Minoritarian Liberalism: A Travesti Life in a Brazilian Favela

by Moises Lino e Silva

A mesmerizing ethnography of the largest favela in Rio, where residents articulate their own politics of freedom against the backdrop of multiple forms of oppression.

Normative liberalism has promoted the freedom of privileged subjects, those entitled to rights—usually white, adult, heteronormative, and bourgeois—at the expense of marginalized groups, such as Black people, children, LGBTQ folks, and slum dwellers. In this visceral ethnography of Rocinha, the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Moisés Lino e Silva explores what happens when liberalism is inflected by people whose lives are impaired by normative understandings of liberty. He calls these marginalized visions of freedom “minoritarian liberalism,” a concept that stands in for overlapping, alternative modes of freedom—be they queer, favela, or peasant.

Lino e Silva introduces readers to a broad collective of favela residents, most intimately accompanying Natasha Kellem, a charismatic self-declared travesti (a term used in Latin America to indicate a specific form of female gender construction opposite to the sex assigned at birth). Many of those the author meets consider themselves “queer,” while some are treated as “abnormal” simply because they live in favelas. Through these interconnected experiences, Lino e Silva not only pushes at the boundaries of anthropological inquiry, but also offers ethnographic evidence of non-normative routes to freedom for those seeking liberties against the backdrop of capitalist exploitation, transphobia, racism, and other patterns of domination.

Genres: Anthropology

255 pages, Paperback

First published March 23, 2022

About the author

Moises Lino e Silva works within the field of political anthropology in Brazil and Nigeria, specializing in the ethnographic study of freedom and authority in relation to pressing topics such as poverty, sexuality, race, and religion. He is the author of "Minoritarian Liberalism: a Travesti Life in a Brazilian Favela." The University of Chicago Press, 2022. Dr Lino e Silva has been selected a World Social Science Fellow by the International Social Science Council (UNESCO).

Reviews

[Olivia Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

in terms of ethnographic monographs, this wasn't the worst, but it definitely wasn't the best. the narrator had an interesting voice that made his insight extremely annoying but overall made the book very easy to read. there was a certain air of pretentiousness that was hard to get around, especially with how hard he tried to be NOT pretentious. definitely an interesting look at favela life that i've never really thought about, though. i would probably read more of his stuff if it was on something other than minoritarian liberalism - the peasant liberalism stuff was pretty interesting, and it was frustrating how he glossed over the brazilian police project in the epilogue when it was sort of the most interesting thing to happen politically in the whole book, and he was surprisingly involved in it? i'd totally read a narrative on that, or an ethnography on the people he knew who were involved (since apparently we're writing ethnographies on our friends and that's ok).

[elle · Rating 5 out of 5]

freedom is so crazy and interesting and the neoliberal idea of liberation implies the notion of a binary of oppression. when you refuse the binary, true liberation ensues