SPECIAL PRESENTATION
Youths in contemporary times: mental imageries in conversation
Jumping to the sea and giving a new meaning to the past were the factors that led us to participate in the public notice published by CNPq (Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) in 2006, with the aim of promoting the proximity with countries that are members of CPLP - Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries.
The theme that was selected to promote the proximity with a group of fellow researchers from Universidade de Lisboa, in Portugal, and Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, in Mozambique, is undoubtedly important nowadays: Youths in contemporary times: mental imageries in conversation.
A social time in which the flows between countries, regions, continents, and certainly, mental imageries, have intensified in many distinct planes - economy, work, tourism, sports, migrations, students' mobility and many others - makes us think that these experiences express different forms of belonging and the construction of new identities. However, at the same time, and ritualistically, we preserve colonial "residues" and focus on the need to think about post-colonialism. Another aspect that continues to be real (and do we want it not to be?) is the denial of our way of reading, communicating and dreaming of a singular identity in each space, which maintains the inter-continent triangulation, marking our communication and narration in the Portuguese language. There resides our overseas permanence, maintaining our identity, which has demanded, over time, that we face tensions and complementarities, strangements and proximities, which are rhythmical in our daily life and reiterate many cultural traces and tastes among us. But don't be deceived, dear reader, as boldness and "delay" are also present in this cultural and social mixture that is the Portugal, Mozambique and Brazil triangulation, whose social and economic inequalities continue to be in evidence.
We present here some papers related to the International Seminar Youths in contemporary times: mental imageries in conversation, held in São Paulo on September 10th-11th, 2007.
The thematic axis was also an exploratory axis of this proximity mission in which we launched ourselves in an adventure of crossing seas and meeting the natives on land. In this way, we contacted Grupo Imigração em Saúde (Health Immigration Group) in Lisbon, connected both with a theoretical production and with the defense of the rights of transit and migration from overseas to Europe. Thus, there are papers that talk from the place of the migrants in this condition of transit between Africa and European Union - medicalization, psychiatrization and the body are the themes of the authors Chiara Pussetti and Cristina Santinho. Twirling with the youths, still in Lisbon, we met José Machado Pais and his extensive production on this theme, who accepted to participate in the project, enabling its anchorage.
When we arrived at Mozambique and searched for local researchers who study these themes, we had the intermediation of the anthropologist Paulo Granjo who, in love with that country, narrated to us his own local "conversion" to the health and disease rituals of the traditional "sorcerers" and, at the same time, was excited about his trips across the city of Maputo and its interiors. Granjo introduced to us a generation of young professors from Universidade Eduardo Mondlane who work with the theme of youths.
With this special editorial, we present a series of papers published in successive issues of Saúde e Sociedade. Specifically in the present issue, we have the paper by José Machado Pais, which highlights the traditional and contemporary dimensions of the youths' rites of initiation, a theoretical reflection that is very important to an area such as public health, which thinks of "cycles" or age intervals based on biological markers. The paper is an invitation to think about social markers and their relationship to the course of life. Adriano Bizza, a young Mozambican anthropologist, introduces the theme of youth associations, which reveals a possible entrance door into the Mozambican society and its social networks - that of association. He shows the weight of the civil and political society which, in recent times, has known moments of conflict and war and which also organizes itself based on associations, mainly of youths around what has been lived.
In the following issues we will have the papers Biopolicies of depression in African immigrants, by Chiara Pussetti, and Reconstructing memories: young refugees in Portugal, by Maria Cristina Santinho, besides the texts by Paulo Granjo, Health and disease in Mozambique, and by the editors, concerning some images of youths from the periphery of the city of São Paulo.
Starting from the common theme of reflection on youths and mental imageries, the authors, each one in his/her own way and based on their experiences, report their research interests and forms of approaching the questions lived in each country, either as native or as foreigner, about the "other", providing a repertoire of themes that gives a special color and which will certainly stimulate the curiosity of the readers of the journal Saúde e Sociedade.
We hope you have a good reading.
Maria da Penha Vasconcellos
Rubens de Camargo Ferreira Adorno
Professors of LIESP - Laboratory for Social Studies and Research in Public Health/FSP/USP
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
05 Oct 2009 -
Date of issue
Sept 2009
