Ayana e a condição migrante feminina em A bagagem da imigração, de Patrícia Moreira

Abstract

Migratory transits have gained new perspectives as a result of decolonization processes, especially when the direction of displacements changes, often from former colonies to former metropolises, which generates a new perspective from society on the subject in transit, or migrant. New implications for the subjects’ identities, their experiences in the migratory scenario, and the hostility that seems to be related to this process are aggravated when also crossed by the issue of gender. Thus, this paper presents an analysis of the migratory experience of Ayana, the central character in the novel A bagagem da Imigração (2024), by Patrícia Moreira. Ayana is Cape Verdean and decides to leave her country for Europe to improve her living conditions and those of her family and to close the gap that separated her from Samuel, her love interest. The process is planned illegally and, despite having France as her final destination, she uses Portugal as a gateway to European territory. In the Portuguese lands, Ayana still spends a short period of time visiting some relatives who had lived there for many years. In these two spaces in which the narrative unfolds, the protagonist witnesses and suffers countless acts of violence, which seem to affect her doubly because she is an immigrant woman. Thus, the general objective of this study is to examine, in the light of Comparative Literature and based on the work A Bagagem da Imigração (2024), by Patrícia Moreira, how to understand specificities in the female migrant condition. Other specific objectives include investigating how the migrant condition impacts the perception and expression of identity; analyzing how the theme of violence is presented in the context of migratory transit; and studying whether, for women, the different types of disturbed experiences in the migratory transit scenario are considerably accentuated. This analysis, seen as a portrait of the social configurations of Portugal today, will also be carried out with a transdisciplinary character, since elements dear to Sociology and History are essential for the relationship between literary representation and the social context to be critically established.