ABSTRACT
Nobres e Anjos: um estudo de tóxicos e hierarquia (Nobles and Angels: a study of toxicology and hierarchy) was the doctoral thesis of Gilberto Velho (1945-2012), defended in 1975 at the University of São Paulo, but published only in 1998. This article invites a double movement by returning to a book that, for forty-five years, has remained an inspiration for countless anthropologists: first, we remember and situate the experiences of youths who found their ways of being in the city associated with the subjective satisfactions generated by the use of drugs during an authoritarian regime. Second, we reflect on how this plural field of urban anthropology has been constituted in practice and in theory, considering the work of Velho as a central reference for the affirmation of a specific and original way of studying cities in Brazilian social theories - what we will here call an anthropology of urban sensibilities.
KEY WORDS:
Gilberto Velho; Urban anthropology; Youths; Drugs; Emotions