Moradores, the Irabim Vesoru house and State flags pay respect to liurai Jeremias
de Carvalho Amaral, during his burial, in November 2008. Irabim de Cima, subdistrict
of Watukarbau, district of Viqueque, East Timor. Video by Kelly Silva.

Artigos

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Vibrant. Volume 5. Número 2. Julho a Dezembro de 2008

• Capa, créditos e sumário
  p. 1-6



Dossier "Antropologia Sul–Sul"

• Lost Frontiers: Presenting the dossier
  Kelly C. Silva
  p. 7 - 12
• Back to the House: Becoming a Man in the First
  Palestinian Intifada
  Gustavo Barbosa | resumo
  p. 13-44
  This article shows that the public-private divide has a specific grounding in the history of European capitalism and political thought and that it has been accompanied, from its very inception, by a particular concept of personhood: the isolable individual, and a gendered one, thought of as being a man. Spaces become gendered in this way and the public-private dichotomy is conflated with two other distinctions: male-female and political-apolitical. In this article, a micro-sociology of Palestinian families during the first Intifada helps to demonstrate the artificiality of the taken-for-granted conflations public-private, male-female and political-apolitical. The consequences in terms of gender of such a de-construction of the public-private divide are also investigated. The paper concludes that a different concept of personhood is in operation here and that, if different polities emphasize various concepts of personhood, there is nothing inescapable or unquestionable about our own stereotype of the isolable individual.
  Key words: Public-Private, Personhood, Gender, Masculinity, Palestine
• A Different Kind of Family: The Domestic Environment on the Boa Vista Island, Cape Verde
  Andréa de Souza Lobo | resumo
  p. 45-74
  This article discusses family organization on the Island of Boa Vista, in Cape Verde, within a context of female emigration. The category of disorganization used by the social Cape Verdeans themselves is revisited so as to make the concept of family relative by using the concepts of “scattered families” and “distant proximity.” The analysis shows that the feeling of belonging or breach in family relations depends upon a balance in the maintenance of the numerous principles of social filiation which keep people united. Important concepts such as consanguinity, filiation, conjugality, kinship and others are analyzed in the light of ethnographic data presented.
  Keywords: Social organization, emigration, gender, anthropology.
• Notes on a Disputed Process of Signification: The Practice of Communication in Spiritain Missions in the Central Highlands of Angola
  Iracema Dulley | resumo
  p. 75-99
  This essay focuses on the practice of communication in the Catholic missions of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit in the Central Highlands of Angola, in the territory of the Ovimbundu, from the mid-19th century to the pre-Liberation War period in the 20th century. Its empirical sources basically consist of translations of Catholic doctrinal material into Umbundu, of collections of oral genres translated from Umbundu into Portuguese, and of ethnographic and historic records referring to the period. Based on these sources, the aim is to reconstruct the process of symbolic struggle between the agents which gave rise to the convention of meaning established in the missions. The hypothesis is that this convention was formed by indexing local ritual practices of “ancestor worship” to Christian ritual practices and doctrine.
  Key-words: missions – Angola – communication – translation
• “Eating Alone” or When Modernity Feeds Tradition: Money and Magic in Southern Mozambique
  Luiz Henrique Passador | resumo
  p. 100-129
  Abstract: The 1992 peace agreement allowed the establishment of a globalized market economy in Mozambique, in which “traditional” forms persist amid the impact of these changes. The strong monetarization of the economy, combined with a scarcity of formal jobs and money in circulation places great pressure on the search for money and triggers conflicts experienced under the terms of the “traditional” systems. The result is a growing monetarization of “tradition” and consequent inflation of prices charged by curandeiros – who are sought to provide spells to guarantee “traditional” means of obtaining benefits in a competitive market. The poorest turn to the churches for protection from the spells sold by the curandeiros; while the rich are regularly open to accusations of practicing sorcery. It is an environment in which globalized “modernity” deepens the search for “traditional” mechanisms to obtain benefits, triggering conflicts and associating money to sorcery and evil magic fueled by “ambition”.
