins e Bahia.
7 The Quilombola Community of Mumbuca is responsible for crafmanship with the use of golden grass. The
use of this grass was inherited from the Xerente people, passed onto the Mumbuca residents around 80 years
ago.This handiwork became the identity of the Mumbuca community to the rest of Brazil.
8 For methodological purposes, the sources will be identified as guides, as follows: GUIDE A; GUIDE B; GUIDE
C; GUIDE D.
501 about the bucolic region that has the lowest demographic density in Brazil, one of the
reasons the area is called a desert.
As such, we attempted to understand the imaginary interfacer (personal, media-
based, local) that stand-out in the narratives about Jalapão posted on Instagram,
seeking to problematize the concept of attention economics present in the virtual/
digital world, as there is an intentionality with tourism companies in the region to
make the destination even more attractive.
The book The Voyages of Marco Polo is an important reference in the art of telling
stories about the impressions left on a traveler on new territories. It is about the account
of a visiting outsider, Italian merchant/ambassador, to other civilizations. The stories
told by him serve to feed the imaginaries of Middle Ages Europeans about lands hitherto
still unknown. Some narratives of the Venetian merchant were taken as fallacies due
to the lack of knowledge on the part of the Europeans about the fauna, flora, culture
and, most importantly, in virtue of the creative way the daily life in oriental cities was
presented. At the time, the travel experiences of Marco Polo were not extraordinary
amongst merchants, what made them different were the records of the impressions
about the journeys through various cities present in the book, whose contents fed the
European imaginary about the Orient for over a century.
In the descriptions of Italo Calvino (2003), powered by the narratives of Marco
Polo to Kublai Khan, cities receive female names and are categorized by symbols,
memory, desire, name, trades, deceased etc. In the real contemporary cities, the strategies
for marketing places (KOTLER et al, 2006) proposed by governances design cities to be
touristic, innovative, exotic, creative and intelligent. They need a competitive quality,
some characteristic that makes them unique. This can be landscapes, culture, historical
or religious facts, or even the local populace. Just like how in Calvino’s imaginary cities
something needs to be chosen as a symbol to become an object of desire and thus feed
the consumption of the place by visitors. The images in tourism marketing of Jalapão’s
waterfalls, dunes and fervedouros (underwater springs) became scenery to sites, guides
and maps to a consumer experience. “The visitation rituals represent the confirmation
of the importance of the locations marked on the road maps, reiterated by the ensemble
of meanings as a kind of text in action” (BARREIRA, 2012, p.65).
In current times, travelers narrate cities in different ways, but the forms of
expressing those experiences, in virtue of technological equipment, are ever more similar.
In tourism companies’ social media we researched there are several reproductions of
Travel Narratives
images from locations posted by visitors. “We show on our Instagram page the diverse
models to take a good picture in the chosen places. It’s the clients’ choice9”, explains one
of the owners of a tourism agency in Jalapão (GUIDE B). Experiences of a place become
collective. In the attempt to seize a unique image from the landscapes of Jalapão, visitors
reproduce images from other visitors. They try to master new location experiences,
inside an old experience frame (Walter Benjamin 2009, p.490).
9 Interview with the owner of the company Jalapão Oficial, Cristiano Tavares.
502 Success, as a positive value, would be connected to the postmodern subject’s
performance, which is why they slave themselves in its name, therefore, if they fail,
the feeling of guilt will reside only and exclusively on them. In this sense, in the
world of social media, everything and everyone must appear to be represented by
images of success, happiness and achievement. According to Murdock (2018), internet
companies promote a business model in which spectacle and appearance is traded for
the slavish work of internet users, who, happily, give them their data, and do the
information distribution job that, in other times, was up to the mass media.
Performance, however, is another concept to be problematized in this issue,
seeing how many times images spread in social media can have only surreptitiously,
and not tacitly, the dimension of performance as “an action practiced by someone
who considers themselves to be practicing a performance, and whose public view it as
such” (SIBILIA, 2015, p. 354). Since the pose produced by someone will not always be
seen by other users as performance. We will treat these representations in Instagram
as performance, as we believe that they are not only mere images of experiences
or everyday representations, they are realized as denser processes of subjectivation
(BRASIL apud SIBILIA, 2015, p. 355).
According to Barros, just in Instagram, globally, there are over 80 million
photographs published daily by over 300 million registered users, images that show
the necessity of visibility by the part of the users,
At the same time that the production and sharing speed of these images is
revealing of impulses, fundamental elements when it comes to examining the
imaginary, the craving of publicity goes against the experience of the symbolic
image in terms of how it is understood by Durand (1964 ), which supposes a
personal revelation whose description is not only impossible to be made by
the imagining subject, but also unnecessary and useless, seeing as, by itself,
it will not modify the symbolic experience in any way, be it their own or of
others. Thus, an equation that conjugates the variables of the dilution of the
symbolism of the sacred is formed, with the anticipation of communicating
experiences through technical images (BARROS, 2019, p. 133).
Visitors and agencies, when sharing images of the trip experiences, elect
what they consider symbolic or iconic spaces that identify them inside an already
consolidated imaginary about the location. Coupled with their repertories, the image
choices can be tied to the historical and cultural moments, media production or
moments with nature, with a pinch of added creativity that, at times, possess posing
and performative elements arising from photographic techniques and editing. These
feelings shown in photographs posted in companies’ social media mobilize potential
Travel Narratives
consumers. It’s attention economics, in other words, this new “Access Era”, in which
time and human experience are transformed in commodities (RIFKIN apud CRUZ,
2016, p. 215), “which becomes really scarce, here, and the navigation time during
which the user lets themselves be affected by advertising strategies, in other words,
their attention” (CRUZ, 2016, p. 215). The divulging of the travel experiences, in this
sense, feed the future tourist with expectation about their experience, include the a
priori user in the new economy and even serves as authenticity seal of the services
503 provided by the tourist company. Tourists are nourished by the website, catalogs or
advertisement images, surround themselves of illusions and enchantments not always
fulfilled during trips and often updated with their own routes and senses.
To the researcher Armando Silva, the study about the imaginary must go
through three entries: “the imaginary as a psychological construct or mark; the
imaginary as social construct of reality; e the imaginary as the manner that allows
material expression through techniques” (SILVA, 2014, p.37). The first refers to the
moments in which feelings dominate perception, such as states of fear, resentment,
affections and illusions; the social imaginaries would be presumptions of the collective
representations, constructs that can manifest in local as well as global areas; and,
finally, the technological entry, whose supply of technique allows the materialization
of group expression, in other words, imaginaries associated with techniques serve as
an instrument to represent them, as is the case with the images posted on Jalapão’s
tourism companies’ Instagram, which, however, ally themselves to two other
dimensions in the context we addressed here.
According to De Certeau (1994, p. 40),
Jalapão’s guides program visits to the park according to the number of visitors
in groups and the time necessary to travel to attraction spots. Informative materials,
that, in some ways, serve as help to the travelers, showing directions, are not used
in adventure or ecologic tours presented to Jalapão’s visitors. The red dirt roads,
flattened by tractors, suffer constant acts of nature – rain, wildfires, heat – and are
substituted by other during the course of the journey. The visitor receives a route
proposal of locations to be visited, however, in virtue of the distance between tourist
attractions, the map, which looks more like a Jalapão treasure hunt, distributed by
some local merchants, and serves only an illustrative or locative purpose to visitors.
The tourist, before arriving at Jalapão, traverses a route of almost 200 kilometers
between Palmas and Ponte Alta, the entry point to the Park. The first stop is the
city of Taquaruçu, mountainous region located about 32 kilometers from downtown
Palmas, with waterfalls and a milder climate. Different from tourist city routes, there
is no way for the initial programming to be followed to the letter, since much relies
upon visitor’s dispositions and weather and roads conditions. The distance between
attractions makes the experience similar to a safari, ever increasing expectations
relating to visited locations. Time is an important aspect to whoever tours Jalapão:
even though there was no phone signal for most of the trip, a fundamental object to
Travel Narratives
Tourists come here a lot as a fad. That profile went up after the telenovela [Do
Outro lado do Paraíso]. For example, not looking around during trips, gaze
at nature or show interest in the stories about the Park or the city. They’d
rather focus on the tourist attractions and pose for photos as a main activity.
The other profile is the adventurer who researches in advance about the
location and have photos taken only after contemplating the places. (GUDE
Travel Narratives
Many tourism agencies in Jalapão not only divulge photos, but also provide
information about the location. Thus, it is interesting to the agencies and to guides
to maintain a constant feed on their social media, amongst them Instagram and
TripAdvisor, with images, especially those that display other tourists’ experience
with the location.
