Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in BrazilWhen lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside "favela". Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, Nancy Scheper-Hughes follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage. It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing - and controversial - is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live. |
Contents
1 | |
O Nordeste Sweetness and Death | 31 |
Bom Jesus One Hundred Years Without Water | 65 |
Reciprocity and Dependency The Double Ethic of Bom Jesus | 98 |
Delirio de Fome The Madness of Hunger | 128 |
Nervoso Medicine Sickness and Human Needs | 167 |
Everyday Violence Bodies Death and Silence | 216 |
Our Lady of Sorrows A Political Economy of the Emotions | 399 |
A Knack for Life The Everyday Tactics of Survival | 443 |
Carnaval The Dance Against Death | 477 |
De Profundis Out of the Depths | 502 |
Acknowledgments and Then Some | 531 |
Notes | 538 |
Glossary | 554 |
Bibliography | 564 |
Other editions - View all
Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil Nancy Scheper-Hughes Limited preview - 1992 |
Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil Nancy Scheper-Hughes Limited preview - 2023 |
Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil Nancy Scheper-Hughes,Mary C. Brinton No preview available - 1992 |
Common terms and phrases
adult Alto do Cruzeiro Alto mothers Alto women Antonieta Antônio asked baby birth bloco body boss Brazil Brazilian cane Capibaribe River carnaval casa child death child mortality child sickness clinic coffin creche cultural daughter dead diarrhea doctors Dona Edilson engenho Fátima Freyre girl hospital household human hunger hungry husband infant Irene Jesus da Mata João liberation theology living Maria maternal maternal bonding Mercea milk mingau moradores municipal município Nailza Nancí nervos never newborn Nordestino Northeast older Padre patron Paulo peasants percent Pernambuco person plantation political poor powdered milk Recife Rio de Janeiro Roberto da Matta rural workers São Paulo saudades Severino shantytown social street suffering sugar sugarcane survival Terezinha tion town traditional UPAC usina Valdimar woman Xoxa young Zezinho zona da mata