Marriage, Divorce, and Distress in Northeast Brazil

Black Women's Perspectives on Love, Respect, and Kinship

By Melanie A. Medeiros

Rutgers University Press

Using an intersectional approach, Marriage, Divorce, and Distress in Northeast Brazil explores rural, working-class, black Brazilian women’s perceptions and experiences of courtship, marriage and divorce. In this book, women’s narratives of marriage dissolution demonstrate the ways in which changing gender roles and marriage expectations associated with modernization and globalization influence the intimate lives and the health and well being of women in Northeast Brazil. Melanie A. Medeiros explores the women’s rich stories of desire, love, respect, suffering, strength, and transformation.

From the opening vignette, this vibrant, conceptually sophisticated, and yet accessible ethnography draws us into the contested terrain of intimate relations and divorce in Northeast Brazil. Medeiros skillfully depicts the voices and experiences of rural, working-class women of African descent, helping us see how their lives are shaped both by their own strivings and by forces as diverse as telenovelas and ecotourism. Her work represents a valuable contribution to the emerging anthropology of divorce as well as to work on emotion, gender, race, class, companionate marriage, social suffering, and even the anthropology of tourism. Jennifer S. Hirsch, coauthor of The Secret: Love, Marriage and HIV

This innovative study illuminates Afro-Brazilian women’s experiences in the realms of intimacy, marriage, and divorce. An important contribution! Kia Lilly Caldwell, author of Health Equity in Brazil: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Policy

Chronicle of Higher Education 'New Scholarly Books' Weekly Book List, August 31, 2018,' compiled by Nina C. Ayoub Chronicle of Higher Education

New Books Network - News Books in Latin American Studies podcast interview with Melanie A. Medeiros
https://newbooksnetwork.com/melanie-a-madeiros-marriage-divorce-and-distress-in-northeast-brazil-black-womens-perspectives-on-love-respect-and-kinship-rutgers-up-2018/ New Books Network

MELANIE A. MEDEIROS is an assistant professor in the department of anthropology at The State University of New York College at Geneseo.

Contents
1   Brogodó, Bahia, Brazil
2   Gender, Employment and Divorce
3   Telenovela Reception and the Rise of Modern Love and Companionate Marriage
4   Respect, Infidelity and Divorce
5   Marital Distress and Social Suffering
6   Matrifocal Kinship and Amor Verdadeiro
7   Conclusion
References

Index

Acknowledgments

About the Author

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