scholarly journals The Dying Home: “Bad Deaths” and Spatial Inscriptions of Mourning in a Favela

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugênia Motta

In Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, where residents have experienced economic precarity and racialized police violence, “good deaths,” wrought by natural causes and at old age, are distinguished from “bad deaths,” which may take victims’ entire families and houses. This essay chronicles the story of Maria who died at fifty-two, following the death of her youngest son at the hands of the police, and inquires into the generativity of mourning related to these two bad deaths. As graffiti and altars became spatial inscriptions of a new moralization of space, Maria’s house gradually transformed from a substrate of life into a marker of death. In the end, the home died too, as it was sold and its attendant social relations were unmade. Bad deaths thus reveal the moral entanglement between families, communities, and the materiality of houses, as well as the severance of these ties in the face of violence and intergenerational loss. Resumo Nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro, onde os moradores convivem com a precariedade econômica e a violência policial racializada, as “boas mortes”, de causas naturais e em idade avançada, diferem das “mortes ruins”, que podem atingir a família das vítimas e as próprias casas. Este ensaio conta a história de Maria, que morreu aos 52 anos, depois do assassinato de seu filho caçula pela polícia, e analisa como o luto dessas duas “mortes ruins” se perpetua. Assim como grafittis e altares se tornam inscrições de uma nova moralização do espaço, a casa de Maria foi se transformando de um substrato de vida em um signo de morte. Afinal, a casa também morre e suas relações sociais são desfeitas. “Mortes ruins” revelam articulações entre famílias, comunidades e a materialidade das casas, assim como o rompimento desses laços frente à violência e às perdas intergeracionais. Resumen En las favelas de Río de Janeiro, donde las personas conviven con la precariedad económica y con la violencia policial racializada, las “muertes buenas” de causas naturales y en edad avanzada, se diferencían de las “muertes malas” que pueden golpear a las familias de las víctimas y a los propios hogares. Este ensayo cuenta la historia de María, que murió a los 52 años después de que su hijo menor fuera asesinado por la policía, y examina cómo se perpetúa el luto de estas dos “muertes malas”. Al igual que los grafitis y los altares, que se convierten en inscripciones de una nueva moralización del espacio, la casa de María pasa de ser un sustrato de vida a un signo de muerte. Al fin y al cabo, la casa también murió y sus relaciones sociales se deshicieron. Las “muertes malas” revelan articulaciones entre las familias, las comunidades y la materialidad de las casas, así como la ruptura de estos vínculos ante la violencia y las pérdidas intergeneracionales.

Author(s):  
Ricardo Lopes Correia ◽  
Marcos Corrêa ◽  
Rogério Pedro ◽  
Yone Lindgren ◽  
Wallace Nascimento ◽  
...  

Este ensaio aborda as velhices dissidentes de gênero e sexualidade, ou comumente identificadas como LGBTQI+, no enfrentamento das questões colocadas pelo atual momento de pandemia da Covid-19. No entanto, no transcorrer do debate, identificamos que a gramática das trajetórias de envolvimento ocupacional desta população, que ambiguamente convive com os agenciamentos do estigma do ser velho e da identidade de gênero e sexual, caminharam para além das estratégias de enfrentamento da atual pandemia. E sim, para um processo complexo e longitudinal, histórico e culturalmente construído, dos mecanismos de abjeção e invisibilidade que os colocam na dicotômica e injusta condição de buscar ‘saídas do armário’ para responder entre as privações de liberdade e as libertações de gênero e sexualidade. A vivência de situações de crise coloca na arena política abertamente as fragilidades e vulnerabilidades desta população. Neste sentido, compartilhamos conjecturas teóricas a partir dos estudos da ocupação humana sobre as coesões e disjunções do tecido social, a intencionalidade do agir coletivo, e contextualizamos estes posicionamentos com algumas ações desenvolvidas na ONG EternamenteSOU, na cidade de São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro, na qual fazemos parte como agentes voluntários.  AbstractThis essay addresses old age dissenting in gender and sexuality, or commonly identified as LGBTQI+, in addressing the questions posed by the current pandemic moment of Covid-19. However, in the course of the debate, we identified that the grammar of the trajectories of occupational involvement of this population, which ambiguously coexists with the agencies of the stigma of being old and of gender and sexual identity, went beyond the strategies of coping with the current pandemic. And yes, for a complex and longitudinal, historically and culturally constructed process, of the mechanisms of abjection and invisibility that place them in the dichotomous and unfair condition of seeking 'out of the closet' to respond between deprivation of liberty and liberations of gender and sexuality. The experience of crisis situations places the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of this population in the political arena. In this sense, we share theoretical conjectures from the studies of human occupation on the cohesions and disjunctions of the social fabric, the intentionality of collective action, and contextualize these positions with some actions developed at EternamenteSOU aNon-governmental organization, in the city of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, we are part of as volunteer agents.Keywords: Aging; Gender; Elderly, LGBT; Sexuality; Occupational therapy. ResumenEste ensayo aborda las vejez disidentes de género y sexualidad, o comúnmente identificadas como LGBTQI +, al abordar los problemas planteados por el momento pandémico actual de Covid-19. Sin embargo, en el curso del debate, identificamos que la gramática de las trayectorias de participación ocupacional de esta población, que coexiste ambiguamente con las agencias del estigma de ser viejo y de identidad de género y sexualidad, fue más allá de las estrategias para enfrentar la pandemia actual. Y sí, para un proceso complejo y longitudinal, construido histórica y culturalmente, de los mecanismos de abyección e invisibilidad que los colocan en la condición dicotómica e injusta de buscar 'fuera del armario' respuestas entre la privación de libertad y las liberaciones de género y sexualidad. La experiencia de situaciones de crisis coloca abiertamente las debilidades y vulnerabilidades de esta población en la arena política. En este sentido, compartimos conjeturas teóricas de los estudios de la ocupación humana sobre las cohesiones y disyunciones del tejido social, la intencionalidad del actuar colectivo, y contextualizamos estas posiciones con algunas acciones desarrolladas en la ONG EternamenteSOU, en la ciudad de São Paulo y Río de Janeiro, donde somos parte como agentes voluntarios.Palabras clave: Envejecimiento Género; Adultos mayores, LGBT; Sexualidad; Terapia ocupacional.


Somatechnics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-194
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Kotwasińska

The article offers a re-examination of abjected femininity and old age through a close reading of The Taking of Deborah Logan (2015), a found footage horror movie centered on spectral possession. While to a large extent the movie replicates an infamous monstrous old woman trope, it also effectively questions typical Alzheimer's disease (AD) narratives, which tend to portray life with AD as a story of unmitigated loss and debility. In The Taking of Deborah Logan, potentially destabilizing moments occur when in the face of progressive loss of control, memory, and bodily functions, the main protagonist is momentarily experienced as resisting the dehumanisation and loss of agency conventionally associated with AD and possession alike. The aim of this article is thus three-fold. The first part sketches the processes through which possession narratives generate a highly ambivalent space for aging femininity in horror film, and how aging, disability, and AD intersect both in popular understanding and in film. In the second part, the author examines how The Taking of Deborah Logan, as a found footage horror, shapes a discussion about selfhood, agency, and monstrous embodiment. Finally, the author argues that it is through the concept of transaging that one can find ways to destabilise traditional understandings of old age, female embodiment, and AD, and offer new narratives that highlight monstrous, if ambivalent, agency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (45) ◽  
pp. 118-122
Author(s):  
Victor Paes Dias Gonçalves ◽  
Hugo Leonardo Matias Nahmias ◽  
Marcus Menezes Alves Azevedo

Among contact sports, the practice of martial arts offers a greater risk of causing dental trauma and fractures as contact with the face is more frequent. The primary objective of the research is to evaluate the incidence of mouthguard use, and the secondary objective is to verify which type has a greater predominance and the difficulties in its use correlating to the type of mouthguard used. A documentary study was carried out with 273 athletes of different contact sports, among them: MMA, Boxing, Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, and Taekwondo of the city of Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was concluded that the most commonly used mouthguard is PB Boils and Bites - Type II and its level of approval is poor, interfering with the athletes’ performance, mainly in relation to the breathing factor.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (87) ◽  
pp. 589-609
Author(s):  
Ana Flávia Rezende ◽  
Flávia Luciana Naves Mafra ◽  
Jussara Jéssica Pereira

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the case of five lack entrepreneurs who own businesses a public that for years has denied a esthetic and phenotypic traits. These spaces, branded as ‘ethnic salons’, aim to take care of the curly and / or Afrohair of Black men and women.In the face of this context, we ask: how canBlack entrepreneurs and enterprisesconfront colonialmentality in social relations, by creating businesses aimed at giving value to, and appreciatingthe identity of Black men and women? The field research was conducted via observations and interviews,collecting narratives from both. The narratives went through a process of synthesis and analysisprocesses that allowed us to flag the motivesbehind these enterprises, as well as the racial/ethnic acceptance present in these spaces. Thus, the main contribution of this paper is to discuss ‘hairtype’ as a constitutive element of Black racial identity, and the opportunity for more autonomywhen entering the labor market.


