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Sexuality, culture and politics: the journey of male homosexual identity in Brazilian anthropology

Our aim is to inquire into the ways in which a presumed Brazilian "managing" of sexual categories or identities (mainly related to male homosexuality) has been conceived in anthropology since the end of the 1970, sometimes becoming an axis for building and maintaining a national identity characterized as exotic, backward and not pertaining to "the West". We also parallel two moments in the reflection about the links between sexuality, culture and politics, briefly reviewing some of early theoretical and empirical contributions that prefigure central concerns and conceptualizations in present sexuality studies which are related to instability and fluidity of sexual identities, as well as to the entanglement of sexuality with dynamic and contextual power relationships and social hierarchies.

Homosexuality; Brazilian Anthropology; Sexual Identities; National Identity


Núcleo de Estudos de Gênero - Pagu Universidade Estadual de Campinas, PAGU Cidade Universitária "Zeferino Vaz", Rua Cora Coralina, 100, 13083-896, Campinas - São Paulo - Brasil, Tel.: (55 19) 3521 7873, (55 19) 3521 1704 - Campinas - SP - Brazil
E-mail: cadpagu@unicamp.br