506
the field research we perceived that there are problems in the continuous visitation
to quilombola communities, especially the Mumbuca, stage for the Golden Grass,
something that entails a change in routes. “They raised the prices too much and
do not attend to customers very well. We’ve avoided taking clients there”, explains
GUIDE A (Interview granted on November 24th 2018).
We can, therefore, ascertain that there are at least two main types of tourists
507 in the National Park, one that follows tourist information and promotional marketing
boosted by media events that took place at the venue, already mentioned, and the
adventure-seeking tourist who, although also having had contact with the media
pieces at some point, comes to Jalapão with the greater objective of experiencing the
location and its histories.
Despite these profiles of Jalapão tourists, even if there is no influence from media
products, there exists a unity in the opinion that it is the digital influencers that might
be interfering in the increase in the number of visitors; the rise in the Dollar price might
also have helped in this context. It is those adventure oriented profiles that look for
more experiences with the local culture. Thus, in general alterations in routes are more
likely to happen to this second type, which are sold as closed packages by agencies, as
one of our guides describes:
The route alteration exists for various reasons. If the route is closed, it’s more
controlled … for ecotourism, even less visited points might get in. The rout is
suited to guarantee meeting the tourists’ expectations. In prolonged holidays,
we need to depart to location early [since in each attraction might stop 15 to
20 pickup trucks] (GUIDE D. Interview granted to the authors on November
11th 2018).
Such alterations, however, are rare, even in virtue of the market’s dynamics and
constant flux of tourists. According to another interviewee, for instance, “the telenovela
had a momentary boom” only, but they also do not verify this motivation a general
form: “up until now no one came to me because of that. Sometimes I say ‘here is where
such and such scenes were filmed, or the build of a certain set’, but they respond ‘jeez!’
or ‘I didn’t even know’” (GUIDE C. Interview granted on March 20th 2019).
Jalapão is, therefore, stage for many diverse experiences, even with a controlled
tour route, convenient for those that do not know the venue and do not have the adequate
means to visit, or even to those that were prompted to get to know the location for its
natural beauty and adventure spirit, or to those that want to enjoy for themselves the
experiences they saw on social media and narrations of digital influencers.
There also exists the effort to establish a distinction, a oneness of the experience
with the location, but at the same time that the image represents the place itself, it
reveals it, and thus, it translates as the possibility of a similar experience to others.
Travel Narratives
Some performatic images one can find reveal the position of individuals that
want to be seen as different, usually by visual qualities that inspire a more attractive
imaginary, having the shapes and colors of nature around them as backdrop. As
Sibilia analyzed, the act of performing, currently, and not only in mass media, but in
everyday life, became synonymous with “extreme displaying of oneself”.
Travel Narratives
Final considerations
In current times words seem ever more obsolete. Many times we communicate
much more through images and their representations posted in social media than
through comments attached to them, which many times simply repeat, with a shortage
in vernacular, the central “dialog” kick-starting idea, many merely making know our
Travel Narratives
approval to what was “said”, because, in the “Access Era”, time is crucial and attention
strategies must be viewed as a product, as pinpointed by Cruz (2016).
Images that follow certain motifs of attraction points and media performances
cannot, however, be taken as mere representation, since, as seen with De Certeau
(1994), spreading of a representation does not mean that it is followed by other
users, that did not produce such representations, in this sense one must, above all,
understand that secondary production of a representation brings with it innumerable
512 personal and cultural processes distinct from the primary production of an image.
The images we saw, in their differing contexts and objectives, draw the attention
of others who are interested in the travel narratives as a way to forge their own future
experience. And the fact that agencies keep these images from different users validates
their services. Thus, narratives from images, whether from agencies or tourists,
foster the idea of unfettered success and happiness, of harmonious coexistence in the
operation people versus nature in the region.
Obviously, media influences mark many of these representations, however, it
was tendencies found in tourism agencies’ images, with their resemblance in the
representation of experiences of different users narrated in the analyzed images,
that revealed the mobilizing, or at the very least influencing, potential of our society
through social media.
Finally, tour routes end up reproducing the official circuit promoted by the State.
In this way, quilombola communities and other tourist venues that make up the water
desert circuit end up being ignored, amongst them the culinary peculiarities from
restaurants situated not only on cities but also in the gateways of tourist attractions,
as we could experience in Cachoeira das Araras and the Prata community. It should
also be noted that agencies provide distinct experiences and some offer visits to
exclusive, less popularized, in a manner of speaking, tourist spots.
REFERENCES
atenção. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, n. 109, 2016, pp. 203‑228. Disponível em:
http://www.scielo.mec.pt/pdf/rccs/n109/n109a10.pdf. Acesso em: 24 abr. 2019.
KOTLER, P.; GERTNER, D.; REIN, I; HAIDER, D. H. Marketing de lugares: como
conquistar crescimento de longo prazo na América Latina e no Caribe. São Paulo:
Prentice Hall 2006.
LA ROCCA, F. A cidade em todas as suas formas. Porto Alegre: Sulinas, 2018.
513 MURDOCK, G. Refeudalização revisitada: a destruição da democracia deliberativa.
Revista Matrizes V.12 - Nº 2 maio/ago. 2018, São Paulo – Brasil. Disponível: DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/issn.1982-8160.v12i2p13-31
MUSSE. M. F. Narrativas Fotográficas no Instagram: autorepresentação, identidades e
novas sociabilidades. Florianopolis: Editora Insular, 2017.
POLO, M. As viagens. São Paulo: Editora Martin Claret, 2001.
RESENDE, F. Cidade, comunicação e cultura: a diferença como questão. Logos,
vol. 12, n. 01, set/2005. Disponível em: https://www.e-publicacoes.uerj.br/index.php/
logos/article/view/15305. Acesso em: 11 nov. 2018
SIBÍLIA, P. Autenticidade e performance: a construção de si como personagem
visível. Revista Fronteiras – estudos midiáticos 17(3):353-364 setembro/dezembro
2015. Disponível em: doi: 10.4013/fem.2015.173.09. Acesso em: 13 abr. 2019.
SILVA. A. Imaginários, estranhamentos urbanos. São Paulo: Ed. Sesc São Paulo,
2014
SILVA, C. R e; SILVA, G. L. da. SanCapim: Exportadora de artigos de Capim Dourado.
Trabalho de Conclusão de Disciplina (Curso de Comércio Exterior). Senac. Santos,
2009. Disponível em: https://pt.scribd.com/document/82782392/SanCapim-a-de-
Artigo-de-Capim-Dourado. Acesso em: 19 mar. 2019.
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514 O INSTAGRAM COMO INFLUENCIADOR
TURÍSTICO: AS MULHERES E O USO
DA REDE SOCIAL NA HORA DE VIAJAR
Introdução
O ato de se mover é uma atividade tão antiga quanto o homem. Desde os primórdios
a espécie se locomove, transita, caminha, muda. Antes do surgimento da agricultura, entre
dez e doze mil anos atrás, o nomadismo era a única opção viável para a sobrevivência da
espécie e esse estilo de vida, marcado por migrações e locomoções, sempre fez parte da
história humana. Por isso, é difícil determinar o ponto de partida do turismo.
Ao longo do tempo, a definição do que é turismo foi incansavelmente discutida
e remodelada. Conceituar turismo é conceituar
O termo também pode ser definido como o movimento de pessoas de uma certa
origem até um destino para se engajar em atividades prazerosas (SWARBROOKE &
HORNER, 2007). Já a Organização Mundial do Turismo (OMT) entende o assunto como
fenômeno cultural, social e econômico, que envolve o movimento de pessoas para países
ou lugares fora de seu meio ambiente usual por motivos profissionais ou de lazer.
Viajar é atividade que gera status social e promove uma certa separação
de classes - quem viaja, como e para onde? Entender os aspectos que circundam
o turismo é entender que o turismo não é acessível a todos. O crescimento do
turismo é entendido como uma forma de alargamento da democracia, já que foi
historicamente acessível apenas a uma elite do movimento e é indicativo de status
social. O desenvolvimento de viagens por meio de trem, no século XIX, e por meio
Narrativas de Viagem
Midiatização do Self
e bens culturais daqueles que estão em sua rede.” De acordo com João Kepler7 (2015),
palestrante e empreendedor, “[...] o influenciador é alguém que passa informações,
insights e opiniões que são levados em consideração por quem recebe aquele conteúdo
em meio a tantos posts e mensagens publicadas diariamente. É uma voz que se destaca
na multidão.” Podemos dividi-los por segmento, como moda, culinária, lifestyle, beleza,
4 Facebook perde usuários jovens para Youtube, Instagram e Snapchat nos EUA. Disponível em https://www.bbc.
com/portuguese/geral-44335917. Acessado em 26 de maio de 2019.
