QUEER BODIES, SEXUAL HEALTH AND THE MICRO-BIOPOLITICS OF RESISTANCE IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON

ABSTRACT

This article aims at analyzing the metapragmatic disputes over healthcare between the official State biopolitics and the actual healthcare practices of queer bodies in the current Brazilian Amazon. By examining official discourses, such as the ones found in the National LGBT Whole Health Plan [Plano Nacional de Saúde Integral LGBT] (BRASIL, 2013), as well as the effective operationalization of Health Promotion principles (AYRES; PAIVA; FRANCE JÚNIOR, 2012), the research detects the functioning of a policy of silencing and precarious demands of sexual health LGBTI + in the local context, which is confronted by microbiopolitical strategies of resistance. In order to meet this objective, an ethnographic study was conducted (PEIRANO, 2008; 2014) between 2016 and 2019 with LGBTI+ youth, in the context of parties, smaller reunion staking place right after a major party (so called ‘afterparties’ in Portuguese) and daily interactions in student shared homes in the Brazilian Amazon, in the interior of the country. Based on theories about biopolitics and performativity (FOUCAULT, 1999; BUTLER, 2004), the analytical focus is centered on narrative performances (MOITA LOPES, 2006) staged by LGBTI + subjects, such as which mobilize metapragmatic disputes (SILVERSTEIN, 1998) around the official state discourse, criticizing the place it relegates to the promotion of sexual health care for the LGBTI + population. It concludes that the practices of resistance in the context of precarious sexual health among LGBTI+ individuals who were identified in the situated social experiences analyzed in this article question the official biopolitics and the maintenance of the LGBT-phobic current regime.

Keywords:
health vulnerability; LGBTI+; performativity; metapragmatics; biopolitics; Brazilian Amazon