Testimonio in Four Registers: A Synoptic Rendering of Four Contemporary Testimonio Writers

• In Event: Testimonio as Curriculum and Pedagogy: Toward an Understanding of Hispanophone Cultural and Educational Traditions

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to support the development of Hispanophone traditions of curriculum and pedagogy.

Working from the tradition of cosmopolitan sensibilities under historical conditions of globalization, this research uses the documentarian methods of synoptic texts (Pinar, 2006) in rendering of the testimonio tradition in Latin America. In this rendering Latin American testimonio traditions, this research provides a brief intellectual history of testimonio focusing on its cultural blending or mestizaje of European and indigenous intellectual lineages predominant in Latin American intellectual traditions. After presenting an historical overview, this research renders key texts sustaining the contemporary testimonio tradition (Allende, 1984, 1991; Barrios de Chungara & Viezzer, 1978; Menchú & Burgos, 1985; García Marquez, 1995; Marcos, 2001; Poniatowska, 1971/1997; 1980/1997). This synoptic text, analyzing key testimonio texts cited above as “data,” develops themes from the testimonio tradition as they relate to teaching and learning in cosmopolitan and multicultural classrooms. These themes include:

1.The imperative, emerging from the testimonio tradition, of a critical ethics of social justice in relation to Latin America under siege of neoliberal globalization;

2.The recognition, emerging from critical ethics of social justice, of several power asymmetries between those providing testimonio and those hearing it along with the problematic asymmetries of the testimonio tradition’s interlocutors (Barrios de Chungara & Viezzer, 1978; Menchú & Burgos, 1985; Marcos, 2001); and,

3.An understanding, in recognition of the testimonio tradition’s power asymmetries, of testimonio up-from-below (Barrios de Chungara & Viezzer, 1978; Menchú & Burgos, 1985; Marcos, 2001).

4.An understanding, in recognition of the testimonio tradition’s power asymmetries, of testimonio down-from-the-top (Allende, 1984, 1991; García Marquez, 1995; Poniatowska, 1971/1997; 1980/1997) .

Overall, particular focus will be placed on the development of curricular and pedagogical representations of the testimonio tradition as it might relate to Hispanophone curriculum development.

References

Allende, I. (1984). De amor y de sombra. Barcelona, Spain: Plaza & Janés Editores, S.A.

Allende, I. (1991). Eva Luna. Barcelona, Spain: Plaza & Janés Editores, S.A.

Barrios de Chungara, D. & Viezzer, M. (1984). Let me speak! Testimony of a woman in the Bolivian mines (Trans. V. Ortiz). New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.

Burgos, E & Menchú, R. (1985). Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la consciencia. México, D.F.: Siglo XXI Autores.

García Marquéz, G. (1995). Noticia de un secuestro. México, D.F.: Editorial Diana
Marcos, S. (2001). Nuestra arma es nuestra palabra. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press.

Poniatowska, E. (1997). Fuerte es el silencio. Mexico, D.F. Biblioteca Era. (Original work published 1980)

Poniatowska, E. (1997). La noche de Tlatelolco. Mexico, D.F.: Biblioteca Era. (Original work published 1971)

Authors

• Laura M. Jewett, The University of Texas - Brownsville

• James C. Jupp, Georgia Southern University