2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-103
Author(s):  
Peter Leman
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  

Abstract This article examines Nuruddin Farah's 1979 novel Sweet and Sour Milk, asking how we read representations of postcolonial mourning and living death in the context of global authoritarianism. The first novel in Farah's influential dictatorship trilogy, Sweet and Sour Milk introduces us to “the General,” a fictionalized version of Siyad Barre, who ruled Somalia from 1969 to 1991. Like Barre's, the General's power exemplifies what Achille Mbembe calls “necropolitics,” or “the contemporary subjugation of life to the power of death.” The General's necropower manifests, peculiarly, as a politics of substitution—that is, when he takes a life, he leaves something in its place. Rebels do not simply disappear; they are killed and then given sycophantic zombie afterlives in the General's propaganda. In response to this politics of substitution, Farah explores a politics of mourning, which insists upon the irreplaceability of lost love objects and thereby broadly reveals what truly can and cannot be substituted. The General insists on the uniqueness of his power, for example, but Farah reveals it to be a cliché, easily substituted by that of other dictators throughout history. Cliché becomes revolutionary in this way, suggesting that dictators share a common fate: they will be deposed or, eventually, die of old age. However, like a horde of the living dead, others like them will return. The article concludes with analysis of the apparent pessimism of this point and the global implications of Farah's ideas about both necropolitics and the limits of the novel form in the face of authoritarian power.


2018 ◽  
Vol 05 (02n03) ◽  
pp. 1850015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hallie Eakin ◽  
Tischa A. Muñoz-Erickson ◽  
Maria Carmen Lemos

The unprecedented number of devastating disasters recently experienced in the United States is a clarion call to revisit how we understand our vulnerability in the face of global change, and what we are prepared to do about it. We focus on the case of Hurricane María’s impact in Puerto Rico to underscore five critical concerns in addressing vulnerability and adaptation planning: (i) vulnerability as a product of flows; (ii) how our beliefs about the capacities of ourselves and others affect local vulnerability; (iii) the role uncertainty, politics, and information access play in amplifying vulnerability and complicating adaptation; (iv) the need for a better distribution of risk and responsibility in adaptation; (v) and the challenge of seizing the opportunity of disasters for transformative change. These five issues of concern were particularly evident in the case of Puerto Rico where Hurricane María’s 155 mph winds exposed existing infrastructural vulnerabilities, institutional incapacities, and socio-economic disparities. We argue that addressing these issues requires fundamental shifts in how we prepare for environmental change and disasters in the 21st century. We discuss promising approaches that may assist researchers and practitioners in addressing some of the underlying drivers of vulnerability, stemming from cross-scalar dynamics, systemic interdependencies, and the politics and social relations associated with knowledge, decision-making and action. We argue that society needs to broach the difficult topic of the equity in the distribution of risk in society and the burden of adaptation. Addressing these challenges and response imperatives is a central task of this century; the time to act is now.


2017 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 401-414
Author(s):  
Albert Nowacki

Youth to old age: respect or depreciation? Namir! by Lubko DereshThis article deals the problem of old age in the novel Namir! by Ukrainian writer Lubko Deresh. To accomplish this research task, at the beginning of the presentation problem of how the elderly was presented in culture and literature over the centuries was analyzed, and then was analyzed the novel itself. Studies have shown that in his book the author raised the question of a confrontation of youth with an old age. Our analyzes of Namir! by Deresh turned out that it repeats the patterns of mass culture, showing atendency to devaluation the elderly. During the study revealed, however, achange in approach to the problems of old age, which is visible attitude of respect for the elderly linked to equality in the face of inevitable death.Молодість перед старістю: пошана чи зневага? Намір! Любка ДерешаМетою цієї статті є спроба показати проблему старості в романі українського пись­менника Любка Дереша Намір! Щоб успішно висвітлити так окреслене завдання, на по­чатку було звернено особливу вагу на те, як питання старості представлялося культурою та літературою протягом століть, і тільки тоді було звернено увагу на саму повість. Дослі­дження показали, що в своїй книзі автор використав питання конфронтації молодого віку із старістю. Під час аналізу нами було встановлено, що Намір! повторює схеми масової куль­тури та показує виразну схильність автора до девальвації літніх людей. Наше дослідження показало, однак, певну зміну в підході до проблеми старості, а саме, що зміна зневаги на ставлення з повагою до літніх людей пов’язана із рівністю всіх людей перед обличчям не­минучої смерті.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-92
Author(s):  
José Edilson Amorim