7 Dicas para se tornar um grande influenciador. Disponível em: /http://www.administradores.com.br/artigos/
marketing/5-dicas-para-se-tornar-um-grande-influenciador/87779/. Acessado em 15 de maio de 2019.
518 maternidade, esportes e, claro, os de viagens. De acordo com uma pesquisa realizada
pelo Facebook, 67% dos usuários interessados em viajar (identificados pela participação
em hashtags relacionadas ao assunto) usam o Instagram para encontrar inspiração para
novas aventuras e 70% compartilha com seus seguidores os seus planos8.
Nesse sentido, o Instagram funcionaria como media accounting, definido por Lee
Humphreys (2018) como práticas da mídia que permitem documentar nossas vidas e o
mundo ao nosso redor. Essas práticas envolveriam a criação, circulação e consumo de
vestígios midiáticos que indicam nossa presença, existência ou ação através da mídia.
Não se tratam apenas de pegadas digitais como posts online e endereços de IP, mas
principalmente do conhecimento que surge através do compartilhamento.
Esses vestígios são representações do eu, que são disponibilizadas para consumo.
É através deste consumo que é possível compreender-se e, por conseguinte, buscar a
compreensão do outro. É o que Lee Humphreys (2018) chama de Self Qualificado. Ao
deixar marcas nas mídias, deixa-se também versões estratégicas do self, que contêm
uma certa subjetividade - afinal, são representações particulares e incompletas,
imbuídas de parcialidade. A partir dessas versões, é possível analisar-se e perceber
aspectos de si próprio que não seriam percebidos, ou seriam percebidos de maneira
diferente.
As reflexões de Lee Humphreys (2018) sugerem que a mídia e, neste caso
específico, o Instagram, serve para uma finalidade muito comum e repetida ao longo
da história do ser humano: a narração de vidas e o compartilhamento com pessoas
que nos cercam. Para além disso, o self qualificado indica que há uma finalidade além
da interação: a de conhecer a si mesmo a partir do que se disponibiliza para o mundo.
De acordo com uma pesquisa da Deloitte (“Digital Democracy Survey”, publicada
em 23 de março de 2016), 80% dos millennials tiveram suas decisões de compras
influenciadas por recomendações de amigos e familiares, e 72% foram influenciados
por recomendações de contatos em redes sociais9. Esse cenário pode indicar que a
proximidade que os influenciadores possuem com os usuários é importante para a
conquista da credibilidade, fator essencial para a tomada de decisão do consumidor.
Para Gilles Lipovetsky (2007), vivenciamos na contemporaneidade o
hiperconsumo que, em sua perspectiva, pauta-se por uma lógica mais subjetiva e
emocional, importando destacar as seguintes características:
- o ato de consumir diz menos de um enfrentamento simbólico, e mais de uma
questão hedonista e de entretenimento (valor distrativo);
- a identidade não se vincula tanto ao custo do produto, mas sim a escolhas
Narrativas de Viagem
8 Facebook provides new insights on industry- specific trends among Instagram Users. Disponível em https://
www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/facebook-provides-new-insights-industry-specific-trends-among-
-instagram-users. Acessado em 14/05/2019
9 A era do influencer marketing. Disponível em https://www.meioemensagem.com.br/home/opiniao/2017/01/05/a-
-era-do-influencer-marketing.html. Acessado em 29/05/2019.
519 Sob esse aspecto, o consumo carrega função identitária: ele responde por quem se é,
que experiências busca-se viver e é cada vez mais personalizado de acordo com demandas
específicas. Nessa perspectiva, os consumidores vivem, em seu processo de aquisição,
experiências afetivas, imaginárias e sensoriais, buscando cada vez mais novas sensações e
bem-estar. Nessa nova fase, o que se vende não é um produto, é um estilo de vida.
“Das coisas, esperamos menos que nos classifiquem em relação aos outros
e mais que nos permitam ser mais independentes e mais móveis, sentir
sensações, viver experiências, melhorar nossa qualidade de vida, conservar
juventude e saúde”. (LIPOVETSKY, p. 42, 2007)
com muitas dicas e reflexões, não foram aprovadas por elas. Entende-se que não se
cumpre o potencial comunicativo do Instagram, mais focado em fotografias e vídeos
do que em textos.
Os tipos de perfis preferidos no Instagram são perfis que postam lugares
diferentes do comum e dão dicas de insider. Essa preferência também é observada
pelas mulheres mais jovens. Elas gostam de textos objetivos - os textões não
agradam, mas links para sites especializados e blogs atraem: é lá que elas procurarão
informações mais aprofundadas sobre as viagens que querem fazer. No Instagram,
gostam de dicas pontuais (o que fazer, onde ir) e como gastar pouco. Sobre a questão
521 financeira, para as participantes, na hora de planejar uma viagem, é fundamental que
o perfil seguido tenha uma realidade financeira similar à da seguidora. Sendo assim,
ainda que outros perfis sejam seguidos para se “sonhar” com determinada viagem,
no momento do planejamento, é importante a proximidade de realidades para que o
sonho se concretize.
Considerações finais
Para muitas mulheres, viajar não é apenas lazer, mas uma maneira de se
empoderar e de conquistar espaços. Conforme observado, as mulheres sentem-se
poderosas e cada vez mais buscam viajar sozinhas, como uma forma de sentirem-
se independentes e donas de si mesmas. Gostam de conhecer lugares fora da rota
turística tradicional, e acreditam que, por meio do Instagram, atingirão esse objetivo:
elas buscam seguir moradores locais e influenciadores que dão dicas de viagens.
No entanto, é importante observar que o Instagram ainda não é o bastante
para suprir todas as demandas das usuárias que desejam viajar. A rede social tem
um importante papel no momento que antecede a viagem e principalmente na
construção do desejo e da motivação para viajar. Ao levar as mulheres a querer
conhecer outros lugares, assume papel estratégico na tomada de decisão para a
escolha dos próximos destinos.
Mas, assim que o destino é definido, o aplicativo não é o suficiente para que
toda a jornada turística se realize. A partir do momento do planejamento, as mulheres
abandonam a rede em busca de blogs, sites especializados e grupos de Facebook que
condensem as informações demandadas. O aplicativo é complementado com blogs de
viagem, grupos no Facebook e sites especializados.
Parece, então, que o Instagram encontra seu lugar ao preencher uma lacuna
que os blogs de viagem sozinhos não podem oferecer (apesar de muitos blogs de
viagem complementarem suas informações em um Instagram): trazer informações
mais cotidianas e frequentes, o que confere uma noção de proximidade e, portanto,
de possibilidade de se alcançar a experiência que está sendo retratada. Com o uso
intenso do Instagram Stories, a rede social estimula a construção do imaginário dessas
mulheres a respeito do lugar desejado. Pode-se dizer, por isso, que o aplicativo reforça
a mobilidade imaginativa que, possivelmente, culminará na mobilidade corpórea,
estimulando o turismo.
Por fim, no que concerne às viagens realizadas por mulheres a segurança é um
Narrativas de Viagem
importante fator a ser considerado. Compreende-se que esse assunto, apesar de muito
falado, ainda é tabu, e faltam informações que ajudem as mulheres a se sentirem seguras
para viajar sozinhas, principalmente em lugares considerados incertos e perigosos.
Sendo assim, vemos que as relações entre os estudos de mobilidade, o turismo
e a presença de dispositivo móveis conectados em rede trazem possibilidades
interessantes e desafiadoras para os estudos de turismo e viagens justamente pelo
entrelaçamento que se observa entre o movimento físico e os fluxos informacionais.
Na chamada era da mobilidade, o estado de conexão quase permanente em que
522 se encontram os sujeitos faz com que os deslocamentos informacionais e físicos
coincidam, modificando a paisagem contemporânea.
REFERÊNCIAS
The act of moving is an activity as old as man. From the earliest days the species
moves, walks, changes from one place to another. Before the emergence of agriculture,
between ten and twelve thousand years ago, nomadism was the only viable option for
the survival of the species, and this lifestyle, marked by migrations and locomotions,
was always part of human history. Therefore it is difficult to determine the starting
point of tourism.
Over time the definition of tourism is tirelessly discussed and remodeled.
Conceptualizing tourism is conceptualizing
a social, cultural and spatial phenomenon that emerged from a human practice
of men and women who wished to experience something different from what
they were accustomed to living their daily life and their habitual places of
residence, social interaction (ARAÚJO & ISAYAMA, 2009, page 147)3
The term can also be defined as the movement of people from a certain place
to a destination to engage in pleasurable activities (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2007). The
World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) understands the matter as a cultural, social
and economic phenomenon, which involves the movement of people to countries or
places outside their usual environment for professional or leisure reasons.
