Between “ajuda” and “tratta”

GSSC Seminar Series

Date: 07 October 2025
12:00-13:00 (CEST)

In presence event at the University of Cologne (UzK)

Between “ajuda” and “tratta”: Ethnographic and Intersectional Translation Processes between Brazil and Italy tita Letizia Patriarca (Universidade Estadual de Campinas UNICAMP)

In this presentation, tita shares part of their research developed at MECILA, focusing on transnational inequalities in terms of knowledge production on human trafficking for sexual exploitation. Based on the understanding that the terms of the debate on human trafficking are necessarily different in Brazil and Italy, they highlight the possibilities of transnational communication to think about the transits of Brazilian travesti bodies and epistemologies that engage in sex work, or not, in Italy. To demonstrate the diverse configurations and policies that impact sex work, they use ethnographic and intersectional processes of translation. Based on the notion that translation is an open process, and not just the transposition of meanings, they insist on demonstrating the ethnographic dimension when looking at terms that are simultaneously located in unequal cultural contexts. Through intersectional analysis, it is possible to observe local power arrangements and the social markers of difference that are necessarily shaped and named differently in each cultural context. They argue, then, that through these ethnographic processes of translation, it is possible to access complexities, ambiguities, and local social movements, as well as promote dialogical relations between cultural contexts. 

tita – Letizia Patriarca is a Junior Fellow 2025 MECILA and Research Collaborator PAGU (Center of Gender Studies| Universidade Estadual de Campinas). Double PHD USP-UNIBO (2017-2023) in Social Anthropology at Universidade de São Paulo and Juridical Sciences at Università di Bologna.

For more information, visit: https://gssc.uni-koeln.de/en/veranstaltungen/gssc-seminar-reihe/gs-25-10-21-patriarca