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This paper examines the development of the field of feminist geographies in Brazil, proposing a reflection upon the different aspects of the policy (personal, institutional and national/international) which are intertwined with the geographical scientific production on gender and sexualities. This research is based on a data survey comprising 17,636 papers published between 1974 and 2015 in 90 scientific journals kept by Brazilian geographical entities at all levels of the ranking established by the government. The study emphasizes that there was an expansion of the gender and sexualities approach after the 2000s, characterized for its production from the peripheral universities, by young researchers and its publication in scientific journals of lower scientific impact, when the formal criteria of evaluation recently set in Brazil are taken into consideration. The gender studies field can be considered consolidated in Brazil, however, the approach of sexualities in the Brazilian geography still requires some work to be finally recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jair Bolsonaro, the unapologetically homophobic and ultraconservative Brazilian president, managed to emerge from the margins of the political system and gained electoral momentum during the impeachment hearing against Dilma Rousseff in 2016. The hearing, which ultimately demoted the first female president of the country, epitomizes the current affective polarization of Brazil in which sexual dissidence plays an important role. This paper discusses the politics of discourse, affect and sexuality which has drawn Bolsonaro and his far-right ideologies into greater political relief. To do so, I will focus on the scene in which Jean Wyllys, a human rights activist and the only openly gay congressmember at the time, spat on Bolsonaro. Wyllys' misdemeanor caused a commotion in the country and was recontextualized in several venues such as memes, social media, op-eds, YouTube parodies etc. This paper investigates the intense circulation of Wyllys' actions and how it responds to and takes issue with the larger affective scenario of the country. I analyze the socio-semiotic life of Wyllys' spit by tracking its textual trajectory with a view to discussing the performativity of disgust and the forging of political (in)sensibilities with regards to gender and sexuality in contemporary Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, women and girls make up the majority of recorded and estimated victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. In Brazil, however, females represent only 5% of the more than 35,000 people rescued from forced and slave labour from 2003 to 2018. This paper interrogates data on antislavery efforts in Brazil, to identify and explain the gender dynamics of rescues. It evaluates legal, policy, and contextual factors that may help to explain discrepancies between Brazilian victim demographics and regional and international trends. In doing so, it identifies a key gap in antislavery efforts in Brazil that demands focus on investigating sexual exploitation, domestic work and forced marriage. Centralisation of human trafficking, minor sexual exploitation and forced labour is primordial to address all modern slavery aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual and reproductive health needs and rights are one of the bleakest examples of (racialised) gender health inequalities in Brazil. This is so despite legal and constitutional specificity recognising the right to health as right of citizenship. In this paper we argue that a 'performance gap' is revealed in contradictions between what the right to health as a normative framework encourages states to do, and institutional arrangements and power relations that underpin everyday gendered inequalities in health delivery. The contribution of this article is two-fold. First, it contributes to feminist political economy accounts of the neglect of sexual and reproductive rights by adding a perspective of human dignity as an approach to gender inequalities. Second, it explores ways in which health inequalities manifest in everyday practices, and how divergent expectations of what the right to health means for professionals and for disadvantaged black women limit the capacity of healthcare to make a difference to their well-being. The article also underlines the importance of complementing legal accountability in health with mechanisms that account for prerogatives of gender justice, equality and dignity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines family planning in Brazil as biopolitics and explores how the democratization of the State and of reproductive health services after two decades of military dictatorship (1964–1984) has influenced health professionals’ and family planning users’ discourses and practices. Do health professionals envisage family planning as a ‘right’ or do they conceive it, following the old neo-Malthusian rationale, as a ‘moral duty’ of poor people, whose ‘irrational’ reproduction jeopardizes the family's and the nation's well being? And how do their patients conceptualize and embody family planning? To answer these questions, this paper draws on 13 months of multi-sited ethnographic research undertaken between 2003 and 2005 in two public family planning services in Salvador da Bahia, where participant