Social Markers of Difference

From ‘Mulher’ to ‘Malu’: Gender in Brazilian TV shows

Description: This research aims to reflect on the role of the media in gender construction, focusing on the television channel Rede Globo, discussed here as a sphere of construction of symbolic meanings in Brazilian society. The background theoretical discussion deals with the media as a technology of gender (Lauretis, 1994), aiming to reflect how this in fact happens. The empirical cases chosen for this reflection allow us to investigate in the spheres of production and reception, in which the research takes place in various locations, in a methodological approach to anthropology of media (Ginsburg at al., 2002). In terms of production of meaning in the sphere of television, we intend to analyse the social, political and symbolic action of agents that influence and act in media production, whether professionals within production and broadcast (authors, producers, directors), or social sectors and specialised agents, to interfere with the promoted constructions (advertisers, consultants, government agencies, and social movement). To this end, there are two empirical objects highlighted from TV productions. On the one hand, I aim to deepen a study on the interaction between media and social movement by using the TV show ‘Malu Mulher’, which aired on Globo in 1979 and 1980, and its relation to feminism. On the other, to analyse the relationship between media and state agencies, the TV show ‘Mulher’ (1998-99) and its intention of promoting, by its narrative, educational messages related to women’s health.

Professor in charge: Heloisa Buarque de Almeida (helobrun@uol.com.br)

 

Among exclusion, recognition, and negotiation: (homo)sexuality and race in an international comparative perspective

Description: The general purpose of this research project is to reflect, from an international comparative perspective, on the dynamics of the construction and experience of homosexuality in South Africa and Brazil. The broader purpose is to analyse how the relationships between different racial and ethnic groups have been developing both in post-apartheid South Africa and post-military regime Brazil. In other words, we aim at a renewed understanding of conventions, representations, and sociabilities associated with race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. Project included in the Special Program for Social Inclusion, Equality and Civic counsciousness - Public Notice No. 57/2008.

Professor in charge: Laura Moutinho da Silva (lmoutinho@usp.br)

 

Race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender in comparative perspective

Description: Joint Project of the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at the University of São Paulo (PPGAS USP) and the Graduate Program in Social Sciences at the Federal University of Pará (PPGCS-UFPA). This project aims to explore the dynamics of classification according to colour/race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation in São Paulo and Belém, prominent cities in the development of studies on race relations and research on (homo)sexual identity construction in the Brazilian society. Thus, we will resume two important ethnographic fields from the fields of race relations and sexuality and (re)visit some of the main issues and theories that marked social sciences in recent decades. We aim to address race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender as articulated categories that materialise in bodies, collectives and relationships, to improve the understanding of the role of these markers of difference in the configuration of complex social hierarchies, which often operate in a tense and contradictory way. The comparative study on the interfaces between race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality will also shed light on the dynamics of colour and gender performances in the love and sex markets, including sexual-affective interracial relationships, labour market and leisure, experiences of the multiple forms of discrimination, experiences in the area of sexual and reproductive health, among others. As it is an academic cooperation project, the travels and missions aim to, in addition to research, expand cooperation between the two graduate programs and its Research Lines related to the project theme (Social Markers of Difference of PPGAS-USP, and Identity, Ethnicity, and Gender: Differences, Multiplicities, and Amazon Populations, of PPGCS-UFPA): enable exchanges between young researchers and students from the North and the Southeast; as well as training researchers sensitive to issues concerning the complex intercrosses between race and ethnicity.

Professor in charge: Júlio Assis Simões (juliosimoes@uol.com.br)

 

Sexuality, body, and markers of difference in different ethnographic contexts

Professor in charge: Júlio Assis Simões (juliosimoes@uol.com.br)