ABSTRACT
It was a hot and humid summer afternoon in Salvador. We could barely breathe in the crowded bus heading away from the heart of the city, where my friend Janaina studied at the Catholic University and worked as a tour guide. She had invited me to meet her family, who lived in a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of town, in the urban area of Suburbio, where I would conduct most of my doctoral field research. 1 When we arrived, a group of morenas and negras (black) 2 women were sitting in front of her house, listening to music, talking and drinking beer as they kept an eye on their children and tried to prevent them from annoying their fathers. The men were playing dominos in front of a small street-side bar, drinking cachaça, liquor extracted from sugarcane.