observation was undertaken and unstructured interviews were conducted with 11 health professionals and 70 family planning users, mostly low income black women. The paper examines how different bio-political rationalities operate in these services and argues that the old neo-Malthusian rationale and the current, dominant discourse on reproductive rights, gender equality and citizenship coexist. The coalescence of different biopolitical rationalities leads to the double stigmatization of family planning users as ‘victims’ of social and gender inequalities and as ‘irrational’ patients, ‘irresponsible’ mothers and ‘bad’ citizens if they do not embody the neo-Malthusian and biomedical rationales shaping medical practice. However, these women do not behave as ‘docile bodies’: they tactically use medical and non-medical contraceptives not only to be good mothers and citizens, but also to enhance themselves and to attain their own goals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we analyse the patterns and trends of horizontal inequality and ethnic diversity in Brazil in the past 30 years and their effect on the quality of the country’s institutions. Using data from the last four demographic censuses (1980, 1991, 2000, and 2010), we estimate numerous measures to analyse inequalities between different ‘ethnic’ groups. Our results show that, in Brazil between 1980 and 2010, the trend toward greater equality shown in other analyses of vertical inequality, is also found in terms of horizontal inequalities along racial, gender, and regional lines. Nevertheless, horizontal inequalities in terms of race and gender, in particular, remain pronounced. Ethnic diversity regarding race and religion has increased since 1980. Through our regression analysis, we note that both horizontal inequality and ethnic diversity negatively affect the institutional quality of Brazilian municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil is a middle-income country with universal maternity care, mostly by doctors. The experience of normal birth often includes rigid routines, aggressive interventions, and abusive, disrespectful treatment. In Brazil, this has been referred to as dehumanised care and, more recently, as obstetric violence. Since the early 1990s, social movements (SM) have struggled to change practices, public policies and provider training. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the role of SM in promoting change in maternity care, and in provider training. In this integrative review using a gender-oriented approach, we searched the Scielo database and the Ministry of Health’s (MofH) publications and edicts for institutional and research papers on SM initiatives addressing disrespect and abuse in the last 25 years (1993-2018) in Brazil, and their impact on public policies and training programmes. We analyse these groups of interrelated initiatives: (1) political actions of SM resulting in changes in public policies and legislation; (2) events organised by SM for diffusion of information to the public; (3) MofH policies to humanise childbirth with participation of SM; and (4) initiatives to change providers’ training, including legal actions based on obstetric violence reports. To promote real change in maternity care, the progression of policies and enabling environment of laws, regulations, and broad dissemination of information, need to go hand in hand with changes in all health providers’ training - including a solid base in ethics, gender and human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Since the publication of the reports by the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), many research papers have documented inequities, explaining causal pathways in order to inform policy and programmatic decision-making. At the international level, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) reflect an attempt to bring together these themes and the complexities involved in defining a comprehensive development framework. However, to date, much less has been done to address the monitoring challenges, that is, how data generation, analysis and use are to become routine tasks. Objective: To test proposed indicators of social determinants of health (SDH), gender, equity, and human rights with respect to their relevance in tracking progress in universal health coverage and population health (level and distribution). Design: In an attempt to explore these monitoring challenges, indicators covering a wide range of social determinants were tested in four country case studies (Bangladesh, Brazil, South Africa, and Vietnam) for their technical feasibility, reliability, and validity, and their communicability and usefulness to policy-makers. Twelve thematic domains with 20 core indicators covering different aspects of equity, human rights, gender, and SDH were tested through a review of data sources, descriptive analyses, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. To test the communicability and usefulness of the domains, domain narratives that explained the causal pathways were presented to policy-makers, managers, the media, and civil society leaders. Results: For most countries, monitoring is possible, as some data were available for most of the core indicators. However, a qualitative assessment showed that technical feasibility, reliability, and validity varied across indicators and countries. Producing