Lydia brasileira: a velhice do sertão e a peleja decolonial na pandemia

Abstract

The text describes the filming of the documentary “Lydia Mão-molenga Brasileira”, which addresses the last puppet workshop of the master craftswoman Lydia Brasileira, in the Sertão of Rio Grande do Norte, in the city of Caicó, in the first six months of 2021. Amongst models and fabrics, joys and sorrows, encounters and departures, the aim of the article is to discuss the care, autonomy and control of the elderly, considered a risk group, especially rural women, in the health crisis provoked by the Covid-19. The narrative becomes stronger based on the reports from Lydia, in the course of the Workshop where the documentary takes place. Still in her studio, Lydia, in her 84th year of life, develops the work of remembering her life and the facts that ppressed her as a woman; first, in childhood, in a family of farmers that owns land for cattle raising, centered on patriarchal and Eurocentric customs; then, on the marital arrangement with a violent military man, their separation during the Years of Lead, the encounter with the art of mamulengos and the loss of autonomy during the pandemic. The covid-19 Pandemic lays bare authoritarian care practices for older women