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Daniela Lazoroska

Daniela Lazoroska

Lecturer

Daniela Lazoroska

Poison, bad hearts and vampires: the fear of contamination and the regulation of social relationships in a Rio de Janeiro favela

Author

  • Daniela Lazoroska

Editor

  • Raul Matta

Summary, in English

This article analyzes instances of refusal to eat or drink due to the fear of poisoning and contamination amongst favela youth in Brazil. These particular occurrences of refusal shed light on refusal’s potency as a way of managing complex social entanglements and instrumental in asserting agency. Considering that interlocutors had come of age without many formal institutions present, they needed people. This artful skill had a flip side, for the proximity of people and the intensity of relationships could at times drain them and their emotional, social and economic resources. Discourses around poison, bad hearts and vampires thus emerge as aids towards the regulation of exchange involved in social relationships. Control, refusal and defiance are action, carving out space in the midst of entangled social relations, fears and unmet needs.

Department/s

  • The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics

Publishing year

2020

Language

English

Pages

147-159

Publication/Series

Food Identities at Home and on the Move : Explorations at the Intersection of Dwelling and Belonging

Document type

Book chapter

Publisher

Bloomsbury Academic

Topic

  • Social Anthropology

Keywords

  • food
  • eating
  • ethnography
  • danger
  • agency
  • favela
  • body

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 978-1-3501-2232-1
  • ISBN: 978-1-3501-2231-4