Traveling is an activity that generates social status and promotes a certain separation
of classes - who travels, how and where? Understanding the aspects that encompass
tourism is to understand that tourism is not accessible to everyone. Tourism growth is
understood as a way of extending democracy, since it has historically been accessible only
to an elite of movement and is indicative of social status. The development of travel by
train in the Nineteenth century and by car and airplane in the Twentieth century played
a role in the democratization of displacement. But traveling is still a demonstration of
status, especially considering a hierarchy of places to be visited (traveling to Paris, for
example, brings more status than traveling to any nearby city). (URRY, 2008).
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1 Graduated in Social Communication with a degree in Journalism from the Faculty of Philosophy and Human
Sciences of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Researcher of Scientific Initiation in the project “Subject
in motion: narratives and subjectivities in the new organizational dynamics” coordinated by Professor Camila
Mantovani. Her research insterests are Organizational communication; Mobility; Mobile media and Digital Com-
munication. E-mail: leroyalice2@gmail.com
2 Professor of the Department of Social Communication and PPGCOM / UFMG. Doctor and Master in Informa-
tion Science (ECI / UFMG). Graduated in Social Communication / Journalism (UFMG) is co-coordinator of Afetos:
Research Group on Communication, Accessibility and Vulnerabilities. Her research interests include: Midiatiza-
tion; Organizational communication; Usability and accessibility studies; Mobility; Mobile media; Disabled people;
Body and technology. E-mail: camilam@ufmg.br
3 All the Excerpts have been loosely translated into English from the Portuguese version.
525 To exemplify this inequality, Bauman (1999) names two groups: tourists and
vagabonds. On the one hand, we have a globalized world where, for the first group,
tourists, distances are easily transposed and borders are crossed when something
new, not yet seen and enjoyed, calls them. For the second group, however, the real
space does not behave kindly, but closes itself for any kind of positive experience.
These “vagabonds”, only passively watch all the transformations that affect them,
being forced to move, to find a new place that supports them, or to stay when all that
they want is to leave. They are, for example, refugees seeking asylum or people forced
to emigrate.
The vagabonds move because they find the world within their reach
unbearably inhospitable. Tourists travel because they want to; the vagabonds
because they have no other bearable option. (...) What is acclaimed today as
“globalization” revolves around the dreams and desires of tourists. Its side
effect - collateral but inevitable - is the transformation of many others into
vagabonds. (BAUMAN, page 87, 1999)
The paradigm of mobility (URRY, 2007), argues that the processes of movements
are composed of five interdependent mobility: the corporeal travel of people, the
physical movement of objects (flows of production, sale and consumption); the
imaginative, the virtual and the communicative travel. John Urry recognizes that
tourism is not only about travel but it also entails the movement of ideas, capital and
social forms. This is only possible due to the incessant growth of information and
communication technologies (ICTs), enabling new forms of imaginative, virtual and
communicative travels combined with physical movement.
According to the UNWTO, the market is forecast to grow to 4% by 2019. In
2018, the sector recorded the second best result of the last 10 years (WTO, 2019).
With so much growth, the tourism market was expected to develop in order to attract
all kinds of new consumers. In the case of the discussion that we will present here,
the focus is on women as a potential audience for tourism. Our reflection seeks to
perceive them as a group that has consumption power and presents specific demands
in relation to travel and tourism.
In Brazil, since the 1970s, women began to have a greater participation in the
labor market, due to the country’s economic needs, rural exodus, access to universities
and lower fertility rates (BRUSCHINI, 1998). With the insertion and expansion of
the female role in the labor market, financial independence began to be possible
Travel Narratives
for many of them. In 2010, in about 37.3% of Brazilian households, the financially
responsible person was the woman (IBGE, 2010). According to research by Data
Popular, the female income in Brazil, between 2003 and 2013, grew 83%, jumping
from 602 billion to 1 trillion reais per year. (DATA POPULAR, 2013). It is possible
to perceive that throughout the Twentieth century, women were becoming more
and more active economically and therefore are taming their tastes in the way they
consume. According to Popcorn and Marigold (2000), women have a great decision
526 making power, being responsible for the acquisition of 80% of consumer goods. This
data began to reshape the logic of the market, which has been seeking to reach this
new audience, that is large and at the same time so segmented.
In the Consumer Survey, published by the brazilian Ministry of Tourism in 2017,
17.8% of women wanted to travel alone in the next 6 months, mainly in solo travel
or single travel style (the first refers to organized groups of people who do not know
each other and the second, independent travelers) (ANSARAH, 2009). The number is
higher than that of men with the same intention (11.8%). Yet the survey developed
by Voopter, an air travel search site in 2018, shows that 68% of women searched for
passages on the site, compared to only 31.3% of men.
These data are an indication that, nowadays, women have other priorities and
are seeking to occupy other spaces than those historically allowed to them. In a study
conducted by Trafalgar with women, 73% of respondents explained that traveling
makes them feel stronger and stronger and 69% say they feel inspired when they pack
up. The reasons why they travel for are varied: getting away from the routine and
getting more involved with family and friends were the most cited, but self-reflection,
growing and testing their own limits also motivate 49% of women to pack. These data
put travel as a possible tool for female emancipation.
According to Simone Fullagar (2002), “women have been positioned as objects
of exchange between men within a desire economy that values sexual difference
in culturally specific forms (wife, mother, daughter, prostitute).” Therefore, leisure
and travel offer cultural space through which scripts and gender narratives can
be rewritten. According to Fullagar, writing and traveling offer “the possibility of
rupture, of uncertain changes that disturb and destroy the Western discourses that
shape gender subjectivity.” The author makes us see travel as a possible mean of
changing the view of the feminine and as conquest of spaces previously uninhabited
by them.
The mobility and connectivity experienced in the contemporary world are also
accompanied by what Lemos (2005) named by release of the transmission, which means
more and more voices and discourses disseminated in the network. If information had
to pass by previous edition to to be publicized, today a number of digital tools have
made it possible to disseminate messages by ordinary subjects. Thus, we transform
our everyday experiences into media contents, which can be stored, retrieved and
became available anytime, anywhere. (MANTOVANI, 2011)
527 Castells (2006) conceptualizes the dissemination of private speeches via digital
technologies under the term Mass Self Communication. In this case, the ability of
the media to put themes in evidence, promoting their discussion at broader levels in
society, was, for the author, perceived and appropriated by the citizen who has no
professional connection with these media.
In this context, social networks emerge with different purposes and seek to
attract different audiences. From the already extinct Orkut to Twitter, from Tumblr
to Facebook, the internet becomes a communicative and dialogical place. It is already
possible to create your own content, share the geolocation and keep the web as
personal space, but not private.
The most promising of social networks is possibly Instagram. The social
network has overtaken even Facebook, once champion in popularity. In addition, it
is estimated that 68% of the total user base are women (OMNICORE AGENCY, 2017).
All this popularity has increased the number of digital influencers, enabling
them to use the network as a working tool. Once unthinkable as a profession, this
activity has become a means of working and today there are an average of 6 million
influencers in the world and 313,000 in Brazil. (REDE SNACK, 2017).
For Issaaf Karhawi (2017), “influencers are those who have some power in the
purchasing decision process of a subject; power to put discussions in circulation;
power to influence decisions about the lifestyle, tastes, and cultural assets of those
in their network.” According to John Kepler (2015), speaker and entrepreneur, “[...]
the influencer is someone who passes information , insights and opinions that are
taken into consideration by those who receive that content amid so many posts and
messages published daily. It’s a voice that stands out in the crowd.” We can divide
them by segment, like fashion, cooking, lifestyle, beauty, maternity, sports and of
course travel. According to a survey conducted by Facebook, 67% of users interested in
traveling (identified by participation in hashtags related to the subject) use Instagram
to find inspiration for new adventures and 70% share with their followers their plans.
In this sense, the Instagram would function as media accounting, defined by
Lee Humphreys (2018) as practices of the media that allow us to document our lives
and the world around us. These practices would involve the creation, circulation, and
consumption of media traces that indicate our presence, existence, or action through
the media. These are not just digital footprints like online posts and IP addresses, but
mostly the knowledge that comes through sharing.
These traces are representations of the self, which is made available for
consumption. It is through this consumption that it is possible to understand and
understand others. This is what Lee Humphreys (2018) calls the Qualified Self. By
Travel Narratives
leaving marks in the media, strategic versions of the self are left, which contain a
certain subjectivity - after all, they are particular and incomplete representations,
imbued with partiality. From these versions, it is possible to analyze and perceive
aspects of oneself that would not be perceived, or would be perceived differently.
