GEOPOLITICS OF PRIVACY: houses, property, and violence in the urban frontier

• Grant number: 18/12573-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: November 01, 2018
• End date: October 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Urban Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Susana Soares Branco Durão
• Grantee: Thomas Jacques Cortado
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Using material from the Jardim Maravilha subdivision, a working-class neighborhood located at the urban periphery of Rio de Janeiro, this two-year project aims to study ethnographically the large range of antagonisms and cooperations that emerged from the quest for privacy, and their impact on the production of space. Privacy is a native category used to describe the free-dom that a person enjoys while living in his own home. This project seeks to elaborate an "ethnographic theory of privacy", which takes home and family competitions and solidarities seriously. In so doing, it departs from existing studies on privacy, which usually start from an a priori definition of the public-private distinction. This project contributes to four fields: ur-ban studies, through the examination of autoconstruction in an informal settlement; the an-thropology of kinship and the family, mainly the anthropology of the house; the anthropology of economy or, rather, the anthropology of property relations; and, finally, the study of urban violence. It also opens several comparative perspectives on Brazil, between the cities of Rio and São Paulo, and between Brazil and Haiti, Chile, France and India. Since the author has been living in and studying the Jardim Maravilha for the past 5 years, he is qualified to carry this project out. He plans to pursue ongoing conversations with Brazilian and foreign research-ers about the government of the houses, which have been underway for several years. Taking advantage of Unicamp's resources, the project will therefore include national and international events, in addition to generating a significant amount of publications in the aforementioned fields.