  Key words: Mozambique – sorcery – market
• “Nuestros gobernantes están llenos de dinero”: Construcción de Alteridades y sentimientos de pertenencia en torno al dinero. El caso de los Magermanes en Mozambique.
  Héctor Guerra Hernández | resumo
  p. 130-155
  To travel, to get dressed elegant, to show sophisticated sound devices, to offer gifts for the many girlfriends, to have access to consumer goods like refrigerators, television sets, motorcycles... Histories of success and material well-being predominate in the stories of the Mozambican that worked in the German Democratic Republic. Substantial part of the earn was transferred to Mozambique. The extinction of the GDR caused the accelerated return of the known ones as Magermane, nevertheless many were able to organize containers and transferred the accumulated material goods during their permanence in this country. It is more: they arrived economically "like rich" in a country disintegrated social and economically, and knocked down by a fratricide war. But their history continues. The transferred remittances "disappeared". Nevertheless they "know" the whereabouts their money: bureaucrats of the Frelimo (the party in the power) would have become rich illicitly with this money; private banks would have been formed, luxury condominiums would have been constructed in Maputo, and thus ahead. This communication try to explore the senses of money into the history of a specific social group. About the memory from the wealth to the stories of an increasing and present poverty, the representations all around of the money are a decisive element of identity for the Magermane, orients them in their political actions and, mainly, it articulates his narratives about their supposed enemies.
  Keywords: Mozambique, Money, Identity
• Reciprocity, recognition and suffering: Political mobilizers in Independent East Timor
  Kelly C. Silva | resumo
  p. 156-178
  The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the values that have been mobilized as a source of political legitimacy in East Timor since the restoration of independence. To do so, it uses as a principal analytical anchor the campaign activities held in the realm of the first round of presidential elections in the country in April 2007. They are placed in perspective through a comparison with other moments of political conflict. By means of ethnographic observation of electoral phenomenon – rallies, radio and television programs and journalistic coverage – I seek to identify some of the moral and sociological principles on which modern political authority is claimed in the country by the different groups in its elites. Among other things, I highlight the centrality of the veterans of the Falintil in this field. This fact, associated to the discussion of the public performances of the various candidates during the campaign, is seen as an indicator of the importance that ideas and values such as suffering, recognition and reciprocity occupy in the repertoire of contemporary Timorese political culture. I also present a hypothesis about the mechanisms through which the capilarization of modern institutions such as political parties and the Nation State, have taken place in the country: by means of alliances between the cosmopolitan urban elites and local authorities, mediated by veterans of the resistance.
  Key words: East Timor, political culture, elections, recognition, reciprocity.
• Brazil and India: Attempts at Comparisons Regarding the Relation Between the State, Religion and Society
  Emerson Giumbelli | resumo
  p. 179-203
  The aim of this text is to produce a rapprochement between Brazil and India that takes the idea of multiple modernities as its reference. The terrain chosen is that of the relations between the State, religion and society. The first part of the analysis examines how the separation between the State and religion was put into effect in Brazil and India in legal terms, beginning with constitutional definitions.  In the second part, an analysis is presented of two historical situations that occurred during key moments of the constitution of Indian nationalism and Brazilian republicanism. The point is to show how a link was established between public culture and particular religious references – Hindu in the Indian case and Catholic in Brazil. In both cases the relation with modernity is reiterated by these two countries’ different ways of defining “religious” space.
  Keywords: nation, modernity, religion 
• “What’s your Nation?”: Nationalist Itineraries in Namibian History
  José Tomasini Castro | resumo
  p. 204-222