The reflections of Lee Humphreys (2018) suggest that the media, and in this
specific case Instagram, serve a very common and repeated purpose throughout
528 human history: the narration of lives and the process of sharing it with people around
us. Furthermore, the qualified self indicates that there is a purpose beyond interaction:
that of knowing oneself from what is available to the world.
According to a Deloitte survey (“Digital Democracy Survey” published March 23,
2016), 80% of millennials had their purchasing decisions influenced by recommendations
from friends and family, and 72% were influenced by recommendations from contacts
in social networks. This scenario may indicate that the proximity that the influencers
have with the users is important for the achievement of credibility, an essential factor
for the decision making process of the consumer.
For Gilles Lipovetsky (2007) we experience in the contemporaneity the
hyperconsumption that, in its perspective, is guided by a more subjective and
emotional logic, being important to highlight the following characteristics:
- the act of consuming says less of a symbolic confrontation, and more of a
hedonistic and entertaining issue (distractive value);
- the identity is not related to the cost of the product, but to individual choices
and compositions made by the subjects;
- consumption breaks the space-time constraints (for moving consumers) as
well as offers itself to the individual.
- It assumes a concern with ethical and environmental issues.
In this respect, consumption carries identity function: it responds by who it is,
what experiences it seeks to live and is increasingly customized according to specific
demands. From this perspective, consumers live in their acquisition process, affective,
imaginary and sensorial experiences, seeking, more and more, for new sensations and
well-being. In this new phase, what is being sold now is not a product, it is a way of life.
Of the things, we hope less that they will classify us in relation to the others
and more that allow us to be more independent and more mobile, to feel
sensations, to live experiences, to improve our quality of life, to conserve
youth and health. (LIPOVETSKY, page 42, 2007)
try to give vent to the yearning generated by the social network, leaving in search of
similar or equal experiences.
Final considerations
For many women, traveling is not just leisure, but a way of empowering and
conquering spaces. As noted, women feel empowered and increasingly seek to travel
alone, as a way of feeling independent and owner of herself. They like to know places
outside the traditional tourist route, and believe that through Instagram they will achieve
this goal - they seek to follow local residents and influencers who give travel tips.
However, it is important to note that Instagram is still not enough to meet all
the demands of users who wish to travel. The social network has an important role
in the moment before the trip. By taking women to want to know other places, it
assumes strategic role in the decision making when choosing the next destinations.
But as soon as the destination is set, the application is not enough for the
entire tourist journey to take place. From the moment of planning, women leave the
network in search of blogs, specialized websites and Facebook groups that condense
Travel Narratives
the information demanded. The app is complemented with travel blogs, Facebook
groups and specialized websites.
It seems then that Instagram finds its place by filling a gap that travel blogs
alone can not offer (although many travel blogs supplement their information on
Instagram): providing close and frequent information, which gives a sense of
proximity and, therefore, the possibility of reaching the experience that is being
portrayed. With the intense use of Instagram Stories, the social network stimulates
531 the construction of the imaginary of these women with respect to the desired place.
It can be said, therefore, that the application reinforces the imaginative mobility that
possibly will culminate in corporeal mobility, stimulating tourism.
Lastly, when it comes to travel by women, safety is an important factor to
consider. It is understood that this subject, although widely spoken, is still a taboo,
and there is a lack of information to help women feel safe to travel alone, especially
in places considered uncertain and dangerous.
Thus, we see that the relationships between mobility studies, tourism and the
presence of networked mobile devices bring interesting and challenging possibilities
for tourism and travel studies precisely because of the interweaving between physical
movement and informational flows . In the so-called mobility age, the state of near-
permanent connection in which subjects find themselves makes the informational
and physical movements coincide, modifying the contemporary landscape.
REFERÊNCIAS
HUMPREYS, Lee. The Qualified Self - Social Media and the Accounting of
Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018.
IBGE. Mulheres são maioria da população e ocupam mais espaço no mercado
de trabalho. Disponível em: http://www.brasil.gov.br/cidadania-e-justica/2015/03/
mulheres-sao-maioria-da-populacao-e-ocupam-mais-espaco-no-mercado-de-
trabalho. Acessado em 14 de abril de 2019.
532 KARHAWI, Issaaf. Influenciadores digitais: conceitos e práticas em discussão.
In: XI Congresso Brasileiro Científico de Comunicação Organizacional e Relações
Públicas, 2017, Belo Horizonte, MG.
LEMOS, André. Cibercultura e mobilidade. A era da Conexão. In: XXVIII
Congresso Brasileiro de Ciências da Comunicação, 2005, Rio de Janeiro, RJ.
LIPOVETSKY, Gilles. A felicidade paradoxal: ensaio sobre a sociedade de
hiperconsumo. São Paulo: Companhia das letras, 2007.
MANTOVANI, C. M. C. A. Narrativas da Mobilidade: comunicação, cultura e
produção em espaços informacionais. Belo Horizonte, 2011. 234 f. Tese (Doutorado
em Ciência da Informação) - Escola de Ciência da Informação, Universidade Federal
de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2011.
OMNICORE Agency. Instagram by the numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun
Facts. Disponível em https://www.omnicoreagency.com/instagram-statistics/.
Acessado em 15 de maio de 2019.
OMT. Glossary of Tourism terms. disponível em http://statistics.unwto.org/sites/
all/files/docpdf/glossaryterms.pdf. Acessado em 14 de abril de 2019.
POPCORN, F.; MARIGOLD, L. Público-alvo mulher. Evolução: 8 verdades
do marketing para conquistar sua consumidora do futuro. Rio de Janeiro:
Campus, 2000.
SAMPAIO, Vanessa. Crescimento do turismo mundial pode chegar a 4% em 2019.
Disponível em: http://www.turismo.gov.br/%C3%BAltimas-not%C3%ADcias/12306-
crescimento-do-turismo-mundial-pode-chegar-a-4-em-2019.html. Acessado em 15
de maio de 2019.
SWARBROOKE, J. & Horner, S. 2007. Consumer behaviour in tourism. Second
edition. Elsevier. Oxford
TURISMO, Ministério. Pesquisa aponta que 17,8% das mulheres brasileiras
preferem viajar sozinhas. Disponível em http://www.brasil.gov.br/noticias/
turismo/2017/03/pesquisa-aponta-que-17-8-das-mulheres-brasileiras-preferem-
viajar-sozinhas. Acessado em 14 de abril de 2019.
URRY, John. O olhar do turista: lazer e viagens nas sociedades contemporâneas.
São Paulo: Studio Nobel/SESC, 2001.
URRY, John. Mobilities. London: Routledge, 2007.
Travel Narratives
533 ENTRE IMAGINÁRIOS, RIOS E FLORESTAS
DE UM CAMPUS FLUTUANTE
Caminho inverso
de acordo com os interesses de quem o usa, ou então, como palavra viva e dialógica,
híbrida por natureza, como nos ensina Bakhtin (2000).
1 Professora do Programa de Pós-Graduação Comunicação, Cultura e Amazônia da Universidade Federal do Pará
(UFPA). Coordenadora do grupo e projeto de pesquisa Narrativas Contemporâneas na Amazônia - Narramazônia.
E-mail: aldacristinacosta@gmail.com.
2 Professora do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação, Linguagens e Cultura da Universidade da Ama-
zônia (UNAMA). Integrante do grupo e projeto de pesquisa Narrativas Contemporâneas na Amazônia - Narrama-
zônia. E-mail: ivana.professora@gmail.com
3 Mestranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação Comunicação, Cultura e Amazônia da Universidade Federal do Pará
(UFPA). Integrante do grupo e projeto de pesquisa Narrativas Contemporâneas na Amazônia - Narramazônia. E-
-mail: denisessalomao@gmail.com.
534 Em linhas gerais, entendemos o imaginário como as representações ou
construções de uma sociedade, toda a experiência humana, coletiva ou individual;
às formas de viver e de pensar (DURAND, 1998), como instaurador de sentidos às
pessoas. O imaginário como lugar onde estão as imagens de compreensão do ser.
Na Amazônia, o imaginário se pluraliza. Para compreender esse plural no
cotidiano da região, pesquisadores se lançaram em busca das narrativas orais produzidas
em diversos lugares da Amazônia paraense. De uma interação comunicativa no espaço
acadêmico, nasceu na década de 1990, o projeto “O Imaginário nas Narrativas Orais
Populares da Amazônia Paraense – IFNOPAP4”, também conhecido como Campus
Flutuante da Universidade Federal do Pará, em virtude dos deslocamentos com o
objetivo de cartografar o imaginário das narrativas orais das regiões paraenses. Em
25 anos de existência, mais de cinco mil e trezentas narrativas foram catalogadas em
38 municípios do estado do Pará.
