Modo de vida, imaginário social e cotidiano

Este trabalho analisa as relações cotidianas através dos conflitos gerados pela aplicação das Posturas Municipais dentro do cotidiano da cidade de Santos (1870 a 1890). Para encontrar o desse cotidiano, e não olhá-lo através da perspectiva da municipalidade e legitimar seu discurso, procurou-se o invisível no processo de aplicação dessas posturas. No período estudado migrantes e imigrantes chegavam à cidade de todas as partes do país e do mundo; ao mesmo tempo, era marcante no discurso da municipalidade questões como a modernidade; progresso. Isso fazia com que o outro; não fosse compreendido em sua complexidade e forçava com que todas essas experiências fossem balizadas pelo discurso unificador em busca de hábitos civilizados. Na pesquisa foram trabalhadas questões relativas aos transportes, principalmente os conflitos que envolviam as principais formas de locomoção na cidade: as carroças, os bondes e os transeuntes. Dentro dessas experiências, procurou-se desde relações sociais e de trabalho, como essas pessoas entendiam as vias públicas e qual o papel da Câmara Municipal em projetar mudanças de apropriação desses territórios, autuando, multando e direcionando as práticas cotidianas. A cidade também se alargava e crescia para além de seus limites coloniais, surgiam novos bairros o que não aconteceu sem conflitos ou disputas entre setores da elite. A busca por novos locais para morar também significava a existência de conflitos e dificuldades de habitar dentro do centro urbano. Diversas pessoas chegavam à cidade em busca de trabalho e procuravam locais para se estabelecer de forma fixa ou por apenas um par de noites. Era comum que empregados morassem no próprio local de trabalho, fazendo com que fiscais aumentassem a fiscalização desses tipos de moradias. Foi durante a década de 1870 que a palavra cortiço incorporou-se no vocabulário dos agentes da municipalidade e tornaram-se um problema a ser solucionado. A fiscalização da construção dos também chamados quartinhos ou cubículos eram bastante dificultosas pois um punhado de madeiras acumuladas em um dia poderiam significar um cortiço construído no dia seguinte. Além disso, a centralidade que a cidade de Santos adquiriu nos anos de 1870 a 1890 para imigrantes, migrantes, escravos e forros faziam com que uma grande multiplicidade de hábitos e costumes fossem colocados frente a ações fiscalizatórias que visavam um projeto de cidade civilizada. Esse discurso e práticas tornaram-se mais incisivos e as fiscalizações ficaram mais constantes no cotidiano da população pela presença dos surtos epidêmicos principalmente da febre amarela e varíola fazendo com que os costumes que fossem considerados nocivos à saúde e a higiene viessem à tona. Os despejos de matérias pútridas, o lixo, a limpeza da cidade e a própria forma que a população vivia eram sintomas que evidenciavam um corpo urbano doente. Dentro dessa perspectiva, a municipalidade alternava entre discursos brandos e paliativos e outros mais assertivos e intervencionistas. Tendo essas questões em vista, buscou-se compreender esses sujeitos históricos, suas experiências, suas trajetórias em meio aos diversos conflitos analisados e trazê-los à tona, valorizando suas vozes e suas atuações no cotidiano da cidade de Santos, em suas várias formas de viver e sobreviver.

