1. Gloria
1.1. Built her own home/shack
1.2. Was in charge of fourteen children
1.3. Used black humor to oppose official Brazilian ideologies concerning race, class, and gender
1.4. By researching the shantytowns, rather than Carnival, the “real” story of the poor could be discovered, according to Gloria and her friends (34)
2. Humor
2.1. Masks a loss on innocence
2.1.1. Taken as a profound form of truth
2.2. Form of communication. Running commentary on...
2.2.1. Political Structures
2.2.2. Economic structures
2.2.3. Context of people within Rio's shantytowns
2.2.4. “Vehicle for expressing sentiments that are difficult to communicate publicly” (5).
2.3. Gives voice to parties (racial, gender, class, etc.) that normally wouldn’t have a communal voice in the public sphere.
2.3.1. Part of an oral culture
2.3.2. Connects the sensibilities of particular groups together
2.4. Black Humor
2.4.1. Connection between comedy and suffering/tragedy
3. Class Based Suffering
3.1. Regional based
3.1.1. Sectionalized
3.1.2. Shantytowns
3.2. Poor women having a great lack in self expression
3.3. Forms of Domination by the empowered forces
3.3.1. Criminalization by the police force
3.3.2. Intimidation by local gangs who corrupt the young into a life of violence
3.3.3. Ambiguity in physical appearance within class structures
3.4. Dominating classes having the ability to conform history to their desires (Cardoso an Faletto’s Dependency and Development in Latin America, 1979)
3.5. Hegemony
3.5.1. Elitist hegemony
3.5.1.1. Control over poorer class by controlling resources and available commerce and economics
3.5.2. Cultural hegemony
3.5.2.1. Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural hegemony focuses on the symbolic struggle between classes to appropriate distinctive signs. The legitimization of the dominating class
3.5.2.1.1. Taste
3.5.2.1.2. Sense of place
3.5.2.1.3. Habitus
3.6. Scheper Hughes’s political economy of the emotions
3.6.1. Extreme poverty and everyday violence of the sugarcane workers in Northeast Brazil
3.6.2. Women of the Alto do Cruzeiro are able to “let go” of any infant who is considered not strong enough to survive – cruel and unusual political context
4. Brazil's history
4.1. Effects on politics and economy
4.1.1. In 1500s: Growth of captaincies (hereditary land grants) due to the Portuguese crown apportioning huge parcels of land. Gave power and large estates to select families
4.1.2. Late 1700s - early 1800s: Became the largest slave economy in the world and became the world’s largest leading sugar exporter
4.1.3. Dom Pedro declared independence from Portugal post 1820
4.1.4. Slave trade ended in 1853
4.1.5. Abolished slavery in 1888
4.1.6. Dom Pedro II dethroned in 1889; Brazilian Republic was established
4.1.7. Brazilian politics were dominated by military dicators for most of the mid twentieth century
4.1.8. 1970’s miraculous economic growth, return to political democracy
4.1.9. In 1988 Brazil drafts their advanced and sophisticated constitution, pertaining to fundamental rights.
4.1.10. Brazil is currently in a state of social apartheid