  A inteção deste texto é refletir sobre as construções históricas de diferentes conceitos de “nacionalismo” defendidos e apreendidos na história da Namíbia. Começando com os primeiros anos da colonização alemã, passando pelo governo sul-africano e terminando com a independência em 1990, destacarei alguns aspectos da historia namibiana que poderão me auxiliar no entendimento dos contornos empíricos com os quais me deparei em campo. Para isto, atento a uma experiência etnográfica específica, iluminando-a através de uma análise histórica, elaborando ainda algumas considerações sobre a relação entre antropologia e o estudo dos Estados africanos.
  Palavras-Chave: Nacionalismo, Namíbia, Antropologia, Estados Africanos.
• Multiculturalism in Mozambique? Reflections from the field
  Lorenzo Macagno | resumo
  p. 223-246
  O presente artigo coteja duas histórias narradas no cinema – Tsotsi e Yesterday - com minha experiência analítica particular, conformada em grande medida a partir de meu trabalho de campo na África do Sul. Ao invés de propor um exame de fora para dentro, faço uma leitura dessas obras de ficção orientada por três eixos distintos, entendidos, pelas pessoas que conheci pessoalmente, como fundamentais para a compreensão de suas vidas. O primeiro são os nomes próprios dos sujeitos. O segundo, suas casas ou locais de moradia. E o terceiro, a maior ou menor proximidade em relação à relevância das pessoas com as quais se relacionam. Aqui a fabulação dá margem para pensarmos não na verossimilhança do que é filmado em relação à realidade, mas no processo criativo que a etnografia pode desempenhar em uma reflexão sobre as distâncias e proximidades entre a história de um país e as biografias individuais de seus cidadãos. 
  Palavras-Chave: Etnografia, África do Sul, Cinema, Linguagem 
• Tsotsi and Yesterday: an anthropological appraisal
  Antonádia Borges | resumo
  p. 246-267
  O presente artigo coteja duas histórias narradas no cinema – Tsotsi e Yesterday - com minha experiência analítica particular, conformada em grande medida a partir de meu trabalho de campo na África do Sul. Ao invés de propor um exame de fora para dentro, faço uma leitura dessas obras de ficção orientada por três eixos distintos, entendidos, pelas pessoas que conheci pessoalmente, como fundamentais para a compreensão de suas vidas. O primeiro são os nomes próprios dos sujeitos. O segundo, suas casas ou locais de moradia. E o terceiro, a maior ou menor proximidade em relação à relevância das pessoas com as quais se relacionam. Aqui a fabulação dá margem para pensarmos não na verossimilhança do que é filmado em relação à realidade, mas no processo criativo que a etnografia pode desempenhar em uma reflexão sobre as distâncias e proximidades entre a história de um país e as biografias individuais de seus cidadãos. 
  Palavras-Chave: Etnografia, África do Sul, Cinema, Linguagem 
• Dialogical and Power Differences in World Anthropologies
  Luís R. Cardoso de Oliveira | resumo
  p. 268-276
  The article discusses potential differences between interpretive stances within the discipline, as developed, on the one hand, by the classical traditions of anthropology as represented by the three founding schools (the American, the British and the French) and, on the other hand, by the perspectives developed by anthropological communities in former colonies and/or third world countries. The main focus is on dialogical and power differences in the two cases, and the argument outlines a few questions concerning the nature and implications of the respective differences for the meaning of anthropological theory or perspective in general.
• Brazilian Anthropologists in Africa: Remarks on Theory, Politics and Fieldwork Overseas
  Juliana B. Dias, Omar R. Thomaz, Wilson T. Filho | resumo
  p. 277-303
  Nos últimos anos, vê-se consolidar na antropologia produzida por pesquisadores brasileiros, ou com algum tipo de vínculo com instituições do nosso país, pesquisas que têm como cenário países africanos. As potencialidades, os desafios e as tensões que têm permeado tais experiências de pesquisa são aqui tomados como objeto de reflexão por um grupo de antropólogos. Não se trata de uma narrativa homogênea, mas de um conjunto de comentários, estruturados a partir de temas comuns. São debatidas questões como: a diversidade cultural das populações africanas e as dificuldades em se pensar a existência de uma antropologia com estilo brasileiro em construção nos/sobre os PALOP; o lugar ocupado pela língua portuguesa nas experiências de investigação; e o modo como investimentos de pesquisa orientados pela agenda sul-sul situam-se em um sistema de poder mais amplo.
  Palavras-chave: Antropologia brasileira, África, desafios de pesquisa



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  p. 304-337