A presente pesquisa teve como finalidade analisar o sistema prisional e as rebeliões do Estado de São Paulo (1988-2006), à luz da Lei de Execução Penal (LEP) e suas regulamentações, com vistas à identificar como acontecem na prática. Tal cotejamento identifica a prática do Estado no que concerne às suas finalidades em relação às pessoas que ficam sob sua custódia no sistema carcerário. Esse compõe conjuntos de unidades cada vez maiores, com prédios construídos conforme padrões cada vez mais sofisticados, regidos por regras de condutas, cujas normas são consideradas as mais modernas. Os espaços são controlados por contingentes de policiais que vêm se ampliando, com treinamentos permanentes em técnicas de segurança e que seguem como lógica o entendimento de que este universo se assemelha às situações de guerra. Esse sistema mantém sob controle uma população muito diversificada, em todos os sentidos, particularmente quanto à sua classificação perante os códigos, civil e criminal. No interior de seus altos muros, os agentes do Estado designados para tanto, controlam um contingente enorme de pessoas (que no período analisado ultrapassava os 500 mil), os quais, na prática, perderam qualquer direito de cidadania e vivem na mais completa degradação humana, o que se acresce à sua pena legal. A inserção de tais indivíduos neste sistema, muitos dos quais sem julgamento formal, representa a perda de qualquer direito, inclusive os vinculados à dignidade humana. Reduzidos aos níveis de desumanidades inconcebíveis em um sistema que se diz moderno e regido por leis consideradas avançadas quanto à finalidade de reinserção de tais indivíduos na sociedade, tais pessoas perdem quaisquer referências de sociabilidade do mundo fora daqueles muros. Como é da natureza humana, nestas condições gestam novas regras de sociabilidade, nascidas sob o signo da violência máxima entre si e regidas pelos sentidos mais obscuros do ser humano. Emergem sob a égide da lei da sobrevivência em situações limites de desumanidade o que os leva a formar bandos em disputa territorial, que tendem a reconhecer como líderes aquele que se mostra mais forte, mais cruel, implacável e radical para com os inimigos. A ação do Estado nesse universo é o antagônico do que preconiza a lei e resulta num sistema que não cumpre as finalidades previstas pelos códigos penais e, além disso, constitui um dos fatores que aumenta a violência já vigente na sociedade. Para o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa, foram utilizadas fontes diversas, como notícias de jornais, entrevistas a ex-encarcerados, dados oficiais das agências do Estado e leis que regulam o sistema no período em questão. Esses dados foram analisados à luz da bibliografia que discute a questão, respaldados em autores que fundam preceitos teóricos afetos a essa realidade.

Esta pesquisa buscou, por intermédio de depoimentos orais, documentar as referências de apoio e os elementos de arrimo utilizados tanto por imigrantes como por descendentes deles, estabelecidos em São Paulo. Trata-se de um estudo das tradições alimentares trazidas da casa materna de famílias italianas de ontem e hoje, pela forma como os depoentes as rememoraram relativamente à cultura material e às experiências na terra nativa e, posteriormente, pela vivência no bairro do Brás e no próprio espaço privado do lar. Com base nas reflexões sobre oralidade e memória, uma vez que as fontes aqui usadas consistiram em testemunhos e livros de memorialistas, buscamos perceber as (re)significações muitas vezes nostálgicas e idílicas que esses grupos criaram sobre seu passado e seus hábitos, além da subjetividade das declarações no momento presente, seus silêncios e omissões. Pelas entrevistas entre 2010 a 2012, que priorizaram italianos de diferentes regiões da Itália e seus descendentes, pudemos observar as diferenças regionais na culinária e nos costumes e também a terrível experiência da fome, as dificuldades e a própria História italiana na época da Segunda Guerra. Quanto aos descendentes, que relataram isso pelo que souberam dos mais velhos, percebemos como reelaboraram essa recordação e o que incorporaram das gerações passadas no que concerne a valores, práticas alimentícias e a patrimônios herdados.

This dissertation investigates the influence of religious cultural consonance on well-being. In particular, I ask if religious conceptions of ideal acolyte identity and behavior buffer daily stressors experienced by socially and economically marginalized Brazilian Pentecostals. Between 1960 and 1985, the Protestant population of Brazil quadrupled. This expansion however, is disproportionately among Brazil's poor, disenfranchised, and minority populations. This research posits that Pentecostal communities offer an alternative cultural-landscape to create identity, power, and status—which may contradict, compensate, and even challenge the dominant norms. Thus, religious cultural consonance may be a specific mechanism that marginalized Brazilian Pentecostals utilize to mitigate the physiological and psychological stress of their daily lives. This mixed-methods research is conducted in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil. The project utilizes two specific communities: The Assembléia de Deus (AD) and Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD). The AD is theologically more sectarian than the IURD, advocating a greater separation between their faith and the secular world. This cross-cultural comparison is valuable for examining potential differences in the interaction of religiosity and sectarianism in the appraisal and embodiment of psychosocial stress. Research therefore focuses on: (1) the construction and distribution of religious cultural models of ideal personhood and lifestyle; and (2) evaluating well-being through psychological health measures in relation to religious models. This research offers an understanding of how religion influences psychological well-being. More specifically, this research empirically shows how religion is a cultural institution that can offer an alternative and attainable set of life goals and identities. By conceiving religion as composed of a series of cultural models, differential adherence or cultural consonance with religious and secular ideals can be evaluated by their influence on mental well-being. Ultimately, this research will contribute to understanding the ways culture and religion shape psychological health.

