Tricks of the Light

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (3) ◽  
pp. 609-629
Author(s):  
Gregory Mitchell ◽  
Thaddeus Blanchette
Keyword(s):  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Male Bonding ◽  
Outward Appearance ◽  
Class Distinction ◽  
Sexual Economies

While there is a growing literature focusing on clients in sexual economies, much of this relies on heteronormative and/or unproven assumptions about masculinity and men’s motivations for purchasing sex. This collaborative ethnographic research takes a comparative approach by studying performances of masculinity in heterosexual and homosexual commercial sex venues in Rio de Janeiro. The authors argue that masculine performances not only are about homosocial male bonding between clients but also are aspirational performances in which actors must work within and across particular class- and race-based structures to jockey for position within the local hierarchy of hegemonic masculinity. They conclude that the connection between masculinity in heterosexual and homosexual venues is fractal, refractive, and coconstituitive. That is, even though the performances of masculinity look different in outward appearance, they actually operate within a shared ideology of gender and are coconstructed through actors’ own pretensions toward class distinction.

scholarly journals The Logic of Criminal Territorial Control: Military Intervention in Rio de Janeiro

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110360
Author(s):  
Nicholas Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Level Variation ◽  
Military Interventions ◽  
Geographic Patterns ◽  
Primary Mechanism ◽  
Criminal Groups ◽  
Municipal Level

How do organized criminal groups (OCGs) respond to military interventions intended to weaken and subdue them? In many cases, such crackdowns have proven counterproductive as OCGs militarize, engage in violence, and confront state forces directly. Existing studies have pointed to several explanations: inter-criminal competition, unconditional militarized approaches, and existing criminal governance arrangements. Much of this work, however, has focused on national, regional, or even municipal level variation and explanations. This article takes a micro-comparative approach based on 18 months of ethnographic research in a group of Rio de Janeiro favelas (impoverished and informal neighborhoods) divided between three drug trafficking gangs and occupied by the Brazilian military from 2014 to 2015. It argues that an active territorial threat from a rival is the primary mechanism leading OCGs to respond violently to military intervention. It also demonstrates that geographic patterns of recruitment play an important role in where OCG rivalries turn violent during intervention.

scholarly journals Grimy Heritage: Organic Bar Streets in Shanghai and Tokyo

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 76-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Farrer
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Community Formation ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Social Functions

Abstract Every city has built environments that are largely regarded as eyesores, for aesthetic, social, or moral reasons. Urban nightlife streets are examples of such ‘grimy heritage’. Not only shabby and disorderly, they harbour forms of commercial sex, drinking cultures, and ephemeral nightlife cultures that many city residents and government officials consider undesirable. Sometimes their built forms are regarded as the enemy of genuine heritage architecture, since they obscure more solid, carefully designed structures around them. However, in many cities, organic nightlife streets—developing in such spaces precisely because they were derelict or poorly regulated—serve important social functions as spaces of creativity and community formation. This paper examines the ways that such ‘grimy heritage’ has developed in Shanghai and Tokyo, using examples from ethnographic research and historical sources, and addressing the question of the contribution of the ‘grimy heritage’ to authentic, urban social life.

scholarly journals OUR DEAD CAN SPEAK: SOCIAL DISPLACEMENTS, AFFECTS, AND POLITICAL ACTION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliana Sanjurjo
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Political Action ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Shared Meanings ◽  
The Face

Abstract Grounded in ethnographic research with activist organisations-families of the victims of state violence in Argentina and Brazil-this article seeks to critically reflect on the relationships between gender, kinship, and the politics and social practice of memory, together with devices for the management of life and social order in specific ethnographic situations. Using a comparative approach, the article argues that relationships established between these groups enable the construction of shared strategies of political action and the production of shared meanings in the face of overlapping confrontations with inequalities and violence. The central problematic questions how the these activists’ displacements (often transnational) disseminate practices, skills, experiences, and repertoires of political mobilisation that compose a field of action directed towards the construction of memories, the rendering visible of victims, and the denunciation of previous regimes of selectively perpetrated violence.

scholarly journals FROM DISARMAMENT TO REARMAMENT: ELEMENTS FOR A SOCIOLOGY OF CRITIQUE OF THE PACIFICATION POLICE UNIT PROGRAM

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Palloma Menezes ◽  
Diogo Corrêa
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Temporal Analysis ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Entire Period ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
News Reports ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

Abstract Inspired by the reflections on the concept of critique proposed by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, this article presents some elements for a sociology of critique of the Pacification Police Unit (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora - UPPs) program. It offers a brief history of the project, typified in phases. We conduct a mapping and a temporal analysis of critiques made about the UPPs throughout the entire period of their existence from 2008 until today. This analysis is based on ethnographic research and interviews conducted by the authors between 2009 and 2015 in the first two "pacified" favelas in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Santa Marta and the Cidade de Deus), and on the analysis of news reports from the major and alternative media and of social networks.

