Dona Beth would have liked to keep her daughter near her for as long as possible
Preliminary Dialectical Interactions
Gloria would have liked to witness her children becoming independent Intro
a disguised discriminatory phrase placed in job advertisements and meant to discourage dark-skinned people from applying
“Boa Aparencia” or Good appearance Linguistic elements of discrimination
One of the most commonly mentioned characteristics of domestic workers is how they “talk differently” Most middle-and-upper-class members of society admit being able to discern social class instantly by a person’s walk, style of dress, or simply an utterance
Body language + other signs of social origin
Worked 14 or 15 hour days + spent 1 or 2 hours every day traveling to reach employer’s home Faxineira = Heavy-duty day cleaner (cleaning, changing bedding, doing laundry)
earning U$6/day
Gloria earned 5 minimium salaries per month
privileged situation
Much like in the US, the minimum salary designation is not really a living wage; it is a subsistence wage
The market rate is disproportionately low compared with what is needed for a worker’s proper sustenance The system demands that domestic work be the lowest paid, since it is a distinguishing feature of middle-class life
In Rio, employing a domestic worker is not only perceived as a necessity, it is also a class marker, a form of identity in the deepest sense
The faixineira becomes involved in the lives of the elites they work for + BUT + the employers know relatively little about the employers lives There is not enough expansion of the formal sector to absorb the ever increasing lowest-paid workers Brazilian middle-classness is a state of mind “oriented to a dynamic social and economic arena.” Middle-class men and women could project to the world the fact that they were free, at least symbolically, of the most degrading manual labor involved in running a household
Middle-classness is a historical identity construction in process and more than a mere economic enumeration
Brian Owensby
1- The Middle Class is supposed to make thing happen economically and politically within the country
Middle-classness is nevertheless an ambiguous position
2- It is not supposed to be burdened with the stigma of manual labor The dependence on somebody else has become a positive form of status and prestige for the upper and middle classes
Demographics of Brazil Social Markers
Cultivated sense of incompetence
the notion that domestic work ought to be shared by household members is inexistent Sign of Class, where domestic workers are perceived as a cultural capital objectified as a good or service
The Struggle to Earn a Living Wage Social Philosophy
Closeness and Typical traditional elements of Paternalistic Relationship Power and Social-Class Relations
In Brazil this paternalism pointed out that domestic workers are better off as workers in their homes rather than living a “typical” lower-class life
Ideological and Cultural Subtleties between the Domestic-Employer Relationships
Domestic workers are part of an emotionally explosive area of social relations
The privileged classes manage to convince themselves that their patronage is healthier for their servants than the lives available to them “on the outside”
1- Providing a sense of identity to both middle and upper classes
Afro-Brazilian Women find themselves at the very bottom of a series of interlocking economic and social hierarchies Rio’s economy has been in declined for many years: In constant struggle with Sao Paulo for commercial and industrial dominance
THE AESTHETICS OF DOMINATION: Class, Culture and the Lives of Domestic Workers
The history of Rio has been connected to the lives of slaves, ex-slaves, and domestic workers
General Aspect Colonial Rio de Janeiro
Before the end of slavery and the declaration of the First Republic in 1889
Domestic servants were expected to provide sexual services to masters and their sons
Brazilian elites were concerned about the image they conveyed to their North American and Western European trade partners
• Long tradition of slavery • Large Afro-Brazilian and mixed-race population
Poverty in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro
A Brief History 1985 • Sao Paulo = 26% of the country’s manufacturing production • Rio = 7% of manufacturing production 1988 Average household earning per capita were 22% higher in Sao Paulo than in Rio 1976-1988�real earnings in Rio fell by 29% 1989, Rio had the most unequal distribution of income of any metropolitan area in Brazil
Research beyond the economic has often separated public from private domains of power relations
Discourse = The “naturalness” of domestic work and the inability of the economy to absorb the lower-class population in any other productive manner
Direct cause of exploitation and inequality