ResumoA partir de uma crônica de Bráulio Tavares, este artigo reflete sobre cenas da precariedade de ontem e de hoje. A primeira cena está em Lima Barreto, em Recordações do escrivão Isaías Caminha, ao referir a Revolta da Vacina no Rio de Janeiro do século XX, comparada às manifestações de 2013 e 2014 no país; a segunda é a espetacularização da mídia sobre as manifestações de rua em 2013 e 2014, e sobre o processo de impedimento do mandato presidencial de Dilma Rousseff em 2015; a terceira é uma cena da vida cotidiana de uma moça de Brasília em outubro de 2014. As três situações revelam o mundo da classe trabalhadora e seu desamparo em meio ao espetáculo midiático.Palavras-chave: Trabalho. Mídia. Política. Espetáculo. AbstractFrom a chronicle by Bráulio Tavares, this paper reflects about scenes of the precariousness of yesterday and today. The first scene is in Lima Barreto’s novel Recordações do escrivão Isaías Caminha (Memories of the scrivener Isaías Caminha), when referring to the Vaccine Revolt in the Rio de Janeiro of the 20th century, compared to the manifestations of 2013 and 2014 in Brazil; the second is about the media spectacularization of the street manifestations between 2013 e 2014 in Brazil, and also on Dilma Rousseff's impeachment process in 2015; the third one is from the everyday life of a girl from Brasília in October of 2014. All those three situations reveal the world of the working class and its helplessness in the face of the media spectacularization.Keywords: Work. Media. Politics. Spectacle.


Author(s):  
Jim Ogg ◽  
Michal Myck

AbstractEconomic exclusion is a multidimensional concept that has particular relevance in the context of ageing populations and globalised economies. Sustaining adequate incomes in old age and protecting older citizens from poverty are major challenges for governments and policy makers and they have been amplified in the face of the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past few decades most countries have made adjustments to their pension systems and other welfare related policies that concern older citizens, and these reforms have already had and will continue to have a differential impact on economic exclusion. For some, extending the working life and pushing back the legal age of retirement can be a safeguard against inadequate incomes in old age, while for others who are excluded from the labour market, or who are working in low paid jobs, economic exclusion remains a reality. The labour market implications of the pandemic are likely to exacerbate this risk for those whose situation was already fragile before the crisis.


It is well known that castration, when performed in early life and before sexual maturity has been reached, has a marked effect not only in inhibiting the development of the accessory male organs, but in changing the general conformation of the body. Thus in castrated guinea-pigs, oxen, and capons, as well as in eunuchs, the bones of the limbs tend to be abnormally long, this result depending upon an arrest in the ossification of epiphyses. The secondary male characters are also in many cases suppressed, so that there is an apparent approximation to the female type. Thus in red deer if the testes are removed in quite immature animals the antlers fail to make their appearance, and in fallow deer castration at birth limits the horn formation to the development of single dugs. Secondary sexual characters, however, are not always correlated with the presence of the essential reproductive organs, even in mammals. Thus the withers in the gelding resemble those of the horse rather than those of the mare, in which the witheres are lower. Moreover, in certain varieties of cattle in Italy, the horns in the ox, if castraction has been carried out young, are far longer than those of either the bull or the cow. Ovariotomy in the female is often said to lead to the assumption of male characters, but there is little experimental evidence that this is actually the case. In the human female complete removal of the ovaries, if carried out in early life, besides preventing the onset of puberty and the occurrence of menstruation, produces effects on the general form and appearance, individuals so operated upon being said, in some cases, to show resemblances to men. Abnormalities in the ovaries have been described as producing similar results. Thus, Rörig records three cases in which female deer possessed horns, and were shown on dissection to have had abnormal ovaries. Darwin states that female deer in old age have been known to acquire horns. It Wallace says that in old mares the neck tends to acquire an arch as in the stallion. The occasional growth of hair on the face in old women is a phenomenon of the same kind. Similar observations have been made upon birds, especially ducks, poultry, and game birds. Darwin mentions the case of a duck which, when 10 years old, acquired the plumage of the drake. Other cases are those of hens which in old age assumed secondary male characters and started to crow. Hunter mentions a hen pheasant which had male plumage associated with an abnormal ovary. Numerous other instances have been described, but it is not apparent that such an acquirement of male characters by female individuals is always correlated with an abnormality in the reproductive organs. According to Gurney the assumption of male plumage is generally associated with sterility in female gallinaceous birds, but not, as a rule, in female passerine birds. Thus Gurney describes a hen chaffinch with male plumage and a number of developing eggs.


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