The dissertation explores the negotiation of culture and identity from the literary production of Korean immigrants in Brazil. The dissertation also explores how Korean immigrants begin a process of diasporic narrative as a way to construct an alternative space and a Korean Brazilian identity. By following the status of Self through the writings of Cultura Tropical , a Korean Brazilian identity evolves through three stages of negotiation. The Korean community of 50, 000 is a small minority group but rapidly growing in socioeconomic sectors of Brazil. Their narratives and cultural discourse convey experiences of tension and cultural affiliation. They create a literary space to debate and contemplate how Korea or Brazil is a sanctuary to mix languages, literary genres, voices and reflections related to the Brazilian immigrant life. The study of this dissertation presents the search and the trace of new Asian voices in Brazil for further understanding of how they view themselves within Brazilian culture and what it means for them to claim “Brazilian” as part of their identity. The focus of this piece will concentrate on Korean immigration in Brazil and thus far the only existent literary journal by the community known as Cultura Tropical. Finding themselves, quickly building a business and social space in São Paulo, their experiences are embodied as short stories, poems and essays in which they manifest a new and contemporary relationship between the Korean and Brazilian cultures. Can the notion of Asian ethnicity pose to be included or excluded in Brazilian society and literary culture? From this, we will be able to further identify if Korean immigrant discourses can be part of the current framework of Brazilian foundational literature and cultural studies.

This dissertation is about Brazilian migrants' intersecting experiences, perceptions, and interrelationships with place, identity, and change. The objective of this study is to evaluate migrant spatial processes and sociocultural changes incurred by migration by looking at two older and two recent "migration corridors" between the United States and Brazil. In the late 1980s over one million Brazilians left Brazil without returning. Today, an estimated two million Brazilians live abroad, and over one million are believed to reside in the United States. What are the reasons so many Brazilians are leaving Brazil to the United States? Are they happy? How do Brazilians self-identify ethno-racially before and after migrating? In what ways do religious affiliation impact migration processes? How are Brazilian men and women dealing with change after migrating, and what are their occupations? In what ways does change affect two places of destination and two places of origin after migration occurs? This research has addressed these important questions by using a transnational theoretical framework, and qualitative multi-methods consisting of 100 in-depth interviews, 12 focus groups, 173 informal interviews, a survey, secondary analysis and participant observation. Fieldwork research was conducted in four places; in two receiving communities: (1) Framingham, Massachusetts, and (2) Marietta, Georgia; and, in two sending communities: (3) Governador Valadares, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and, (4) Piracanjuba, in the state of Goiás, Brazil. Research results show that Brazilians who migrate to the United States are historically seduced by U.S. idealization and by geographical imaginations incurred by, U.S. Protestant and U.S. cultural influences, and by stories of returnee migrants. Brazilian immigrant women are generally happier in the United States than their male counterparts, who experience a sense of emasculation, as levels of female social capital and economic empowerment increase after immigration. Brazilians self-identify with various ethno-racial categories after migration occurs and tend to have positive interactions with U.S. Whites, but negative interactions with U.S. Blacks and other immigrant groups. Brazilian immigrants experience a low sense of unity within their own community, and if they could vote in the U.S., the majority would vote for the U.S. Democratic Party. The conditions and consequences of migration processes are multi-dimensional, complex, and not economic alone, rather they are generated and sustained by transnational social and religious networks.

This dissertation explores how the Centro Cultural Orùnmilá [Orùnmilá Cultural Center] struggles for the substantive valuing of Afro-Brazilian culture and knowledge as a means to address contemporary racial inequality. Located in the city of Ribeirão Preto, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, the Orùnmilá Center’s cultural work and politics mobilizes a critical historical perspective and Afro-Brazilian forms of embodied knowledge and learning as key sites and sources for the struggle to decolonize social relations and achieve racial equality. In this process, they claim representation in the spheres of education, institutional politics, and culture to push the substance and practice of citizenship beyond the circumscribed inclusion afforded through Brazilian racial democracy, ideologies of miscegenation (i.e. racial and cultural mixture), and contemporary apolitical multiculturalisms. Orùnmilá members strive to transcend addressing inequality through access to and inclusion into an already defined system—educational, economic, political, and cultural. Instead, they reclaim the importance of culture in struggle to challenge and transform the unequal histories of power and race that structure dominant understandings of what knowledge counts in the making of modernity and development. Their work addresses how capitalist development and the colonial legacy re-articulate racial hierarchies and rule in ways that continue to marginalize and exclude Afro-descendant peoples. The Orùnmilá Center engages in a range of efforts including cultural workshops, lectures and presentations, anti-racist activism, and policy-advocacy. The chapters of this study look in detail at the philosophy and action underlying Orùnmilá’s work, especially how they mobilize ancestralidade, or ancestral knowledge/wisdom and lived experience to construct the Afro-descendant past as a project for contemporary social transformation. The chapters also analyze their struggle to construct and implement a municipal education project and their use of the Afro-Brazilian cultural form of Afoxé as a means of protest and anti-racist advocacy in the annual carnaval parade. In these efforts, Orùnmilá members politicize black culture and difference as sites of epistemological critique that shape other ways of understanding history, progress, value, and collectivity.