understandable and useful information proved challenging, and particularly so in translating indicator definitions and data into meaningful lay and managerial narratives, and effectively communicating links to health and ways in which the information could improve decision-making. Conclusions: This exercise revealed that for monitoring to produce reliable data collection, analysis, and discourse, it will need to be adapted to each national context and institutionalised into national systems. This will require that capacities and resources for this and subsequent communication of results are increased across countries for both national and international monitoring, including the successful implementation of the SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a ritual compound in Salvador, Bahia's capital city in Northeastern Brazil, the Caboclo Sete Flechas dances a sinuous samba, his bare feet marking time on the leaf-covered floor. With a serpentine spine and syncopated steps that turn on a polymetric beat, Sete Flechas rides out on the horse that is Mãe Oba's body. A priestess in the Afro-Brazilian religio-cultural matrix of Candomblé, Mãe Oba, cultivates Yoruban-oriented divinities, the Orixá, as well as Caboclo, hybrid Brazilian gods identified with indigenous histories and healing traditions. At ceremonial sessions like the one described above, Caboclos use locally harvested leaves to remove ailments and dispel negative energy. Rowdy, masculine entities that embody female, male and trans-identified practitioners, Caboclos also dance circular sambas that narrate and revel in living histories of emancipation, nationalism, eroticization and racial contact. This paper places critical ethnographic fieldwork and choreographic analysis in dialogue with Timothy Morton's dark ecologies to develop what I call dark horse kinetics: a counter-hegemonic praxis activated through Caboclo performance. I suggest that Caboclos use dark horse kinetics to unfix, critique and revise dominant constructions of race, nation, gender and sex. Thinking about dark ecologies through performance, I ask if dark horse kinetics can move dark ecology towards a performance praxis, or a praxis that performs, in an efficacious and theatrical manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the process of creolisation will be considered through analysis of the wills and testaments of African, black and mixed-race women in nineteenth-century Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. As primary sources these will and testaments provide evidence concerning material, social and cultural markers of creolisation. These markers are read as statements about belonging on the part of formerly enslaved women and their female descendants in a racially based slave society that was also formally and informally patriarchal in structure and Catholic in culture. The historical sources are used to provide a measure of the momentum of mobility engendered by manumission and passed down through the generations of freed and free black women, and reveal the limitations of mobility made possible either economically through occupation or socially through marriage. Analysed collectively, the wills and testaments of these women provide insights into the ways in which race and gender shaped the contours and confines of freedom in Salvador in particular and Brazilian slave society in general and reveal how perceptions and experiences of the limitations of integration shaped their versions of creolisation as well as their visions of freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to determine Brazilians' leisure education level (LEL) and which variables have an effect on it. The Leisure Education Scale – LES was used as a data collection tool following validity and reliability examinations. With a convenience sampling method, this study involved 2630 participants, including employees and students in the Brazilian education system. Data were analysed using Multivariate Analysis of Variance. Results showed statistically significant differences in terms of gender, age and occupation, but only the occupation variable influenced the Leisure Education (LE) total score. In addition, some interactions between variables present significant differences in the awareness dimension. Although it is not generalisable to all LE dimensions, we concluded that in the dimensions where significant differences are observed, women have higher LE scores than men, teachers have higher LE scores than administrative staff and students, and individuals in the 14–17 age group have lower LE scores than other ages. The implications of these findings for public policies for the promotion of LE among Brazilians are discussed. Since few researchers have examined LEL in Brazil, this study presents a valuable contribution to the scientific literature on this subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I focus on the integration practices and discourses regarding "LGBTI refugees" in Brazil, in contrast with the precarity faced by queer immigrants and refugees in the country. I argue that those integration practices and discourses tend to limit "LGBTI refugees" to their sexual and gender identities, in dynamics that overshadow the processes of racialization that they experience as queer migrants from/in the Global South. In a critical analysis based on ethnographic research, I argue that the precarity