Nas argumentações, identificamos essas narrativas de viagem do IFNOPAP
como experiências dialógicas e polifônicas (BAKHTIN, 2004), entre tradicional e
contemporâneo, entre memória e história, assim como interpretações comunicativas
dos indivíduos com e sobre o mundo. Ou seja, elas diferem das narrativas de viagem
produzidas pelos colonizadores - que forjaram representações da região desde a
sua ocupação – e se apresentavam numa condição superior, e o outro, amazônida,
um ser genérico reduzido à ignorância, esvaziado de sua essência e individualidade
(GONDIM, 1994; PAES LOUREIRO, 2001).
Como procedimentos interativos e de análise, recorremos ao relato de experiência
na tessitura das relações narrativas e na troca de saberes entre indivíduos e Amazônia,
assim como por inspiração na abordagem enunciativa, centrada na coordenadora do
projeto, pesquisadora Socorro Simões, buscando compreender como IFNOPAP se
institui como narrativas de viagem.
Configuramos as narrativas de viagem como um gênero textual, assim como um
tipo de mobilidade espacial e simbólica, em que as pessoas são transportadas física e
imaginariamente na construção de suas histórias, criando uma relação de expressão
com o lugar. Pensando a partir de Tuan (1983, p.83) “quando o espaço nos é inteiramente
familiar, torna-se lugar”. Espaço e lugar se relacionam em três possibilidades “o mítico,
o pragmático e o abstrato”, na medida em que é experienciado e valorizado, que tem
significação para as pessoas. As narrativas de viagem do IFNOPAP caminham em duas
direções, não opostas, mas em sinergia: como relato de experiência da coordenadora
e dos pesquisadores; e como relatos daqueles que compartilham as narrativas orais
em seus lugares. Aqui, privilegiamos os relatos da coordenadora, considerando ser o
Narrativas de Viagem
4 O IFNOPAP subsidia pesquisas nas áreas de Antropologia, Psicologia, Métodos e Técnicas de Ensino, Linguís-
tica, Sociolinguística, Literatura Brasileira, Literatura Comprada, Dialetologia e Comunicação.
535 Martinez (2012, p. 40) classifica a natureza da narrativa de viagem em três
tipos principais: “os relatos ficcionais, os não-ficcionais (escritos a partir de fatos
reais, embora os autores possam usar recursos literários para tornar a leitura
mais envolvente) e mistos, produtos de ficção inspirados em fatos reais”. A autora
destaca que uma narrativa de viagem clássica se enquadra na última categoria. No
caso do IFNOPAP identificam-se relatos nas três categorias: narrativas do cotidiano,
do imaginário, construções narrativas a partir dessas narrativas, considerando
os interesses do referido projeto e suas características entre biodiversidade e
sociodiversidade amazônicas.
Diferentes dos relatos das grandes expedições, o IFNOPAP não herda a forma
tradicional do diário de viagem, mas a partir da entrevista com Socorro Simões
(2019, informação verbal)5 observamos que a produção resultante das coletas
aglutina diferentes formatos de narrativas ao longo das viagens realizadas. Essas
viagens, segundo a coordenadora, se debruçam dobre dois importantes eixos: dos
pesquisadores e dos contadores, com exposição de múltiplas vozes amazônicas, que
contrastam em origem entre viajantes e residentes, sem sobrepor relações de poder
entre as narrativas.
A dimensão do IFNOPAP em mais de duas décadas pode ser medida pelo
envolvimento de centenas de pesquisadores, ao longo de sua existência, e pelos
números que demonstram a amplitude do alcance das atividades produzidas: 38
municípios visitados na região; 22 eventos (locais, nacionais e internacionais);
19 projetos e subprojetos subsidiados; 28 livros publicados; 78 monografias; 34
dissertações de mestrado; 07 teses de doutorado; 94 artigos qualificados; 357 oficinas
e minicursos; 10 documentários; 04 curtas metragens; e 07 CD-ROOMS.
O que torna o projeto peculiar é a relação que estabelece com uma metáfora
da vida amazônica: os rios, que lhe rendeu a denominação de “campus flutuante”,
somando 392.846 km navegados pelos rios da Amazônia (Guamá, Solimões, Tapajós,
Amazonas, Trombetas, Tocantins, Xingu, Itacaiunas, além de inúmeros braços de
rios e travessias da baia do Marajó). Os seminários embarcados6 ampliaram o caráter
de pesquisa do projeto, inserindo o ensino e a extensão universitárias nas rotinas
das viagens, com a participação dos alunos do ensino fundamental e médio da rede
pública. As viagens também incluíram as estradas da região, totalizando 144.580 km
percorridos por vias terrestres; e as reuniões de pesquisa somaram a participação de
cerca de 100 mil pessoas em espaços fechados.
Segundo Simões (2019, informação verbal)7, o acervo produzido pelo IFNOPAP
é, “em grande parte, vindo do interior; portanto, os encontros acadêmicos do projeto,
Narrativas de Viagem
contexto que em 1999, pela primeira vez, o encontro do IFNOPAP foi realizado a
bordo de um navio, o Catamarã Pará10 – PA (ver figura 01), percorrendo de Belém
8 Nascida em Manaus, Socorro Simões ainda criança foi para a região Nordeste do país, depois de muitos anos
veio a Belém para passar apenas alguns dias e por aqui ficou. Graduou-se em 1969, em Licenciatura em Letras
(Português e Inglês) pela Universidade Federal do Pará, e depois concluiu seu mestrado (1978) e doutorado (1986),
ambos em Letras Vernáculas pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
9 Entrevista concedida por SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Entrevista I. [abr. 2019]. Entrevistadora: Alda Cristina
Costa. Universidade Federal do Pará. Belém, 2019.
10 De acordo com relatório do IFNOPAP, o Catamarã foi projetado e construído para navegar nas condições
específicas da Amazônia, com moderno equipamento de navegação e sistema eletrônico de prevenção contra
incêndio. O Catamarã Pará oferece segurança e conforto aos 144 passageiros distribuídos em 65 cabines – todas
537 até a região do Marajó com o objetivo de “levar cada participante ao universo das
narrativas ou aos lugares onde estão os maiores repertórios de histórias amazônicas”
(SIMÕES, 2019, informação verbal11). A partir desta edição, os encontros realizados na
embarcação ficaram conhecidos como “Seminários Embarcados”, em que, durante o
trajeto, percorrendo o curso do rio até chegar ao município de destino, são realizadas
palestras, oficinas, minicursos, entre outras programações, envolvendo pesquisadores,
moradores, estudantes e professores.
Acervo do IFNOPAP
é possível, inclui-se Cultura como uma das vertentes das propostas anuais
(SIMÕES, 2014, p. 12)
O Marajó não é uma paisagem, mas muitas paisagens, não é uma ilha, mas
um arquipélago, não é uma civilização, mas civilizações sobrepostas umas às
outras. Viajar pelo Marajó é deparar-se com informações de todas as ordens:
com elementos naturais, com as intervenções do homem, com as misturas
interacionais, Porto alguns desses dados, apreendidos no diálogo permanente
com o romance de Dalcídio Jurandir, da (re)leitura de outros livros sobre a
região e das reminiscências de viajante-turista. Com esse conhecimento
preliminar, escrevo o projeto defino a pesquisa, e inicio meu roteiro por esta
vastidão do território amazônico. (FARES, 2009, p. 95)
Acervo do IFNOPAP
539 Campus Flutuante
Narrativas de viagem
Narrativas de Viagem
19 Entrevista concedida por SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Entrevista I. [abr. 2019]. Entrevistadora: Alda Cristina
Costa. Universidade Federal do Pará. Belém, 2019.
20 Entrevista concedida por SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Entrevista I. [abr. 2019]. Entrevistadora: Alda Cristina
Costa. Universidade Federal do Pará. Belém, 2019.
21 Entrevista concedida por SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Entrevista I. [abr. 2019]. Entrevistadora: Alda Cristina
Costa. Universidade Federal do Pará. Belém, 2019.
542 em relação à vida, à cultura”, entre outros aspectos da relação desse amazônida com
seu lugar de vivência e experiência.
Em outros depoimentos, quando relata sua experiência com o IFNOPAP, Simões
(2016, p. 18) afirma que “o que se realiza em termos de pesquisa sobre a oralidade e
narrativa no Pará, não tem a pretensão de ser absoluto ou totalitário”, mas continua
suas afirmações, enfatizando que “deve marcar a continuidade de elementos da
tradição e da vida do homem amazônida entre um passado (que se faz, ainda, tão
presente) cheio de magia e encanto”, assim como pleno de vida.
