Perspectivas multisituadas de masculinidades negras em São Félix, BA

Abstract

The research seeks to analyze the production of black masculinities for the context considered in order to understand how these masculinities unfold in the production of the black male body, carried out between the years 2017 and 2021. The first chapter presents a portion of the city and activities practiced by its residents with the intention of identifying everyday elements in the life of São Félix. The second chapter initially introduces the idea of proposing multisituated masculinities, understanding multisituated as an ethnographic model indicated by George Marcus. This is followed by a literature review that contributes to this idea of multisituationality. Finally, in the last section, the “Barbershop Black Power” and the “ponto de mototáxi” emerge as examples of studies that can expand the discussion and field of study regarding black masculinities analyzed in different ethnographic units. Starting from the third chapter, there is a more in-depth discussion of the black man's body as a discursive platform, first viewed as the body of labor in niches of work for racialized men who historically occupy these positions, while presenting nuances of the ethnographically studied field at a later stage. Aesthetics are essential in shaping the identity of black men today, especially the use of hair as an element of this assertion. Therefore, the analysis of the most commonly used haircut styles was essential to problematize the black man's body. In the fourth and final chapter, we propose a critical interrogation of what Toxic Masculinity actually is, a male standard that has been widely propagated in Brazil over the last five years. We take examples from advertising campaigns by the Government of Bahia, Égard Watches, and Gillette, all from 2019. We conclude, as bell hooks tells us, by questioning white heterosexual patriarchy and proposing progress in mitigating gender-based violence and other dimensions through the ethnographically studied field, in the Writing Partners Project in 2019.