The phenomena of "children in specially difficult situations" (UNICEF) are increasingly national socioeconomic indicators. Societal response has been characterized by inaccurate definitions, poor planning, ineffective and self-serving programs. This also occurs in Brazil: 6,000,000 children are of/on the streets. An innovative field study was one of health of 77 street children, 7-19 years in Sao Paulo and Curitiba, Brazil. Foci included a mental and physical exam, an existential assessment, and selected interviews with professionals. Findings include the children's essential ordinariness; they showed less than expected, mostly situational, health pathologies, consciousness of their life circumstances and the hope necessary for daily life and anticipation of adulthood. In their context, these are healthy children and youth. In general, violence and drug use are endemic and there is AIDS awareness. Many children continue and/or reproduce family relationships, complementing it with strong peer connections. Significantly, prejudicial ideologies seem to prevent professionals from accurate assessment.

The purpose of this Ministry Focus Paper is to make clear the concept of the church from a biblical and theological perspective, and based on this concept, to develop an effective ministry principle among the Japanese Brazilian churches in São Paulo. Forty-seven percent of the 1. 5 million Japanese community in Brazil live in the city of São Paulo. They are scattered throughout the city. They are middle to upper, middle class, facing difficulties of Brazilian economy, unemployment, security and opportunity to develop their abilities and acquired skills through education. On the other hand, they are becoming materialistic, looking for a better lifestyle. In this context, the Japanese Brazilian churches with a history of eighty years are in transitional period from pioneers and immigrant pastors to the second and third, generations. They are in need of a new paradigm of ministry. This paper will have eight chapters divided into four sections. The first section will describe the target people, their origin, realities, future, and how the Japanese Brazilian churches have developed their ministries. The second section will provide a biblical and theological reflection regarding the church and the kingdom of God. Also, it will develop the concept of the church as the people of God and the role of ordained pastors and lay people. The third section will set forth the principles and insights for church renewal. It will focus on the need for a radical renewal in order to be a church according to the biblical perspective, meeting the needs of the target people. The fourth section will be focus on the importance of spiritual gifts and the group ministry. The goal is to develop a principle to shape the ministry among the Japanese Brazilian churches, resulting in the effectiveness of their ministries. The expected results will be the renewal of the churches, development of the ministries of the people of God, and growth of the churches, manifesting the nature of the kingdom of God.

This dissertation examines the role of new visual reproduction technologies in forging public cultures of sensationalized violence in two rapidly modernizing nations on the periphery of industrial capitalism. I trace parallel developments in the production and reception of silent crime and adventure film in Brazil's First Republic and in revolutionary and post-revolutionary Mexico, at a moment when industrialization and urbanization were reshaping daily experience without eliminating profound social inequalities. Re-evaluating critical frameworks premised on cinema's relationship to the experience of modernity in the industrialized U.S. and Western Europe, I argue that these early twentieth-century cultures of popular sensationalism signal the degree to which public life in Mexico and Brazil has been conditioned by violence and social exclusion linked to legacies of neo-colonial power. In the first half of the dissertation, I examine cinematic re-enactments of real-life crimes filmed in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Mexico City between 1908 and 1919. Combining an emphasis on location shooting with melodramatic tropes inherited from popular literature and theater, these true-crime films grapple with representational problems at the heart of the cinematic medium: its potential for both documentation and dramatization and its indeterminate relationship to topical events. Incorporating analysis of locally produced crime serials, I focus on the dynamics of unequal cultural exchange between Mexico and Brazil and industrialized nations, particularly France and the United States, which acted as exporters of cultural products. Addressing the economic polarization of metropolitan centers and rural areas, the latter half of the dissertation analyzes fiction features produced outside the two countries' principal cities in the 1920s, where economic development lagged behind that of urban centers. These productions drew on the conventions of imported serial films and westerns (particularly location shooting and dynamic action sequences) to display local landscapes even as they asserted mastery over cinematic technology's viscerally thrilling effects. In constructing violence and risk as markers of local modernity, early Mexican and Brazilian crime and adventure films rendered spectacularly visible the social tensions of national modernization projects.