Can literary events use Co-Creation to challenge stigmatisation?

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-172
Author(s):  
Christina Horvath
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Arts Festivals ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Global North ◽  
North And South

This chapter takes a comparative approach to two initiatives developed by artists and cultural promoters from the Global North and South, to challenge clichés attached to French banlieues and Brazilian favelas as places devoid of the production and consumption of literary texts. The ‘Dictée des Cités’, a spelling competition promoted since 2013 in French banlieues by writer Rachid Santaki, and the ‘Literary Festival of the Urban Periphery’ (FLUP) curated in Rio de Janeiro since 2012 by writers Julio Ludemir and Écio Salles, are analysed through the lens of Co-Creation as examples of artist-driven initiatives to encourage large local audiences’ engagement with literary texts, transform literary institutions and canons and challenge stereotypes associated with urban peripheries. While the chapter seeks to evaluate the potential of large-scale literary events to change the perception of disadvantaged urban areas, it also explores differences between the Global North and South. The chapter ends with the conclusion that socially engaged arts festivals and Co-Creation events may promote similar aims, they however differ in their scale, approaches to knowledge production as well as in their strategies promoting engagement with creative methods.

scholarly journals THE PLACE OF RITUALS IN AFRICAN RELIGIOUS MOTIF AND NIGERIAN PENTECOSTAL CHURCHES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akiti Glory Alamu ◽  
Abiola Theresa Dopamu
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
African Religion ◽  
Social Conventions ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
Sense Of Identity ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Class Distinction

The notion of ritual is synonymous with virtually all religions. Thus, ritual is a dramatic transformation of the individual persons beyond the mundane by dint of social conventions which transcend class distinction with a sense of identity. As a re-enactment of sacred archetype, it strengthens and re-affirms the corporate beliefs, optimizes structure and re-invigorates the role of the individual in the society. Within the province of religion, ritual has primordial formality, transformative quality, sacred prototype and revitalizing sensuality which stimulates an awesome contrast with ordinary conduct. This primordial formality and transformative quality has made many Nigerian Pentecostals to believe that ritual motif does not exist in Christianity. The paper therefore adopts historical-liturgical and comparative approach with the view that ritual is not only most elaborate and celebrated in African religion but also among Nigerian Pentecostal believers. The paper seeks to posit that ritual is a paradigmatic intent and purpose of religion itself by applying symbols with intellectual and sensual images that promote individual with sense of identity. The paper therefore concludes that the place of ritual in all religions is incontestable.

scholarly journals Drawing the city: a proposal for an ethnographic study in Rio de Janeiro

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 609-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Kuschnir
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Visual Anthropology ◽  
International Group ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

Drawing the city is a proposal for an ethnographic research project in Rio de Janeiro. I begin by mapping the production of an international group calling themselves ‘urban sketchers,' whose collective project extols drawing as a form of looking, knowing and registering the experience of living in cities. Next I show the connections between art and anthropology, as well as their relation to cities and to Rio de Janeiro in particular. The sources and bibliography on the themes of the social history of art, drawing, visual anthropology and urban anthropology are also discussed. Setting out from the latter area, I present the possibilities for undertaking an ethnography that contributes to our comprehension of the graphic and symbolic narratives of urban life.

scholarly journals Gendering the Boy Scouts: Examining Hegemonic Masculinity at a Co-Ed Backpacking Camp

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Samantha Pentecost
Keyword(s):  
Outdoor Education ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Gender Performance ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Boy Scouts ◽  
Organizational Aesthetics ◽  
Outdoor Educators ◽  
Depth Interviews

Masculinity has been studied in various outdoor settings, including the industries of ecotourism, outdoor education, and forestry. However, few studies have examined how physical space contributes to the construction of hegemonic masculinity in organizations associated with nature and the outdoors. This study relies on nine in-depth interviews conducted with outdoor educators and sixteen hours of ethnographic research completed at Mountain View Scout Camp, a backpacking program for youth operated by the Boy Scouts of America. Findings indicate that Mountain View is gendered both through its organizational aesthetics, which valorize a hegemonically masculine ideal, and via sta members’ conception of nature as feminine and forestry work and tools as masculine. Results also suggest that men employed at Mountain View will occasionally embody a hybrid masculine gender performance by utilizing non-hegemonic traits of masculinity such as pro-feminist ideas. However, these episodic masculine performances also serve to subtly reproduce gender inequalities by accepting only a speci c type of woman and rewarding men for super cial allyship.

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