NILAS research seminar - Örjan Bartholdson, senior lecturer at SLU
Seminar
Date: Friday 24 May 2024
Time: 14.00 – 15.30
Location: Library of the Nordic Institute of Latin American Studies (House B, Floor 5)
From individual victims to collective rebels: The role of embodied experience and memory for the emergence of the Afro-Brazilian movement
By drawing on two distinct case studies, the first concerning young men in Sweden whose life project is focused on building as large body mass as possible and the second the lived and embodied experiences and memories of racial and class discrimination among young Afro-Brazilian men, I attempt to contribute to a Marxist inspired discussion on ideology. The paper takes it point of departure in Marxist inspired theories of ideology, in Bourdieu’s theories of symbolic domination and violence, and in phenomenology. I argue that the gym constitutes a specific social field to where the bodybuilders can withdraw from the demands of economic and social mobility and ontological insecurity in the external society, while, at the same time, their life-project is informed by the very same ideology of this society, labelled infravalues. I further argue that the bodybuilders’ withdrawal into the gym, and their project and embodied practices lack the potential of a critical stance towards their economic and social inferior position in the society. This case study is juxtaposed with a research project that explores how lived and embodied experiences and memories of racial and class discrimination among Afro-Brazilians in Salvador form an underlying pattern of tacit collective understanding, which can be transformed into a discourse of Afro-Brazilian victimage and resistance to their inferior position in the Brazilian society.
Scholar
Örjan Bartholdson, senior lecturer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). He wrote his PhD on the Afro-Brazilian movement in Salvador, Bahia, and researched on smallholders in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon.
The research seminar on Latin American studies is open to scholars interested in Latin American issues. It welcomes the presentation of papers from researchers and PhD students from different social science disciplines.
The seminar takes place on Fridays 14:00 – 15:30 every second week (odd numbers) at the Library of the Institute of Latin American Studies (House B, Floor 5).
For further information on the research seminar please contact: researchseminars.nilas@su.se.
Organizer of the seminars: Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano
Last updated: May 14, 2024
Source: Nordic Institute of Latin American Studies