Marginal Conviviality On Inequalities and Violence Reproduction

Abstract

In an insightful essay reviewing the state of art of "conviviality", Sergio Costa (2019: 1) follows the Mecila theoretical path (Mecila 2017) and asserts the "reciprocal constitution of conviviality and inequality". The author removes from conviviality its normative (and conflict-free) mood; the notion, Costa argues, must be understood as an analytical unit for theory-making. As such, Costa assumes that ordinary interactions construct and, at the same time, reproduce social life. Conviviality is about pragmatically living together, not about virtuous commonality. In sustainedly unequal societies such as the Latin American ones, conviviality is inescapably linked to the reproduction of inequalities. Are convivial situations also part of the reproduction of violence, in societies that are not only unequal but also violent? This paper explores marginal conviviality, adding empirical evidence to Costa's argument, as well as addressing his theoretical framework from an ethnographic point of view. A life story, followed empirically from 2005-2018 in a district of São Paulo, guides my argumentation.

Slaves Who Owned Slaves in Nineteenth-Century Bahia, Brazil

“…Training the new Gertrudes took two years and a half, between 1849 and 1852, during which time her labour was consumed by her enslaved mistress, while the outgoing enslaved woman augmented her productivity to her master's joy. 26 It is not a coincidence that both enslaved women in this transaction had the same name, Gertrudes, and belonged to the same African nation, Nagô, a sign that Antonio José Lobo, who was granting freedom, demanded no less than an exact replica of the person leaving his service, an impressive example of master class reification of the enslaved African. I found seventeen transactions that fit the same-name pattern;…”

Pandemic Avant-Garde Urban Coexistence in Mário de Andrade’s Pauliceia Desvairada (1922) after the Spanish Flu

“…The poet omits any explicit reference to these historical events, but after the publication of the work he emphatically insisted on the singularity of his Pauliceia desvairada and that it cannot be compared to the modernist texts of his contemporaries. 26 In 1918, the year of the flu, Andrade, as already mentioned, was active as a music critic for the newspaper A Gazeta. (Andrade 1922(Andrade /1923.…”

“…In his exposition of the idea, harmonics is associated with verticality, simultaneity and polyphony; numerous advocates of similar procedures such as Paul Dermée, Apollinaire and, to some extent, the Parnassian poet Olavo Bilac are cited as sources. Andrade turns away from melodic language, based on chronological sequence and the rules of grammar and linearity (PD: [22][23][24][25][26].…”

Interspecific Contact Scenes: Humans and Street Dogs in the Margins of the City

“…What is common to these diverse material and symbolic alliances is that in all these forms of coexistence, the function of dogs seems to be not as strictly determined as in Europe. 26 Not only among humans but also on an interspecific level, the Columbian "encounter", and especially the appearance of the sadly famous "dogs of the conquest", has to be considered as an event which reorganized the whole field of human-animal relations in the Americas, including the reconfiguration of indigenous traditions of living together with animals that had been developing over several thousands of years (Varner and Varner 1983). Starting with the first "dogging scene", i.e.…”