There is a girls, “living” in my heart and in the field

memories, photographs and field

Abstract

The article discusses the use of personal photographs as tools to trigger memories in the field, and both memories and photographs as ethnographic research resources. Carrying out research with domestic workers, including my mother, myself, the author, I was struck by memories as “the maid's daughter”, which led me to my personal collection of photographs, especially from childhood. Thus, based on the discussion on geographic spaces as triggers of memories and the approach of fotobiografias(Bruno, 2009), my childhood photos at my mother's employer's house are presented, as well as the memories raised by these when carrying out the research. . Discussing how photographs and memories complemented each other, producing narratives about daily domestic work and the daughter, a black child, who accompanied her mother at work. Thus, tensioning the racial and intersectional relations present in photographs and memories, and how these enabled the coexistence of processes of affectation, experience and positionality in ethnographic research.