lived by those refugees can only be understood in their articulations among gender, sexuality, and race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil has a historical gap regarding information on violence against women. Herein we aimed to evaluate the association of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics with physical violence against women in Brazil, as well as the possible escalation of violence to severe patterns of violence. We analysed data from the 3rd Brazilian Household Survey on Substance Use, in 2015. The main outcomes were reporting any physical violence and being stabbed/shot in the last 12-months. Logistic regressions were fitted to assess the association between socioeconomic and demographic variables with the outcomes. We estimated 3.8 million women reported any physical violence (5.52%): 3.79% reported threats to beat/ push/kick, 1.87% threats with knife/gun, 2.49% were beaten/pushed/kicked, 0.63% were spanked/ choked, and 0.21% were stabbed/shot. The higher the severity of violence, the higher the number of types of violence experienced. The likelihood of reporting any violence was higher among women 18–24 years, without a stable partner, who were at an informal job or unemployed, and who live in urban areas. The sociodemographic characteristics associated with reporting any violence reinforce the importance of addressing gender inequalities. Evidence of escalation violence reinforces the need to protect and care for women who report any type of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Queer migration and counter-movement literature are established subsets of social science scholarship that, together, could illuminate debates around queer rights activism in a migration context. Yet, the intersection of these two sets of scholarship is largely underexplored. Recognizing this gap, a valuable case study can be found in Brazil, which is home to both the only LGBTQI+ refugee centre in Latin America, Casa Miga, and a growing anti-gay and anti-gender counter-movement. Thus, to better understand the conceptual novelty of the intersection of queer migration and counter-movement literature, we draw on 26 interviews with Venezuelan LGBTQI+ asylum seekers, politicians, NGOs, and UN staff in Brazil conducted before and during the pandemic. Our central argument is that Casa Miga, an LGBTQI+ refugee centre, is an essential bulwark against the coordinated counter-movements that share the goal of defeating LGBTQI+ and feminist agendas in Brazil. We conclude that lacking local avenues for action, international appeals during COVID-19 for gender and LGBTQI+ sensitive responses become critical. Indeed, the gendered impacts of COVID-19 – regarding women – are becoming well-known due to vocal feminist groups worldwide. Yet, these calls for action have largely missed analysing how COVID-19 impacts LGBTQI+ populations, even in gender-sensitive reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming to contribute to the debates on the entanglements among the far-right and anti-feminism Latin America, this article seeks to shed light on the performance of Damares Alves as Brazil's Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights. Regarding Alves's conservatism along her political career, particularly during the 2018 presidential run, this study provided an analysis on the reasons behind her prominence to the ongoing bolsonarism, and on how she contributed to building the gender knowledge that anchors the populist narrative in Bolsonaro's political project. Concerning anti-feminist project's foundations, as well as Alves's performance as a Christian-conservative woman, a set of her speeches in the first 19 months of her term was scrutinised, by adopting the FCDA as methodology and using the thematic analysis as a method. The pointing of Alves's discursive strategies revealed her attacks on feminisms, and the aim of legitimising herself and Bolsonaro's political project as pro-women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the rapid growing number of the ageing population worldwide, it has been questioned how health and wellbeing in old age can be improved, especially for women in socially vulnerable contexts. Research have shown that social aspects are key determinants for older-age groups' engagement in an active life. It is crucial to understand older people's experiences with physical activity in order to develop interventions that contribute to health promotion beyond disease prevention. The study's purpose was to explore the experiences of middle-aged and older socially vulnerable women with physical activity within a public-funded programme under the Sistema Único de Saúde – SUS [Brazilian public healthcare system]. The study involved a Health and Physical Education professional and 16 women (43–66y) who regularly attended the programme. Data were generated through condensed fieldwork, employing semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation of sessions. Drawing on salutogenesis theory and a critical gender perspective, a qualitative analysis was conducted using the constant comparative method. From the women's experiences, a major finding was the construction of a community of active women, which served as a collective resource to support them in the process of health development. Relating to the emerging community, another three themes were developed. The first was dancing and challenging the gender order, referring to women's experiences of negotiating a collective identity and disrupting the invisibility of their bodies. The second was the HPE professional's dialogical pedagogies as emancipatory, revealing the ways in which the community was supported. The third was the empathetic relationships among the women as a way of coping, representing the women's positive experiences of social support, connectedness and resilience. The findings supported the conclusion that there are promising possibilities for research and practice in socially vulnerable contexts to widen the contributions to health promotion that are not limited to exercise prescription. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the local market held in São José de Mipibu, peasant women are the principal protagonists, finding in it a strategy to meet their subsistence needs. Through their participation in agroecology and local markets, they achieve material, sociocultural and subjective improvements related to the provision of food and care for their families. However, the power relations underlying the sexual division of labor, which makes women responsible for household and care work remain, as women's workloads increase with their involvement in the local market. For this reason, this case study demonstrates that gender equality is not automatically attained by implementing agroecological practices on farms or by participating in local markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex education has been included in the National Curriculum of the Brazilian Ministry of Education since 1996 as a cross-cutting theme that should be linked to the contents of each school subject in primary and high schools. This paper presents a study of the implementation of this policy in the primary schools of Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, based on interviews between January 2011 and April 2012 with 82 teachers working in those schools. We found that sex education was not being taught as a cross-cutting theme in any of the schools, and that any lessons were mostly dominated by a biomedical discourse focusing primarily on the reproductive organs, fertility, pregnancy, and contraception. Sexual health and relationships and non-heterosexual sex and relationships were being neglected. Sex education was also considered a possible means of correcting or controlling sexual identities and behaviours deemed abnormal or immoral. We recommend far more discussion of how to implement the National Curriculum recommendations. We call for education courses to provide theoretical and methodological training on sex education for teachers, and recommend that the boards of educational institutions take up sex education as a priority subject. Lastly, we suggest that each school studies local sexuality-related problems and based on the findings, each teacher presents a pedagogical proposal of how to integrate sex education into the subjects they teach. L'éducation sexuelle est au programme d'études national du Ministère brésilien de l'éducation depuis 1996 comme discipline transversale devant être liée aux contenus de chaque matière scolaire dans l'enseignement primaire et secondaire. L'article présente une étude sur la mise en łuvre de cette politique dans les écoles primaires de Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brésil, sur la base d'entretiens menés entre janvier 2011 et avril 2012 avec 82 enseignants de ces écoles. Nous avons constaté qu'aucune des écoles n'enseignait l'éducation sexuelle comme discipline transversale et que les cours étaient le plus souvent dominés par un discours biomédical se centrant principalement sur les organes reproducteurs, la fécondité, la grossesse et la contraception. Ils négligeaient la santé et les relations sexuelles, de même que les rapports non hétérosexuels. L'éducation sexuelle était aussi considérée comme un moyen possible de corriger ou de contrôler les identités et les comportements sexuels jugés anormaux ou immoraux. Nous recommandons d'intensifier les discussions sur la manière d'appliquer les recommandations relatives au curriculum national. Nous demandons que les cours dispensent aux enseignants une formation théorique et méthodologique sur l'éducation sexuelle et préconisons que les conseils d'administration des institutions éducatives considèrent l'éducation sexuelle comme une discipline prioritaire. Enfin, nous suggérons que chaque école étudie les problèmes locaux relatifs à la sexualité et, sur la base des conclusions, que chaque enseignant présente un projet pédagogique sur la manière d'intégrer l'éducation sexuelle dans la matière qu'il enseigne. En 1996, la educación sexual fue incluida en el Currículo Nacional del Ministerio de Educación de Brasil como un tema transversal que debería vincularse con el contenido de cada materia de enseñanza primaria y secundaria. En este artículo se presenta un estudio de la aplicación de esta política en las escuelas primarias de Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul, en Brasil, basado en entrevistas realizadas entre enero de 2011 y abril de 2012 con 82 maestros que trabajaban en esas escuelas. Encontramos que en ninguna de las escuelas se estaba enseñando la educación sexual como un tema transversal y que, si había lecciones, éstas eran dominadas en su mayoría por un discurso biomédico centrado principalmente en