The strength of absence. The lack of men and “State” in the lives of women living in favelas

Abstract

Based on the fieldwork carried out in a complex of favelas in Rio de Janeiro, I analyze the precarious conditions produced by active male absences, whether exercised by state administrations or by male absences in the lives of poor mothers and women. Based on the anthropological discussions about gender and State, these absences are analyzed as a set of systematic and daily forces. These forces are revealed in different ways: be it for not receiving “any help from the child’s father”, for not obtaining “a place in the daycare center”, for “having to manage” to take care of the children alone and for having to deal with a State policy of invasions, shootings and extermination exercised in the favelas territories. The active absence of the State also materializes in the action of the houses that “take in” children and in public daycare centers, spaces aimed at serving poor families. To reflect on this multiple fields of “absences”, they are associated with dynamics of “violence”, which affect female behaviors identified as “nervous”, “aggressive” or “negligent”.