O precário equilíbrio entre improvisação e regras: reflexões sobre a cultura política da Guiné-Bissau

Authors

  • Wilson Trajano Filho Universidade de Brasília

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-77012008000100009

Keywords:

social rules, improvisation, rumors, Guinea-Bissau

Abstract

This paper deals with the tension that exists between social rules that orient people's conduct and creative improvisation in a social situation characterized by extreme political instability, economic stagnation and generalized crisis of social institutions. The ethnographic situation under scrutiny is a small West African country named Guinea-Bissau. The analysis focuses on the way people frame their everyday social experiences. The data analyzed come mainly from the rumors that chronicle social life in Bissau. The central issue that I examine is what happens when the precarious equilibrium between social rules and improvisation is dramatically disturbed and when improvisation replaces rules. What happens to society and to its members when this tension, which is constitutive of social dynamics, smelts in the air?

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Published

2008-01-01

Issue

Vol. 51 No. 1 (2008)

Section

Articles

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How to Cite

Trajano Filho, W. (2008). O precário equilíbrio entre improvisação e regras: reflexões sobre a cultura política da Guiné-Bissau . Revista De Antropologia, 51(1), 233-266. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-77012008000100009