Why We Love It Here: Exploration of Affection and Attachment in a Brazilian Urban Periphery

Аннотация

This research interprets the marginalized neighborhood of Serrinha as a place in the city of Florianópolis, Brazil, by examining the relations between the physical neighborhood and internal social networks. I use concepts from the anthropology of materiality and an interdisciplinary understanding of place attachment to examine how the social and physical dimensions of place coalesce within Serrinha. I employ data from eight weeks of ethnographic research and Scannell and Gifford‘s tripartite model of place attachment to frame the everyday experiences and affects of Serrinha residents, especially to illustrate Serrinha outside of the typical stereotypes of favelas. In doing so, the study analyzes the symbolic significance of brick as the material of choice for Serrinha‘s self-built houses and asserts that the brick is a metaphor for local and global relationships. Ultimately, this research argues that autoconstruction of the house with brick constitutes a significant social and emotional process of attachment in Serrinha.