The slave woman in the SEXUAL LIFE in colonial Brazil, both as mistress of the planters and as sexual initiator of their white sons
Gilberto Freyre Reactionary
CRITICISM
the portrayed relationship is exposed as easygoing and humanized or SOFT SLAVERY which is in reality euphemistical
Carl Degler
“mulato escape hatch”
as Freyre, Brazilian elites were “consciously attempting to show the rest of the work that they belong to the group of civilized nations”
suggested that because Brazil had afforded blacks the possibility of social mobility through whitening (getting a coroa), racial polarization had been avoided
Class, Culture, and the Effects of Domination Sandra Lauderdale Graham
Notes that the relationship between the patroes and servants still remained outside the realm of public regulation The treatment of and abuse of domestic workers were not regulated by the law = a feature of the post-slavery period
Power relations remain as a matter of private negotiations and personal control Power Relations
hegemonically constructed forms of cultural capital are a possession of the dominant classes and are acquired through the process of class production and reproduction
Bourdieu
Laughter Out of Place-Chapter 2 and 3
suggests that the silence surrounding discussions of race and racism in Brazil constitutes a form of cultural censorship
In Search of a Radical Response Sheriff
Scott
Lower class discontent is silenced
The imposition of euphemisms on the public transcript plays a similar role in masking the many nasty facts of domination and giving them a harmless or sanitized aspect On the parameters of racial inequality in Brazil
Hasenbalg and Silva
Conservatives
outlined the conventional organization of the Brazilian middle-class apartment as one that is divided into three functionally independent zones
The Myth or Ideology of Racial Democracy
The “top” attempts to reject and eliminate the “bottom” for reasons of prestige and status
Stallybrass and White
Brazilians are aware of racism but are inhibited from expressing their discontent openly
Hanchard
1-Social area 2-Intimate area
James Holston Practical Representations
In part due to the increasing migration to the city = 22% of the total population (coming from the impoverished states to the north)
RESERVING the study of the POLITICAL to public spheres of power�Ignoring Subtle forms of domination (CRITICISM)
Domestic work is synonym of dark skin, and dark skin with slavery, dirt, ugliness, and low social standing
The Aesthetics of Racial Relations
Relations of Production
Rio�Increasing feminization of its workforce and the growing participation of children in the economy
Domestic service relations in Brazil have been analyzed from an economic standpoint
Methodological Perspectives
3-Service area Brazilian architecture exhibited the unique characteristic of two completely independent circulatory systems: one for masters and one for servants
Oscar Niemeyer--the communist architect of Brasilia
altered spatial separations between masters and servants in significant ways
The division between service and public entrances to middle-and upper-class apartment buildings
the final design created apartments with servant quarters and service elevators
Reinforces a sense of inferiority among the poor and working classes
The middle and upper-classes seem to have become obsessed with crime and the shrinking of public space Elite construct public spaces for themselves and for foreign tourist, diplomats and businessmen
Segregation of Architectural Forms Elites’ conception of public space in Rio
Jeffrey Needell
In the process of designing a Paris in Rio, Brazilian elites made public spaces into private ones
“The Poor people interfered with the elite’s fantasy of civilization and so had to be hidden away in the Afro-Brazilian slums near the docks and on the hills.” (Needell 1995)
In Rio, the working classes, the Afro-Brazilians and shabby commerce were pushed into the Zona Norte or onto hillside favelas
urban planning that excluded the poor from public spaces
The Haussmannist
An Architecture of Power
giving the elite the Zona Sul with an easy access to a newly sanitized city center
The school system in Brazil is “classed"
with a public school system that functions poorly for the masses
Although Public Education is paid for through government funding, it rarely functions as the great equalizer that many liberals desire it to be
Second Class Educational System = Second-class citizens
Differing levels of private school education that cater the middle and upper classes
The Limitations of Academic Capital
Education and class are highly associated Hall
Oppositional Culture There are signs of RESISTANCE and a growing BACKLASH against the relations of power associated with slavery
Jose Pastore
the educational structure is even more tightly restricted than the social structure of Brazil
Education is NOT a route to Social mobility based on Brazil’s classist system
