Social hierarchization and elevators in Contemporary Brazilian Literature
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Sophia Beal [1]
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[1] University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
City of Minneapolis, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana, ISSN 0145-8973, Vol. 52, Nº. 1, 2023, págs. 51-72
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Elevators are, at the same time, a material object, a symbol, a fantastical representation in art, and an expression of global flows of knowledge and materials. Fiction writers are particularly attuned to elevators' role as a system of conveyance in both senses of the term: a means of transportation and a way of transmitting meaning. [...]literature is uniquely adept at getting inside people's heads, denaturalizing social relationships that are often taken for granted, and making readers see elevators and elevator encounters afresh. According to the 2019 data of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, 92% of domestic workers in Brazil are women, and, of those women, two thirds identify as black (Osava par. 18). Data from 2018 shows that the average income of white Brazilian workers, in the formal and informal sectors, was 74% higher than that of black and brown Brazilians (Cucolo par. 1). [...]the continued creation of service entrances, hallways, stairs, and elevators in apartment buildings in Brazil today perpetuates a racialized social organization of space, just as the quarto de empregada and sometimes a service door next to the front door have functioned in apartments themselves (Carranza par. 38; Holston, The Modernist 177).4 These spatial flows exemplify Michael Hanchard's argument that not only discourse, but also "nondiscursive formations" establish people's "degree of participation in public realms" (73).
