Writing, publishing and constructing memories: The literature produced by descendants of Italian immigrants in Rio Grande do Sul State (Brazil)

Abstract

This article aims to examine how writing has been used as a reflective instrument of resistance and cultural identitary expression among descendants of Italian settlers in Rio Grande do Sul State (Brazil). This practice had its beginnings in the last decades of the last century and proliferated quantitatively and qualitatively following their economic, social and political rise. Through ethnographic and documental research among these descendants, we can get to know and analyze the dimensions of this process that grows both among individuals from rural and urban areas as well as among different genders and social classes. In this article in particular I will focus on the written production process and its reflexivity as well as on the belonging present in the narrative processes.

Keywords: literature descendants, Italians, memories, reflexivity, ethnic identity, cultural resistance.