FOLLOW THE “FLOW”! EMOTIONS FROM AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF CRACK USE IN DOWNTOWN RIO DE JANEIRO

Abstract

The research discusses the social consequences of problematic crack consumption by residents and regulars of an occupation in downtown Rio de Janeiro, especially those stigmatized as "nóia" or "crackheads", in other words, individuals who have built their own sense of life around crack consumption. To do this, I try to understand the social context in which they live, their habits, demands and emotions. Thus, through an ethnography of the Colombo occupation, I think about the social representations surrounding the problematic use of crack, analyzing the extent to which these representations are internalized or not by the users and residents of the researched scene. I also try to examine the emotional grammars related to problematic crack use, based on the accounts and life stories of the users and residents of the scene researched. Here, shame emerges as a central affect, traversing the life trajectories of my interlocutors, giving meaning and contributing to the construction of an identity based on an image that has the other's perception of you as a reference. Finally, I would like to propose that shame can be understood as the way in which the occupation's residents and visitors end up internalizing the "culture of avoidance". Shame arises as an expression of a certain resentment at the way they are seen and treated by "others" and is reflected in their own "construction of self."