los órganos reproductivos, fertilidad, embarazo y anticoncepción. Se hizo caso omiso de la salud y relaciones sexuales y del sexo y las relaciones no heterosexuales. Además, la educación sexual era considerada como un posible medio de corregir o controlar identidades sexuales y comportamientos considerados anormales o inmorales. Recomendamos discutir más a fondo cómo poner en práctica las recomendaciones del Currículo Nacional. Hacemos un llamado a que en los cursos educativos se ofrezca a los profesores formación teórica y metodológica sobre la educación sexual y recomendamos que los consejos de las instituciones educativas den prioridad a la educación sexual. Por último, sugerimos que cada escuela estudie los problemas locales relacionados con la sexualidad y, según los hallazgos, que cada maestro presente una propuesta pedagógica sobre cómo integrar la educación sexual en las materias enseñadas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses equity in health and health care in Brazil, examining unjust disparities between women and men, and between women from different social strata, with a focus on services for contraception, abortion and pregnancy. In 2010 women's life expectancy was 7Z6 years, men's was 69.7 years. Women are two-thirds of public hospital services users and assess their health status less positively than men. The total fertility rate was 1.8 in 2011, and contraceptive prevalence has been high among women at all income levels. The proportion of sterilizations has decreased; lower-income women are more frequently sterilized. Abortions are mostly illegal; women with more money have better access to safe abortions in private clinics. Poorer women generally self-induce abortion with misoprostol, seeking treatment of complications from public clinics. Institutional violence on the part of health professionals is reported by half of women receiving abortion care and a quarter of women during childbirth. Maternity care is virtually universal. The public sector has fewer caesarean sections, fewer low birthweight babies, and more rooming-in, but excessive episiotomies and inductions. Privacy, continuity of care and companionship during birth are more common in the private sector. To achieve equity, the health system must go beyond universal, unregulated access to technology, and move towards safe, effective and transparent care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main theoretical and empirical interest of this article is the wide set of destitute class positions that characterise the social structure specificity in Brazil. First, a socioeconomic classification for Brazil, based on a neo-Marxist concept of social class, is introduced and defended against an alternative approach. At the same time a brief conceptual and observational characterisation of all 16 class positions from this classification is provided, with a comprehensive specification of the relevant destitute class positions. Then, a comparison is made between this neo-Marxist typology and the neo-Weberian class scheme applied to Brazil. Economic inequality and its recent trends in Brazil are characterised through data regarding the absolute and relative changes in the earnings distribution between the class positions from 1992 to 2008. The distribution of class positions within each geographical region is presented, highlighting the intersection of class with gender and race. Social indicators are presented that describe the implications of the work activity performed with insufficient or without assets, as well as the consequences of job exclusion. Statistical models are finally applied to measure the independent effects, controlling for some co-variables, of the class positions on the family earnings and on the relative health status of the individuals. As a conclusion, a synthetic characterisation of the three groupings of destitute positions is offered that presents the specificity of the Brazilian class structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We address the limited understanding around the overlap between violence and HIV in Brazil. Data was from two clinic-based samples of HIV-positive (n = 1534) and HIV-negative women (n = 1589) in São Paulo and Porto Alegre. We conducted latent class analysis and identified violence typologies by type of violence, life course timing, frequency, and perpetrator, stratified by city and HIV-status. Overall, HIV-positive women experienced more lifetime physical and sexual violence than HIV-negative women. Twelve unique violence latent classes were identified. In São Paulo, HIV-positive women were likely to have endured physical violence several times (Conditional Probability [CP]: 0.80) by an intimate partner (CP: 0.85), and sexual violence several times (CP: 0.46) by an intimate partner (CP: 0.62). In Porto Alegre, HIV-positive women endured physical violence several times (CP: 0.80) by an intimate partner (CP: 0.70) during childhood/adolescence (CP: 0.48), and sexual violence several times (CP: 0.54) by an intimate partner (CP: 0.60). Findings inform interventions to educate around gender equity, violence, and the health effects of violence including HIV, integrate HIV and violence services, and improve the provision of bio-medical HIV prevention among HIV-negative women who experience violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 31 August 2016, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was