Living the impossible: on bodies, affects and social transformation in the urbanization process of the Amazonian triple border

Author(s)

Thiago de Lima Oliveira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2022-06-28

Examining board members

Silvana de Souza Nascimento; Fabiano de Souza Gontijo; Marjolein Elizabeth Maria de Theije

• Advisor: Silvana de Souza Nascimento

Abstract

At the end of the 1960s, large intervention and development projects in the Amazon region made by the Brazilian government marked the governmental agenda. However, these projects were part of a longer history, marked by the persistent and violent presence of state power. In this history, cities occupy a central position, for the way they allow the installation of institutional mechanisms necessary for state practices, but also for the way they congregate collectivities marked by multiple categories of differentiation. Located at the intersection of anthropological studies on gender and sexuality and urban anthropology, this research sought to analyze the relations between sexuality and urbanization in a specific context of Amazonian territory: the Alto Solimões region. Methodologically, its based on the ethnographic field research carried out between 2016 and 2018 and in the registration of the narratives and experiences of LGBTI+ people about their perspectives on the urbanization of Alto Solimões, in the border between Brazil, Peru and Colombia. The research highlighted the invisibility that gender and sexuality occupy in the official discourse on the colonization of the Amazon, also highlighting the dissensions resulting from it. The forms of personal and collective mobilization produced by LGBTI+ people are understood here as responses and as forms of rebellion to the effects of precarious access to institutional spaces. Recognizing these logics of invisibility is an important resource to establish a critical analysis of the differential forms of access and experience of the city, especially regarding citizenship and the guarantee of decent living conditions for LGBTI+ people (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/23046-4 - Desires and/on becoming, border cities: homosexualities and social transformation in Alto Solimões region
• Grantee: Thiago de Lima Oliveira
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate