Dios los crea y el viento los amontona: a ffective transits of exchange students in the Capital of Minas Gerais

Abstract

This paper is aimed at relating some affective and sexual experiences of exchange students in Belo Horizonte (MG). These university students come from cities in Argentina to study in the Capital of Minas Gerais for a six months period and reside in the university residences of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). From the ethnographic observations and interviews, I noticed that life in the interchange was filtered by the social existence of the dwellings, by the relations that began there. In this context of cohabitation, there were certain disciplinary practices, a panoptic architecture and a control of the entrance of visitors that forced the exchange students to engage in exchanges of objects and favours to make possible their affective encounters. The circulation of goods, in addition to forging a pattern of reciprocity among residents, also affected their urban itineraries, making them l ess mobile, circumscribed in the Pampulha region.