Review Reports - Adriana Negreiros and a Feminist Ethics of Testimonial Narrative: Reflections on <i>Life Will Never Be the Same</i>

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I would like to thank the opportunity of reading this text. I liked it very much, but I think that there are some aspects that should be improved before publication.

The author should discuss with more detail and depth the (historical) prevalence of rape in Brazil and the pertinence of using intersectional lens and contributions from Black feminists to examine its pervasiveness and (in)visibility in the country's history. A discussion of this historical context would contribute to a more sophisticated analysis of contemporary statistics about the “explosion” of rape. This contextualization would also highlight feminisms’ contributions to making sexual violence visible and the empowerment of women to speak out.

I also suggest a deeper discussion of the implications of changing the frame of representation when women themselves tell their stories about rape (implications of positionality). There is wide literature that could inform this discussion: Brownmiller already wrote a chapter about the problematic coverage of rape stories in the press of the 70s; Higgins and Silver’s book Rape and Representation explores the importance of who tells the story. There are also very important studies in the context of #metoo that explore the issue of "who speaks" (e.g. Leigh Gilmore’s The #Metoo Effect). I think that the article could benefit a lot from a deeper dialogue with this research about the representation of rape and positionality.

The analysis’ engagement with trauma and memory remains superficial. A deeper dialogue with Trauma and Memory Studies debates would certainly improve the text’s argument regarding Negreiros’ construction of a collective discourse for rape as a women’s experience. When discussing the importance of mediating rape as a collective experience, the author could expand the discussion of metoo (including Tarana Burke’s initiative) and feminist activism more broadly in raising awareness about rape and developing strategies to overcome the trauma .

The author presents a summary of each chapter of Negreiros’ book, but the analysis does not explore sufficiently the implications of the juxtaposition of the several stories and events, which involve not only rape, but also reproductive rights, homophobia, far-right politics, etc. The concept of continuum of violence could be helpful in highlighting their interconnections and the feminist understanding of sexual violence as a women’s experience that pervades society as part of larger structures, something that has local specificities related to the history of Brazil and is simultaneously a transnational problem.

When addressing the limits of objectivity in reporting about rape, the author should engage with more in-depth with the debates about neutrality and objectivity in journalism, as well as with the limits of episodic framing when reporting about rape, eventuality discussing the potentialities of Peace Journalism (on these issues, see, for instance Santos et al A space to resist rape myths, https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506821104).

Since this article is for an international audience, it would be helpful to translate the hashtags in Portuguese. Also considering the international audience, the author should include a brief footnote about Maria Bonita and about Negreiros’ 2018 book discussion of the topic of sexual violence and its prevalence in the history of Brazil.

Author Response

First of all, I would like to thank to the reviewer for the attentive reading of my paper. In my revising process, I addressed almost every observation made, although many in a brief manner. I would like to stress that one concern I had was with the paper’s length after the inserts and modifications. When recurring to bibliography as demanded by the reviews, I tried to privilege the most recent work indicated, as well as literature from the Global South/Brazil.

About the historical prevalence of rape in Brazil, in lines 49 to 57 I briefly summarize the issue, while pointing to important works by Brazilian feminists on the subject. In this section, I also have addressed in the aforementioned lines a more sophisticated analysis of contemporary statistics and a contextualization. In lines 447 to 454 and 467 to 474, I approached the issue of the change in the representation frames. I resorted to Gilmore and addressed this point from her work. In this last excerpt, I also included a discussion about rape as a collective experience, as well as feminist activism and trauma.

In the excerpt 173-188 I included the concept of continuum of violence, from the work of Cockburn. In lines 403-410 and in lines 262-270, I approached the suggestions about objectivity, and episodic framing, resorting to Santos et al and my previous work.

In footnote 2, I translated all the hashtags and briefly explained some of them, and added footnote 5, in which I talk about Maria Bonita and Negreiro’s book about her.

There were two specific observations to which I turn to to explain my position. First, the pertinence of intersectional lens, I wasn’t comfortable in addressing the issue in a short excerpt, given the importance and extent of black feminism in Brazil. So, it would require, in my opinion, a broader modification in the article, including a different methodological approach.

About the dialogue between trauma and memory, since memory was treated in the paper as a characteristic of trauma, it was addressed in a supporting way, and I although I consider the suggestion extremely fruitful for future work, I felt addressing it would expand too much the scope of the analysis.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a promising topic of research as it makes the case for the serious study of journalist's books as texts that both reproduce and transcend dominant journalistic practices. Reportorial books by journalists do provide a unique space for the critical evaluation of journalism values, roles, narratives, and ethics. The author also anchors this exploration in a Global South setting and in the discussion of violence against women, specifically rape. On top of all of this, the article is artfully written. All of this elements set this up to be a fascinating contribution.

However, and as the author accurately states, this piece is a reflection, not a scientific study. As insightful as this piece is, the manuscript does not make substantial theoretical or methodological contributions to the fields of journalism studies or feminist theory. The author does incorporate some debates and concepts from these fields in their discussion and results sections* (i.e., discussions of journalistic objectivity, feminist articulations of VAW, etc.). However, scholarly works in these areas are minimally referenced and leveraged.

As it is, the article's contribution might fall outside the aims of the journal to publish scientifically sound studies. I do think the article has merits as an essay and should be published in a fitting venue.

*It was quite odd to see the discussion section being listed the results section. These sections were not particularly distinct, either, as excerpts of data are being processed in both.