Para finalizar, apontamos o IFNOPAP como um projeto de ensino, pesquisa e
extensão que estabelece uma relação comunicativa com os amazônidas a partir de
suas narrativas de viagem, dentro de uma perspectiva daqueles que nele se integram -
professores, pesquisadores e alunos - e mediam uma relação simbólica e de mobilidade
atrás das histórias, seja na perspectiva dos contadores locais, que constituem as vozes
polifônicas da Amazônia.
REFERÊNCIAS
TUAN, Yi -Fu. Espaço e Lugar: a perspectiva da experiência. São Paulo: DIFEL, 1983.
Narrativas de Viagem
544 AMONG IMAGERY, RIVERS AND FORESTS
OF A FLOATING CAMPUS
Reverse Path
1 Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Communication, Culture and Amazonia of the Federal University of
Pará (UFPA). Group coordinator and research project Contemporary Narratives in the Amazon - Narramazônia.
E-mail: aldacristinacosta@gmail.com.
2 Professor of the Post-Graduate Program in Communication, Languages and Culture of the University of Ama-
zonia (UNAMA). Member of the group and research project Contemporary Narratives in the Amazon - Narrama-
zônia. E-mail: ivana.professora@gmail.com
3 Master of the Postgraduate Program in Communication, Culture and Amazonia of the Federal University of
Pará (UFPA). Member of the group and research project Contemporary Narratives in the Amazon - Narramazônia.
E-mail: denisessalomao@gmail.com.
545 of living and thinking (DURAND, 1998), as the instituting of senses to people. The
imaginary as a place where are the understandable images of the being.
In the Amazon, the imaginary is pluralized. To understand this plural daily
life of the region, researchers set out to search for the oral narratives, produced in
many parts of the Amazon region in Pará. From a communicative interaction in
the academic space, the project “The Imaginary in the Popular Oral Narratives of
the Amazon Paraense - IFNOPAP4”, also known as Floating Campus of the Federal
University of Pará was born in the 1990s, due to the displacements with the objective
about mapping the imaginary of the oral narratives from Pará regions. In its 25 years
of existence, more than five thousand three hundred narratives have been cataloged
in 38 cities from Pará state.
According to the arguments, we have identified these IFNOPAP travel narratives
as dialogical and polyphonic experiences (BAKHTIN, 2004), between traditional and
contemporary, memory and history, as well as communicative interpretations of
individuals with and over the world. That is, they differ from the travel narratives
produced by the colonizers - who forged representations of the region since their
occupation - and presented themselves in a superior condition, and the other,
Amazonian, a generic being reduced to ignorance, emptied of its essence and
individuality GONDIM, 1994; PAES LOUREIRO, 2001).
As interactive and analytical procedures, we used the narrative of experience
in the narrative relationships and in the exchange of knowledge between individuals
and Amazonia, as well as for inspiration in the enunciative approach, centered on the
project coordinator, Socorro Simões, trying to understand how IFNOPAP is established
as travel narratives.
We set travel narratives as a textual genre, as well as a kind of spatial and
symbolic mobility, in which people are transported physically and imaginatively in the
construction of their stories, creating a relationship of expression with the place, as
Tuan thought (1983, p. 83): “when space is entirely familiar, it becomes place.” Space
and place are related in three possibilities “the mythical, the pragmatic and the abstract”,
in the means that it is experienced and valued, which has meaning for people.
The IFNOPAP travel narratives move in two directions, not in opposition, but in
synergy: as an account of the coordinator and researchers experiences; and as accounts
of those, who share the oral narratives in their places. Here, we privilege the reports
from the coordinator, considering the first point of the project as a travel narrative,
characterized by an analysis of the “man who narrates”, that is, of an incarnate voice,
as Rabatel tells us ( 2016, p. 17), “through a logic of narration that gives this voice a
body, a tone, a style, an inscription in a story ... and that is profoundly modified and
Travel Narratives
Significant Voices
Travel Narratives
This new dimension of the project, its national visibility and the accomplishment
of the meeting in a boat, projects the University beyond academic physical spaces,
bringing it closer to the environment in which the Amazon oral narratives are located
and are reproduced, attracting glances on what be it the Amazon region itself, its
inhabitants and its cultures.
According to Simões (2014), these meetings made it possible to map part of the
cultural aspects characteristic of the Amazon region, including oral narratives, as a
guarantee of the community history and memory, until then without registers.
The seminars, on board, then unfold beyond the collection of oral narratives,
situating the academic community on the paths traveled “between the rivers and the
forest”, a metaphor that accompanies the trajectory of the project. Ensuring conditions for
Travel Narratives
collecting the narratives, and also constructing other narratives, among them, the travel
narratives of the researchers themselves, teachers and students and other participants
12 É de reconhecimento acadêmico que o projeto IFNOPAP, desde a sua concepção, tem destacado cultura como
elemento particular do seu interesse. A origem da proposta teve como foco importante questões relacionadas com
a preservação da cultura local, daí a ideia de registros de depoimentos que contivessem elementos relacionados
a costumes e manifestações culturais que dessem conta deste homem amazônida, conformado e definido como
legítimo representante de uma região pródiga de encantamento e de vivência permeados de ícones prenhes de rio
e floresta. Por conseguinte, sempre que é possível, inclui-se Cultura como uma das vertentes das propostas anuais
(SIMÕES, 2014, p. 12 – Tradução: Vera Pimentel)
549 of the seminars embarked. These narratives and other works developed during the trips
are arranged in more than 28 productions made by the project throughout its existence.
An example of this travel narrative is the research entitled “In Search of
Marajoara Powers: Field Trips to Islands and Islands in the 21st Century”, in which
the researcher Josebel Akel Fares (2009) tells the itinerary of her academic research
trip in Amazon marajoara.
The Marajó is not a landscape, but many landscapes, not an island, but
an archipelago, is not a civilization, but civilizations superimposed one to
another. To travel through the Marajó is to encounter information of all orders:
with natural elements, with the interventions of man, with the interactional
mixtures, put some of these data, seized in the permanent dialogue with the
novel of Dalcídio Jurandir, (re) reading of other books about the region and
the reminiscences of traveler-tourist. With this preliminary knowledge, I
write the project I define the research, and start my script for this vast area of
the Amazonian territory. (FARES, 2009, p.95)13
The project, thus, presents a vast range of possibilities based on the meeting
of scientific knowledge and popular knowledge of the Amazon oral narratives,
sometimes told by Amazonian men and women, sometimes in the travel narratives
elaborated by teachers, researchers and students, who leave their routines from
classroom to meet rivers and forests, taking part in new academic experiences.
One of the main project was registered in 2003, with the launch of the first
indigenous language dictionary published in Pará - Dictionary of the Assurini
Language - during the VII National Meeting IFNOPAP (see Figure 02). In this edition,
the theme was “ Populations and traditions on Tocantins margins “, in a route
among Abaetetuba, Cametá and Tucuruí cities.
13 O Marajó não é uma paisagem, mas muitas paisagens, não é uma ilha, mas um arquipélago, não é uma civilização,
mas civilizações sobrepostas umas às outras. Viajar pelo Marajó é deparar-se com informações de todas as ordens:
com elementos naturais, com as intervenções do homem, com as misturas interacionais, posto alguns desses dados,
apreendidos no diálogo permanente com o romance de Dalcídio Jurandir, da (re)leitura de outros livros sobre a região e
das reminiscências de viajante-turista. Com esse conhecimento preliminar, escrevo o projeto defino a pesquisa, e inicio
meu roteiro por esta vastidão do território amazônico. (FARES, 2009, p. 95 – Translation: Vera Pimentel)
550 Floating Campus
Although the Project has spread from the Literature area to the others, and
converted into a Program of Geo-Bio-Cultural Studies of the Amazon, named
as Floating Campus, the first objective, linked to the narratives of the Amazon,
maintains a certain charm and magic that motivates us to continue searching
for this region in what it has more legitimately representative, namely: its
myths and legends. (SIMÕES, 2014, p.186).14
14 Ainda que o Projeto se tenha espraiado da área de Letras para as demais, e se convertido num Programa de
Estudos Geo-Bio-Culturais da Amazônia, com a nominação de Campus Flutuante, o objetivo primeiro, ligado às
Travel Narratives
narrativas da Amazônia, mantém certo encanto e magia que nos motiva a continuar buscando esta região no que
ela tem mais legitimamente representativo, quais sejam: seus mitos e lendas. (SIMÕES, 2014, p.186 – Translation:
Vera Pimentel)
15 Interview granted by SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Interview I. [abr. 2019]. Interviewer: Alda Cristina Costa.
