Il racconto di sé come dinamica di autoformazione

RACCAGNI, Dalila. Il racconto di sé come dinamica di autoformazioneTesi di Laurea presso l’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione, Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Progettazione Pedagogica e Formazione delle Risorse UmaneMilano2017185p.

In my thesis, in the first time, I will analyse the important role of narration in empirical studies and after that I will examine the relationship between migration and narration.

The need for the humans is to narrate about their lives and that is like a desire. The individual storytelling generates the mental organization of a personal biography that, properly intertwined with the stories of other lives, contributes to give meaning to one’s own vicissitudes.

In particular the autobiographical self is always in relationship with all its experiential and cognitive existence. The autobiographical project is not exempt from interaction with the other, that becomes necessary since our being, as H. Arendt would say, is one with the fact that we are on the scene of the world and the direct consequence is that we are exposed to other people’s looks.

Narrative construction of the reality, metaphor, novel and autobiography, are narrative tools, as well as models of which we use to shape our identity and to assign sense and value to our existence.

Then I will choose to analyse an autobiographical work by the philosopher and writer Eric Emmanuel Schmitt because it is emblematic. In “La Nuit de feu“ (Schmitt, 2015) verifiable characteristics clearly emerge in the forms of literary autobiography, to pass then to formative exercises that have in the narration of itself their principal form; among them the necessity to tie to the words, the experience of misplace and rediscovering like a different person, the possibility to understand other people without shared language and finally the formative value that the story of himself has for the writer,

Also, the topic of immigration is impregnated by the symbolic position of the self-narrative (Mengozzi, 2003, p. 115). Narration clearly demonstrates to immigrants the longing to deal with their own distressing experience, so as to converge with society’s need to welcome and frame these lives.

These life stories are testimonies of the lives lived and recounted by the same protagonists.

A tale of a migrant’s life, in particular, is not just a sequence of events and situations subjectively lived, but - by means of its plot and highlighting the several situations (sometimes in an agitated way) - permits a way of reading reality, creating a concrete way to involvement values and meanings, standards of coexistence and social interaction.

The narrator does not only recount the story, but by telling it, helps himself to interpret it, forming new perspectives of meaning.

In this respect, autobiographical workshops - that were promoted in different place during my university training - stimulate self-writing as an experience of self-re-identity and self-formation, connected to the personal or family’s path, in the belief that the self-narrative prepares us to pay attention to each other in contexts where people have various historical cultural backgrounds. It therefore acts as a tool to promote not only self-awareness, but also intercultural education.

Memory is not passive, nor a snapshot of the past, but builds, rebuilds, selects, and transforms; in other words, it “opens the continuity of the future” (Galimberti, 2009, p. 108). Memories and identities, therefore, “fertilize mutually, merge and recast themselves to produce the trajectory of life” (Candau, 2002, p. 16).

The emblem and character of the individual, in light of their own identity, is also shown in the physiognomy of their face: something that I can photograph and remember, but that is at the same time something sturdy, something that has a more elusive effect.

The face is the transference of an otherness that is close to the gaze, revealing itself in its proximity, without determining itself in a given identity or a link of belonging. The face is in fact a look of a peculiarity which escapes the attempts of compartmentalisation and generalisation and of a tension to universality that passes through diversity of possible faces (Fabbri, 2014).

Some common elements emerge within the autobiographical narration of migrants. First and foremost, the family: the main structure for the formation of the individual, which obtains the fundamental tools for accomplished integration into society.

At the same time, there is the awareness of having embarked on a trip that symbolises the escape from the boundaries of reality and its constructions, but also from the fear of future, of war and vehemence under different forms in his present. It is for these conditions that he is prepared to face the perils, risks and traumatic knowledges that lead him away from his loved ones.

The sway to narrate is therefore part of every human being that, through their tale, transcends the boundaries of their own reality and elaborates their experience. Narration is against death and forgetfulness: it is told to give meaning to life; as Scheherazade said: “it is told not only to save life but to live; it is told not only to fight death but to give life. To narrate not only opens the dream dimension to the construction of a fantasy heritage, but it is also an occasion for reflection, denunciation, rethinking, pushing for change” (Beseghi, 2003, p. 29) .

Bibliography

• BESEGHI, Emy. Infanzia e racconto Il libro, le figure, la voce, lo sguardo. Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2003.
• CANDAU, Joël. La memoria e l’identità Naples: Ipermedium, 2002.
• FABBRI, Maurizio. Procedere per narrazioni. Pedagogia del “volto” e terziarietà. Journal of Theories and Research in Education, n. 9, p. 123-146, 2014.
• GALIMBERTI, Umberto. Parole nomadi Milan: Feltrinelli, 2009.
• MENGOZZI, Chiara. Narrazioni contese Vent’anni di scritture italiane della migrazione. Rome: Carrocci, 2003.
• SCHMITT, Eric Emmanuel. La Nuit de feu Paris: Albin Michel, 2015.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  May-Aug 2018

History

• Received
  10 Jan 2018
• Accepted
  27 June 2018