‘Burning toda la mierda’: a schizo-affective poem

Abstract

ABSTRACT We gave ourselves permission to affect and to be affected. We listened to the voices of Chilean child welfare workers and embodied their experiences. We heard their doubts, contradictions, ideas, and yearnings. After a series of interviews, we created three poems with those voices. It felt wrong and incomplete. Vertical(ly)-Dry. We focused on the textual, but the workers’ voices demanded an Ontological change, an analysis from Affect theory that looked for the resonance of their experiences in us, with them. An Epistemological change was also needed. One that claimed there are other ways to create knowledge. In this case, we did it through poetry and by defying the anglophone academic vehicular language, presenting some nuances of English and Spanish. Finally, in the hope to contribute to the current Affect Studies, we present our Methodology, which has the shape of a schizo-affective poem called (and calling to) ‘Burning toda la mierda’.