Federal University of Pará, Belém, 2019.
16 Interview granted by SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Interview I. [abr. 2019]. Interviewer: Alda Cristina Costa.
Federal University of Pará, Belém, 2019.
17 Ilharga means “to sit on the edge of the chair”; enrascado means “to be in a difficult situation”; carecer means
“necessity of...”; obra de means “work of...”.(Translation: Vera Pimentel)
18 Interview granted by SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Interview I. [abr. 2019]. Interviewer: Alda Cristina Costa.
Federal University of Pará, Belém, 2019.
551 Travel Narratives
19 Interview granted by SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Interview I. [abr. 2019]. Interviewer: Alda Cristina Costa.
Federal University of Pará, Belém, 2019.
20 Paes Loureiro (2007, p. 11 – Translation: Vera Pimentel): “em que o homem vive a remoldar de significações
a vida, a fazer emergir sentidos do mundo em um processo de criação e reordenação continuada de símbolos in-
tercorrente com a cultura”.
21 Interview granted by SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Interview I. [abr. 2019]. Interviewer: Alda Cristina Costa.
Federal University of Pará, Belém, 2019.
22 Interview granted by SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Interview I. [abr. 2019]. Interviewer: Alda Cristina Costa.
Federal University of Pará, Belém, 2019.
23 “nós foi”, is an inadequated way of saying “we went” in portuguese, according to agreement. The correct
agreement is “nós fomos”, according to portuguese grammatical rule.
552 About the infterviewee, there are no specific guidelines but must be recorded the
whole event that involves the moment surrounding the narrative and the transcript
must accompany the remarks of the narrator and the accountant. Simões (2019, verbal
information)24 points out that the important thing is to record «what is counted and
how it is told in Pará». Even with the exemption guidelines, the construction of
travel accounts shows the intersection between travelers and residents, as Benjamin
(1994, p. 198) already pointed out the existence of two different groups of narrators
«interpenetrating in multiple ways». Interviewer and accountant add experiences in
the moment of the narrative, complementing each other, influencing and demarcating
new narratives.
Regarding transcription, Simões (2019, verbal information)25 states that phonetic
facts are disregarded and records follow the form of a school dictation. Respecting the
moments of pause, the ways of speaking and writing recreates the oscillation of the
narrative with symbols of spelling. “Everything is needed to respect the accountant’s
voice, the terms he uses in a very particular way, without its meaning being recognized
outside the region, will be explained in the form of a glossary.” 26Simões reaffirms the
importance about the fidelity of the narratives in the register of the stories, not only
in the form of the understanding, but also in the construction of the scenario, in
which the narrative was constituted. “It is very important to retell the accounts” and
“how they count”.27
About the register of the narratives, the coordinator highlighted the positive
aspect about the technology use (at that time cassette tapes in audio recording and
video tapes), which from the beginning, allowed to analyze and archive discursive
phenomena only perceptible in direct observation, in which researcher and narrator
are face to face. Thus, she stressed that it was possible to file linguistic and non-
linguistic procedures, such as gestures, reactions, hesitations, mistakes, silence; that
make up the understanding of the narrative scenario.
Based on the project information and from the the coordinator’s interview
analysis, we find that the narrator and the accountant present themselves under a
certain balance, bringing out diverse voices or what Todorov (1999, 240) designates
“in his own way the name of a travel report: a narrative, that is, personal narration
and not an objective description, but also a journey, a milestone, therefore, in
circumstances precedent to the subject”28.
As a teller of this travel narrative, Socorro Simões warns that the narrator,
in telling a myth, inserts himself into a traditional and institutionalized lineage of
“storyteller”, which in turn legitimizes performance. “At the same time, this same
Travel Narratives
24 Interview granted by SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Interview I. [abr. 2019]. Interviewer: Alda Cristina Costa.
Federal University of Pará, Belém, 2019.
25 Interview granted by SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Interview I. [abr. 2019]. Interviewer: Alda Cristina Costa.
Federal University of Pará, Belém, 2019.
26 “Tudo para respeitar a voz do contador, os termos por ele utilizado de modo muito particular, sem que seu
significado seja reconhecido fora da região, será explicado em forma de glossário” (SIMÕES, 2019. Tradução: Vera
Pimentel.),
27 “É muito importante dar conta do “contar” e de “como eles contam”(SIMÕES, 2019 – Tradução: Vera Pimentel).
28 Todorov (1999, p. 240 – Tradução: Vera Pimentel) designa “a seu modo a denominação de relato de viagem:
relato, isto é, narração pessoal e não descrição objetiva, mas também viagem, um marco, portanto, em circunstân-
cias anteriores ao sujeito”.
553 narrator introduces the marks of his individuality that is unique and unrepeatable.
In reality, each new performance is a kind of retelling / re-creating, which bears the
marks of the artistic ingenuity of each narrator “(2016, p.16).29
Thus, we observe, as reported by Simões (2019, verbal information)30, that this
experience is an immeasurable wealth. And it explains why? “Before going to the
communities, to make the tapping on certain places, we went to the communities. We
were to identify, for example, what is the community’s appeal about life and culture,”
among other aspects about the relationship of this Amazon being with his place of
living and experience.
In other testimonies, Simões (2016, p.18), reporting on her experience with
IFNOPAP, states that “what is done in terms of research on orality and narrative in
Pará does not intend to be absolute or totalitarian,” but continues her statements,
emphasizing that “it should mark the continuity of elements about the tradition and
the life of the Amazonian man between a past (which is still so present) full of magic
and charm”, as well as full of life.
Finally, we point out IFNOPAP as a teaching, research and extension project that
establishes a communicative relationship with the Amazonians based on their travel
narratives, from a perspective of those who integrate them - teachers, researchers and
students. It also mediates a symbolic relationship and mobility behind the stories, or
from the perspective of local accountants, who constitute the polyphonic voices of
the Amazon.
REFERENCES
29 “Ao mesmo tempo, esse mesmo narrador introduz as marcas de sua individualidade que é única e irrepetível.
Na realidade, cada nova performance é uma espécie de recontar/recriar, que traz os sinais do engenho artístico de
cada narrador” (SIMÕES, 2016, p. 16 – Tradução: Vera Pimentel).
30 Interview granted by SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Interview I. [abr. 2019]. Interviewer: Alda Cristina Costa.
Federal University of Pará, Belém, 2019.
554 MARTINEZ, Mônica. Narrativas de viagem: escritos autorais que transcendem o
tempo e o espaço. Intercom – RBCC. São Paulo, v.35, n.1, p. 34-52, jan./jun. 2012.
PAES LOUREIRO, João de Jesus. A etnocenologia poética do mito. ENSAIO GERAL,
Belém, v1, n.2, jul/dez 2009. Disponível em < http://www.revistaeletronica.ufpa.br/
index.php/ensaio_geral/article/viewFile/169/94>. Acesso 30 mai. 2019.
PAES LOUREIRO, João de Jesus. A conversão semiótica: na arte e na cultura. –
edição trilíngue.- Belém: EDUFRA, 2007.
RABATEL, Alain. Homo Narrans: por uma abordagem enunciativa e interacionista
da narrativa: pontos de vista e lógica da narração teoria e análise; tradução Maria
das Graças Soares Rodrigues, Luis Passeggi, João Gomes da Silva Neto. – São Psulo:
Cortez, 2016.
SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro Galvão. Nós e Laços da Amazônia: caminhos da oralidade.
In: NASCIMENTO, Luciana Marino; SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro Galvão. Traços e
laços da Amazônia. 1ª. Edição. – Rio de Janeiro: Letra Capital, 2016.
SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Encontro Nacional do IFNOPAP. Navegando Entre o
Rio e a Floresta com vistas à biodiversidade, cultura e sustentabilidade. Belém:
IFNOPAP/UFPA, 2013.
SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Encontro Nacional do IFNOPAP. Da reflexão à prática
científico-acadêmica: uma experiência no arquipélago do Marajó. Belém: IFNOPAP/
UFPA, 2009.
SIMÕES, Maria do Socorro. Entrevista I. [abr. 2019]. Entrevistadora: Alda Cristina
Costa. Universidade Federal do Pará. Belém, 2019.
TODOROV, Tzvetan. A conquista da américa: a questão do outro.
TUAN, Yi -Fu. Espaço e Lugar: a perspectiva da experiência. São Paulo: DIFEL, 1983.
Travel Narratives
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Formato: A4
Tipografia: Linux Libertine
Número de páginas: 556
Ano: 2019
Narrativas de Viagem
Narrativas de Viagem 556