impeached and replaced by her vice president Michel Temer. Herein, we examine how the conservative agenda of Mr Temer and his supporters is influencing key decisions in the human rights and public health arena in Brazil. The government’s austerity agenda includes severe cuts in critical areas such as health, education and science, jeopardising well-known strategies such as the Brazilian Public Health System (SUS) and nationwide cash transfer program, ‘Bolsa Familia’ - both benefited millions and were the largest of their kind in the world. Mr Temer’s decisions show not only severe cuts in critical areas but also a political agenda that clearly demonstrates a broad shift away from the progressivism and social agenda presented and supported by its predecessors. Most vulnerable groups such as the LGBTQ community, women, people who use drugs and disenfranchised communities have been severely affected. Mr Temer’s administration is putting Brazil far from its once nationwide goal to foster free and universal health care access and social equity for all its citizens. The near future for Brazil is unknown, but both national and international communities anticipate severe problems within the national human rights arena, if nothing changes. Abbreviations: CCT: Conditional Cash Transfer; LGBTQ: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (and/or Questioning); SUS: Brazilian Public Health System [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the implications of a blended agroecology and gender education withinBrazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement(MST). The discussion is first situated within MST’s struggle for land and for peasant families’ livelihoods, generally, and under neoliberalism, specifically. Central to the struggle against neoliberalism have been critical educational models that evolved towards agroecology and a gender-equality-oriented pedagogy. Women have played important roles in the movement’s growth, particularly the development of the education sector. Using data from a literature review, observations, and interviews, the article argues that MST’s education, focused on agroecology and accompanied by gender-oriented pedagogy, empowers women and men to disrupt the traditional sexual division of labour in rural communities, and within land struggles, more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Hispanic Research Journal is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the trajectory and consolidation process of the Black Women's Movement (BWM) in the Brazilian public sphere since the 1980s. Our objective is to understand the processes that underlie the constitution of this social movement, as well as its points of convergence and divergence with the black and feminist movements. Furthermore, this study discusses the movement's process of institutionalization/bureaucratization, its articulation with the Brazilian state and the relationship between gender and race in its internal structure and external claims. The study is based on two research projects conducted between 2005 and 2011. The first, carried out between 2005 and 2007, deals specifically with the consolidation of the BWM, while the second, a four-year study completed in 2011, focuses on the relationship between the black movement and the adoption of race-based public policies in Brazil and Colombia. Data for this research were collected from the BWM's internal documents (a compilation of pamphlets, newsletters and proposals), government documents and informal conversations and semi-structured interviews with 12 black women activists from different regions of the country. Throughout the work, we consider the BWM's internal processes of creating an autonomous movement as well as its external processes of bureaucratization and interconnection with the state. Focusing on these parallel processes allows us to better understand the movement's internal conflicts, its articulations with other social movements, its challenges and methods of navigating political/institutional spaces and the ways in which the emergence of black women as political actors has impacted Brazil's public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Global environmental concerns have provided greater visibility to Amazonian traditional communities that have adopted new political identities to struggle for their livelihoods and territories. Through a case study of the quebradeiras de coco babacu, babassu breaker women, this article offers a critical analysis of the challenges and opportunities involved in these processes. Through analyzing empirical evidence of their strategies of political representation, economic initiatives, a combination of productive and conservation concerns, and forms of accessing land and forest resources, this study addresses the risks of reproduction of relations of domination within their organizations, imposition of agendas by their allies and donors, and dilution of political capital due to the multiplication of social organizations. By confronting these risks, quebradeiras' organizations have managed to maintain a dynamic process of social learning. Embracing their internal diversity and sustaining a continuous dialogue between external actors and communities, they have been able to manage the tensions which emerged in their socio-political struggle. Quebradeiras have continuously reinvented