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This paper proposes an analysis based on the ethnography in sex clubs and sex bars for men in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The paper examines how the different markers that operate in such areas are being melted to produce desirable bodies and subjects. I locate these sites in the broader market for commercial sexual encounters among men in the city, exploring social conventions and practices that permeate the body, sexual practices and erotic choices. This is a starting point for inquiring the ways in which certain stereotypes of "masculinity" are provided with meaning and are embodied. I also propose a revision of the erotic choices and sexual practices, which challenges the idea of eroticism expressed by thinkers such as Georges Bataille. According to him, gender is fixed and crystallized, is linked to sexual dimorphism of sex/gender positions. The body "violated", passive and penetrated, is "feminine"- the opposite of the "masculine" ones, the "active", that penetrates. This design underlines the erotic within the heterosexual matrix, which prevents thinking beyond or outside the limits of its rules. Following post-structuralist thinking on gender and sexuality, as well as queer theory, I wonder if we could try to deconstruct the erotic in other terms, in order to interpret anthropologically the practices, discourses and talks discussed here as potentially transgressive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a case study to analyze the means by which a processional ritual reinforces the tenets of a dominant model of motherhood. It explains how the process of motherhood, including pregnancy, childbirth and nurturing has been a core element in the creation of feminine knowledge. This knowledge has been strategically expanded to other domains of women's lives, such as social networks of solidarity, help or exchange of knowledge and experiences. The naturalization process, the concept of motherhood as feminine essence, and the creation of homogeneous and identical groups are reinforced and legitimized by a set of rituals and icons. In this paper I argue that the institutions that have invented or maintained these rituals have created an illusion of equality between men and women, therefore invisibilizing gender inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper collects a set of methodological aspects taken from the doctoral research of the author, which focuses on the construction of social identity in immigrant children at the Catalan coastal region of El Maresme (Spain). The author intends to contribute to the overcoming of methodological restrictions when conducting participant observation among children, which is strongly conditioned by an adult-centric power structure that mediates child-adult relationships in our culture, and considers children as unfinished, future-oriented versions of adults, or adults-in-the-making. Drawing on the author's own experiences this paper discusses some strategic practices that became extremely useful for building the rapport necessary to access these children's cultures and to understand children as an active and creative social group developing their own, and unique, systems of relations and meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the meaning of me' vinik, a common expression of grief among the Tzotzil in the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. The pain is associated to other diseases registered in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mexican Traditional Medicine, such as the "latido" (beat). The analysis of me' vinik shows how food practices provide metaphors to describe the difficulties of the everyday life, and specially the problems related to modernity. These metaphors sustain a broad concept of poverty such as material deprivation and inadequate nutrition caused by emotional trauma. Underling the idea of me' vinik there is a reaction to the salubrity of life in a time considered as ach' kuxlejal (the new way of living). This affliction is reinforced as an expression of the rapid and profound changes in the indigenous communities of the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores Tim Ingold's anthropological theory following his references to Merleau-Ponty and the concept of interanimality/interagentivity. It poses some ideas of Ingold's "poetics of dwelling", which he highlights from ethnographies of hunter-gatherer peoples, and how these ideas are linked to an ontological consideration which does not dissociate body and person, body and mind, nature and culture, animality and humanity. The paper reviews literature on animals in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, and Ingold's critique of "Anthropology of the senses". It also gives critical clues for the ethical and political implications of this ontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender performativity is one of the core concepts of Judith Butler's work. In this paper Butler re-examines the concept of performativity and gives an account of how she became interested in the notion of precarity. Butler considers precarity as a politically induced condition in which certain populations become exposed to injury, violence and displacement. In addition, those who are exposed to precarity are also at risk of not qualifying as subjects of recognition. The author asks how is it possible to "claim a right" for those subjects who do not have the right to claim any rights, or how one must follow certain rules before attempting to change them. These issues constantly come up in the social construction of the nation-states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]