The Testimonial Function in the Writing of the Common Space: Four Colombian Cases

Abstract

This article approaches testimoniality as a discursive divergence or drain within a hegemonic, institutional, or controlling narrative knitting. As shown by the historiographic route of testimonial aesthetics and the Colombian and Cuban studies of case that the article poses, the testimonial function is a vocative or appellative expression that a subjectivity exerts in its speech regarding an intensity or experience omitted in the narration, the text or the texture that represents it. This is a potential function in every textuality or texture that formulates a narrative affirmation, but, as revealed in the examples that the article uses, its public deployment demands a special acoustic condition, a specific listening disposition, a dialogue, a treatment, and a mediation that engage with the premises of the subjective turn, the narrative inquiry, the transitional justice, and the construction of memory and peace.