“O amor é?” Negritude e relações não-monogâmicas: as dimensões micropolíticas do afeto

Abstract

The main goal of this work is to explore the debate about emotions, more specifically about love, and to investigate how this feeling is thought and articulated by non-monogamous black people in their monoracial affective relationships. To this end, qualitative research was done within the Facebook group Afrodengo – Amores Livres, the largest non-monogamous black group in Brazil. Some techniques were used in this work, such as participant observation in this Facebook group and semi-structured interviews with the founders of the group. This way, I explore the tensions, negotiations and strategies mobilized by my interlocutors to deal with the problems arising from non-monogamous romantic relationships in an attempt to develop a love ethic. I also propose to understand the notions of blackness and discuss how they reflect the way in which the subjects of this research think about love, and the social and political relationships around this feeling. In connection with the area of anthropology and sociology of emotions, I start from the principle that love is not an essential characteristic, that is, a pre-cultural one. In reality, it not only constitutes and orders social relations, but is also a meaning of these relations. I argue that love grammar, therefore, situates the self in relation to others, both culturally located.