A graça da desgraça: socialidades e processos de engajamento no universo LGBT em duas experiências etnográficas no sul global (Rio de Janeiro e cidade de Maputo)

Abstract

The present work has as its starting point an ethnographic analysis of playful and jocular socialities in the universe of “manas trans” in Maputo, an analysis that also explores the process of identities building, corporeality and the meanings of friendship among these people. It is based on two field experiments in Rio de Janeiro and Maputo. However, the descriptions and analyses of Maputo and Rio de Janeiro do not have the same weight and relevance, but the data generated allowed me to analyze the “state of the art” of the constitution of LGBT rights and their engagement in the two distinct socio-cultural contexts. This study aims to address the scarcity of information about the phenomenon and about people with gender expressions outsidethe cissexuality in Mozambique. But it also seeks to contribute to the expanding field of the relationship between jocularity, friendship and sociality and to ethnographic literature on narratives of jocularity in the social sciences and in the sphere of “trans studies” in particular. The research is ethnographic and was based on the traditional methods and techniques of anthropology: observation-participant and informal conversations with LGBT subjects. I suggest that the theme of jocularity can be a very promising way to think, from a comparative perspective, of the “state of the art” of the constitution of LGBT rights and the engagement of subjects in the two sociocultural contexts chosen here as research fields.