Donna M. Goldstein challenges much of what we think we know about the "culture of poverty." Drawing on more than a decade of experience in Brazil, Goldstein provides an intimate portrait of everyday life among the women of the favelas, or urban shantytowns. These women have created absurdist and black-humor storytelling practices in the face of trauma and tragedy. Goldstein helps us to understand that such joking and laughter is part of an emotional aesthetic that defines the sense of frustration and anomie endemic to the political and economic desperation of the shantytown.
Author(s): Donna M. Goldstein
Edition: 1
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 378
Illustrations......Page 12
Foreword......Page 14
Acknowledgments......Page 20
Introduction......Page 32
1. Laughter “Out of Place”......Page 49
2. The Aesthetics of Domination......Page 89
3. Color-Blind Erotic Democracies, Black Consciousness Politics, and the Black Cinderellas of Felicidade Eterna......Page 133
4. No Time for Childhood......Page 167
5. State Terror, Gangs, and Everyday Violence in Rio de Janeiro......Page 205
6. Partial Truths, or the Carnivalization of Desire......Page 257
7. What’s So Funny about Rape?......Page 290
Notes......Page 306
Glossary......Page 344
References......Page 352
Index......Page 372
