Metaphors as social praxis incorporated, serving empowerment and socio-identity requalification

Abstract

The processes of socio-identity requalification – ‘empowerment’ – only materialize a different life when, overcoming “presentism” (imaginary and languages), imaginaries and languages of change are incorporated, implicated and subjectified. Practices such as training, sociological co-construction of women’s empowerment narratives (1990s), and performative work (diverse audiences: participatory writing and reading of poetry) taught us the role of the imaginary and metaphors in the construction of successful empowerment paths (see “as if” formula tools). Thus, in social empowerment-intervention – from ‘embodied pedagogy’ and interactionist communication – the reconstruction of narratives becomes central, with metaphors, understood as socialized (inter-)subjectified praxis, represented-embodied.