Author Response

I would like to thank the reviewer for the reading and the observations. About the nature of the study, to state it as a reflection other than a scientific study has to do more with Brazilian scientific writing style than anything else, I believe.

Besides, I would respectfully disagree with the notion that scholarly work was minimally referenced in the paper, since I privileged a bibliographical scope from the Global South, specially from Brazil, while at the same time establishing a dialogue with authors more broadly known. Finally, I believe that the paper does make contributions to the discussions, albeit they may be punctual. Furthermore, I believe that the opportunity to present the discussion from a Brazilian point of view would allow for different perspectives in the matter.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article examines the book Life Will Never Be the Same Again by journalist Adriana Negreiros. The article examines the way in which the author discusses rape in the interviews and book layout and how the book pushes against standard journalism accounts. This is an important topic, given the author's inclusion of the increase of rapes in Brazil as well as Brazil's patriarchal culture. However, the article requires revision for publication in a peer reviewed research journal.

The author should state the argument of the paper in the introduction of the paper. The paper should not examine or explore, but present a clear argument. It appears that the author wants to argue that the book offers a feminist take on journalism accounts by adhering to certain journalistic standards but also accounting for the gendered nature of rape. Given this argument the paper should also review the literature about the relationship between journalism and feminism or journalism and gender in Brazil. How have researchers written about these topics in Brazil and/or elsewhere? How is this paper and its argument intervening in or adding to this past research?

The paper did not need such a long section recounting the books structure and layout. A shorter section would be fine. The section called "Discussion" was very interesting. This section presents an actual analysis of how the book adheres to and moves away from standard journalistic practice and why. It appears that positionality is part of how it moves away from the idea of objectivity in journalism by Negreiros including herself in the narrative. The author could discuss this idea of positionality. For example, the article Positionality in Critical Feminist Scholarship: Situating Social Locations and Power Within Knowledge Production in Affilia might be helpful for an overview of this literature.

This topic and book appear to be important for contemporary discourses and interventions into rape culture in Brazil. It would also be interesting to see how the book has been taken up if there is evidence of this. Has the book sparked any discussions or debates or renewed awareness? This is not necessary but it would add to the paper. The most important is to restructure the paper so that it's clear what insights the paper adds to the current literature or discourse as well as the argument the author is making about the text.

Author Response

I would like to thank the reviewer for the attentive reading and comments. I addressed almost every observation made, although many in a brief manner. I would like to stress that one concern I had was with the paper’s length after the inserts and modifications. When recurring to bibliography as demanded by the reviews, I tried to privilege the most recent work indicated, as well as literature from the Global South/Brazil.

About the argument of the paper, I tried to state it in the introduction, lines 74-79. In this sense, I included a brief mention of the issue in lines 132-139 to the literature about journalism and feminism in Brazil, although there is a relative robust field of study (which could be theme for another contribution).

Also, I tried to cut some detailed explanation about the events narrated in the book, as well as some of the episodes mentioned, even though I agree that the section could be even shorter, maybe, but I tried to show the amplitude and pervasiveness of gender-violence in Brazil through history. About the idea of positionality, I resorted to Gilmore and, from her work, I addressed this point in lines 447 – 454 and 467-474.

Finally, the book came out during Covid pandemic and Jair Bolsonaro’s government. Because of that, I believe its impact and repercussion was modest, since the country was immerse in other narratives and disputes. Therefore, I did not think it was worthy mention it.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the possibility of reviewing this paper. I think that the author responded to the suggestions that were made to an earlier version and argued convincingly why it would be complicated to follow some of them (in terms of length of the paper).

Author Response

I would like to thank for the attentive reading, and for the references given by the reviewer. Although not all of them were incorporated in this paper, as I argued before, I will certainly take them into account in further works.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I commend the authors for doing this revision as it strengthened some of the arguments.

My original concerns remain, though. This analysis, while insightful and original, does not go a long distance beyond the descriptive. The absence of a fully realized literature review where key concepts, like feminist ethics and standpoint, leaves the discussion and results sections with limited resources to articulate a stronger theoretical argument. I want to clarify that my issue is not about who is cited (the authors are right in building from Global South and specifically Brazilian authors) or overall writing style. I am truly not seeing a thorough discussion of literature in the paper.

The methods of data analysis need to be clearly stated. Was this a discourse analysis, a thematic analysis, a CDA? Why was this data analysis method selected? How exactly was the data coded? How did theory inform coding? Providing specifics on these procedures is particularly important as the author is working with an unusual object of analysis (a reportorial book).

I hope this feedback helps the authors to improve the manuscript.

Author Response

Comments: I commend the authors for doing this revision as it strengthened some of the arguments.

I hope this feedback helps the authors to improve the manuscript.

Response: I would like to thank for the attentive reading, and for the concerns with the paper. I will address some of the points raised by the reviewer.

The method is a narrative analysis, a qualitative research. I tried to clarify this in the text. The data was not coded formally such as would be done in a content analysis, for example, but there were categories which emerged from the encounter between the theory and the object. This is, in fact, the way in which the theory informs the analysis, as well as providing a point of view from which the analysis was conducted. I also tried to stress this out.
I would like to stress that in Brazil there is a long tradition of analyzing reportorial books, from the understanding that they provide an insightful and different journalist practice. In my PhD program, we have a significant amount of masters’ thesis that have had reportorial books as scientific objects. This is also the case in other programs in the country. I made this point in the text.
I respectfully disagree with the qualification of this being a mainly descriptive study, although certainly a stronger theoretical argument could have been made, as it is often the case. I believe the final sections articulate, somehow, in an interpretative gesture, the description carried out before.