“Mães de Bragança” e feitiços: enredos luso-brasileiros em torno da sexualidade

Abstract

This article propounds a discussion on values and social representations that veil sexuality, considering that the most effective way of laying sexuality bare is to show how it dresses itself. Those outfits are rhetorical tools that must be perceived as facts originating from an ideological conception. As a result, one has to interpret them in order to reach the reality that they hide. The propounded methodological strategy is directed toward a case study that approaches the social unrest created by the presence of Brazilian young girls in a city in northern Portugal (Bragança) revealing a strong trace of traditionalism. Due to their social status of prostitutes, charmers and immigrants they were seen as contributing agents to the breaking of the law. Some women, then, organized themselves into a social movement, self-denominated Mothers of Bragança, in order to expel the girls from the city accusing them of bewitching their husbands by means of enchantment and magic.