Educational Capital�Cultural Capital�Historical Privilege
the process of RESISTANCE is a slow one
Philippe Bourgois
Adopts a Cultural Production Theory
As Individuals belonging to a particular subculture are also agents of their own futures DICHOTOMY
Agency Problem in Social Science
Resistance Strategy Argues that working-class boys practice RESISTANCE through their denigration of mental work, highlighting the emasculating aspect of white-collar jobs
Paul Willis It is an authentic response to domination BUT not a SOCIAL REVOLUTION
Since the Colonial times, a strong period of slavery, an ideological discourse was developed to sustain a consistent form of domination perpetuated by the upper classes in Brazil
The treatment of and abuse of domestic workers were not regulated by the law
The Myth or Ideology of Racial Democracy
Color-Blind Erotic Democracy led Brazilians to be self-perceived as a mixed-race nation, which became the essence of Brasilidade Brazilian National Identity
Brazil’s multicolored expression of diversity is a matter of national pride
“Brazilian Exceptionalism”
Brazil as a racial Democracy
Michael Hanchard
Peter Fry
“nail in the coffin” of the myth of racial democracy in Brazil
critiques the notion that “Brazil is different” because Brazilians celebrate a color-blind sexuality
Democracia Racial is a codification of race inscribed into aesthetic valuations of sexual attractiveness
Politics
Lack of Civil Rights Movement
Brazil did not developed a structure of legal supports to racism
Black movement has faced resource deprivation, racial hegemony, and culturalism
Lack of codification + manifest in social rather than legal relations
GELEDES = the Black Women’s Institute (Sao Paulo)
Despite the economic legacy of slavery, poverty in Brazil is conceptualized as a class problem rather than a race problem
has experienced similar issues to those faced by the black consciousness movement
The black movement rejected whitening ideology and favored a “back-to-our-roots” orientation, ad adherence to negritude and a revalorization of African origins
Black Consciousness
The Movimiento Negro has attempted to bring attention to racial discrimination in Brazil Define Project Development Measurement
Promotes the positive aspect of Afro-Brazilian history and culture
KPI's
Eroticized, exoticized and celebrated the center of national ideology
The celebration of miscegenation
The Mulata is the positive sexualized product
Mulata Representation
Angela Gilliam
Mulata is synonymous with eroticized black and mixed-race female sexuality
Sexuality setting up the tone for national ideology
writes about this mulata imagery in the context of an emerging global economy, summarizes the problem these representations create for poor Brazilian women
Brazil’s carnivalization of desire
Brazil’s “erotic paradise” is connected to the race issue because the primary icon of “hot” sexuality is represented through the mulata
the extension of the mesticagem narrative into the 20th century disembodies women’s capacities for power and authority over their lives
The Cult of sensuality built up around the mulata has actually served as a justification for sexual attacks on black and mixed-race women
Sonia Maria Giacomini
Mulata dancers develop a defensive dialogue about their sexuality so that they were not confused with prostitutes (perception of black or mixed-race female bodies with sexual availability)
Sexuality and Race in the building of a Nation
Patricia Hill Collins
Describes 4 American stereotypes of black women that pathologize black women by linking them to specific forms of sexuality
1- Mammy 2- Matriarch 3-The Welfare Mother 4-The Jezebel
These forms are both racially and sexually charged
End User requirements Action points sign-off
Define actions as necessary
1- The way out of the favela is through seduction of a coroa 2- The coroa desires his domestic servant and therefore is not racist
The story of the Coroa Hope among low-income women
A woman might be able to overcome her negatively valued dark skin or African characteristics by performing as a seductress
The Political Economy of Interracial Desire
As a method of escaping poverty, marrying or seducing a coroa is based on gendered and racialized values of attractiveness in an erotic market
�Men’s Attractiveness = Related to their economic well-being�Polysemic symbol embodying a culture of wealth �Women’s Attractiveness = Related to their beauty and sex appeal Race is embodied in everyday valuations of sex-class-oriented ways • Black female bodies • White male economic, racial and class privilege
Development Stage 2
an argument that support the notion of a Brazilian color-blind erotic democracy
Litimation of Brazil’s racial and erotic paradise
Forms of inequality embedded in or enacted through certain forms of racialized eroticism