their traditions, to strengthen new political identities and to bring concrete changes in the cultural geographies of their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of the 'nutrition transition' is widely used to explain the recent, rapid rise in overweight and obesity, and the co-existence of under- and over-nutrition, in low-income populations in 'middle-income' developing countries. This article provides an overview of the changes occurring in diets, physical activity, and nutritional status among children and adults in nutrition transition settings, explores the impact of these changes by gender, and discusses the long-term individual and social repercussions of such changes. It concludes by framing important questions for development practice and policy in nutrition transition settings through a gendered lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I look at women's interpretations of one of the most popular forms of entertainment across Latin America, namely telenovelas (soap operas). In particular, I look at how they are incorporated into the everyday lives of the poorest women in Brazil. I find that not only are they a central form of sociability for many women living in conditions of poverty; but also that women employ them as a means of challenging negative valuations around their bodies. In this context the female virginity taboo frames many women's views and experiences of sexuality. I argue that it conflates female sexuality with dominant notions of ownership and control of the vagina. This causes many women to experience their vaginas as shameful. It also leaves them vulnerable to harmful social sanctions. Yet, escape from this leads many women to experience their bodies in more painful and damaging ways. However, by investing in a cult of suffering that is prevalent both in their own lives and in the glamorous and wealthy world depicted in the soap operas, women find pleasure not only in suffering, but, crucially, in their negated body parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has challenged the predominant view of the sexual tourism as a social universe that can be cleanly divided into “victims” and “victimizers.” Brazilian public policies, however, continue to be based on this binarized stereotype and have often attempted to repress prostitution, which is legal in Brazil, in the guise of protecting prostitutes, resulting in violations of sex workers' human and constitutional rights. Faced with this situation, the authors have allied themselves with the Brazilian Prostitutes' Network, presenting their research to the group as a means of helping it fight for more rational and just policies with respect to sex workers and their clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide an analysis of culturally-specific strength characteristics associated with families in Brazil. The focus is on familism and familial interdependence, the role of the extended family, cooperative and prosocial tendencies, a collective orientation, and the closing gender gap. The article is divided into four sections. First, we provide some background information on the demographics and history of Brazil. Second, the family strength characteristics are discussed. Third, case studies are briefly presented to illustrate the protective role of the characteristics. And fourth, we discuss the implications of the strengths-based approach to studying families for theories, research, and program development. doi:10.1300/J002v41n03_06 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines childbirth in a public hospital in Salvador, Brazil, as a multidimensional, embodied process and as a rite of passage. The birth narratives of young, poor, black mothers are seen through ethnography of the obstetric centre, run by white, middle-class obstetricians. The article follows the biosocial process of birth, tracing the development and mutation of loneliness, fear, and pain into motherlove. This subjective journey is generated within the social interactions constituting the physiological birth events. Primiparous women are shown to construct the birth as a rite of passage into legitimate motherhood, in the face of a hegemonic symbolic frame that stigmatizes youthful motherhood and delegitimizes reproduction amongst young, black, low-income women. Hospital childbirth's most powerful social effect is the constitution and consecration of a race/class divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adds to the theoretical base of knowledge about global public relations by describing the prevalence of the different social roles of Brazilian public relations professionals. Four social role constructs were validated: (1) Ethics and Social Responsibility, (2) Employee Well-Being, (3) Community Well-Being, and (4) Government Harmony. Gender and hierarchy differences were observed. Women were more likely than men to perform the Employee Well-Being role and less likely to perform the other 3 roles. In addition, being in the highest position in the hierarchy is associated with performing the Ethics and Social Responsibility role and the Community Well-Being role. However, differences between male and female role performance disappear when women occupy the higher positions in the organization: women at the top of the organization perform these roles with the same regularity as men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]