Copyright by Sarah Elizabeth Nicholus 2018 The Dissertation Committee for Sarah Elizabeth Nicholus Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: Queering Tradition: LGBT+ Cultural Production in the Brazilian Northeast Committee: Lorraine Moore (Leu), Supervisor Jossianna Arroyo Martínez Jason Borge Christen Smith Queering Tradition: LGBT+ Cultural Production in the Brazilian Northeast by Sarah Elizabeth Nicholus Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2018 Dedication To my Mom and Dad for their unconditional love and support. They have been here since the beginning. To Marcelo and my LGBT+ community in Natal for giving me a home when I was far away from mine. Acknowledgements While dissertation projects generally follow a course of graduate study, this work began before I arrived at the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you to my friends and LGBT+/queer family in Brazil who have made this project possible, as well as the Fulbright Program without which I would not have landed in Natal-RN. Marcelo Camilo and Ícaro Pires, obrigada pelas aventuras, risos, e conversas ao longo de muitos anos e viagens. Luiz Carvalho, obrigada por me ensinar sobre o mundo das festas juninas e a cultura do cordel. Miguel Silva, obrigada por me mostrar a sua cidade e O Maior São João do Mundo. Esse projeto também contou com o apoio de Rebecka de França (Atransparência) e Maria Goretti Gomes (Grupo Afirmativo de Mulheres Independentes): obrigada por me acolher e por me ensinar sobre o ativismo LGBT+ em Natal. Agradeço muito o apoio de Marco Túlio, Vítor Souza, Priscila Alves, e Tarcísio Amaro que sempre estavam disponíveis a me ajudar com uma pergunta, dúvida ou pedido. Finally, thank you to Fundação Estudar and Dr. Clyde Smith for the research materials and international academic support. I am extremely grateful to Lorraine Leu, who has taught and mentored me throughout my graduate study. I could not have asked for a more supportive, brilliant, and dedicated advocate and advisor. I also want to thank the members of my committee: Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez for her positive energy, Christen Smith for showing me how to be a scholar-activist, and Jason Borge for introducing me to canonical works in Brazilian literature and cultural studies. I would like to acknowledge the support of the Tinker Foundation which funded my field research, the Graduate School for the summer writing fellowship, and the Embrey Family Foundation which generously provided funding for my final year of graduate study. I send a very special and heartfelt thank you to Susan Sage Heinzelman for her mentorship, moral support, and guidance at decisive moments in my graduate career. It has truly been a pleasure to work with her and witness academia at its best. I am extremely grateful to the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at UT-Austin, as well v as Grayson Hunt, Ann Cvetkovich, and the LGBTQ Studies Program, whose support and encouragement have allowed me to develop my passion for feminist and LGBTQ studies. I could not have hoped for a warmer and more welcoming community in which to finish my graduate study. To my friends and colleagues at UT-Austin including Jessica Carey-Webb, Catalina Iannone, Patrick Lawrence, Adriano Trovato, and JP Mestre, thank you for the coffee shop conversations, writing workshops, and company navigating graduate school. Also thank you to Carla Luyo León who has supported me through the final steps of dissertation formatting, submission, and defense – and who has made this year lighter and brighter. Finally, I express my deepest gratitude to my parents who have taken the time and interest to accompany me on this journey from Natal to Austin and everywhere in between. I appreciate the support, guidance, and encouragement of everyone who has contributed to this project. Thank you. Gracias. Obrigadx. vi Abstract Queering Tradition: LGBT+ Cultural Production in the Brazilian Northeast Sarah Elizabeth Nicholus, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2018 Supervisor: Lorraine Moore (Leu) This dissertation investigates how queerness is expressed through traditional forms of culture in a digital age while critically engaging anti-colonial mobilizations of queer theory. Traditional culture with rural origins is rarely imagined as a site of LGBT+/queer community formation. This is largely due to the ways in which contemporary notions of LGBT+ identity have developed in conjunction with European and North American urbanism. In the Brazilian Northeast, rural representations of the region have always predominated over urban ones, centering the desert-like sertão and patriarchal plantation as characteristic of a static, backwards, and closed region. In the context of these conservative visions of the region, I investigate queerness in Northeastern society and culture. I focus on traditional forms of culture that are practiced throughout the region, in rural and urban areas, including quadrilha dance performances, cordel folk poetry, and the ephemeral spaces of traditional June festivals. Many of them date from the Portuguese colonial era, with ideological messages that echo the dicta of Catholic morality. My field site is the mid-sized capital city of Natal in the state of Rio Grande do Norte and surrounding rural areas. Natal-RN, is part of a transnational contact zone of “imperial formation” (Stoler, McClintock), hosting thousands of U.S. soldiers during World War II. It is also characterized by a vii peripheral modernity – unevenly developed, with many vestiges of pre-modern socio-economic relations. Based in an interdisciplinary, cultural-studies-grounded approach, this project reads physical spaces, artistic performances, historical images, and oral poetry as texts which visibilize queer, racialized Northeastern subjectivities. I draw on feminist, queer, and intersectional traditions to examine what type of LGBT+ representations are present in Northeastern culture and how they work in, on, and against hetero-patriarchal hierarchies imposed by colonialism. I also investigate how subordinated subjects negotiate the cultural order imposed by modern forms of empire. Dialoging with women of color and trans feminisms, this project destabilizes binaries and contributes to the elaboration of an intersectional trans-feminist framework that bridges conversations in Latin America and the United States. It complicates representations of the Brazilian Northeast as rural, or “anti-modern,” and therefore unwelcoming of alternative sexualities and gender expressions. Keywords: cordel literature, quadrilha dance performance, festas juninas, Natal-RN, gender, sexuality, intersectionality, teoria do cu, feminism. viii Table of Contents INTRODUCTION: QUEERING TRADITION: LGBT+ CULTURAL PRODUCTIONS IN THE BRAZILIAN NORTHEAST....................................................................................................................... 1 O NORDESTE NORDESTINO: RACE AND ETHNICITY IN THE BRAZILIAN NORTHEAST ................................ 4 MOBILIZING QUEER THEORY IN THE BRAZILIAN NORTHEAST: ANTROPOFAGIA QUEER, TRANSVIADISMOS E FEMINISMO NEGRO .................................................................................................................................. 6 Antropofagia and Queer Theory in Brazil ............................................................................................ 8 Black Feminism and a Transnational, Anti-Colonial Queer Theory .................................................. 15 An Invitation into Queerness............................................................................................................... 17 ON TRANS IDENTITIES IN BRAZIL ........................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER OUTLINE .................................................................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER ONE: MARIA BOA, WOMEN, PROSTITUTION, AND THE QUEER SUBJECT IN THE BRAZILIAN NORTHEAST ........................................................................................................... 31 “MARIA BOA PRA TODOS” ....................................................................................................................... 31 INTRODUCTION: MARIA BOA, A FLUCTUATING QUEER SUBJECT .......................................................... 32 MARIA BOA IN THE SERTÃO: GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN THE BRAZILIAN NORTHEAST ...................... 37 MARIA BOA IN THE CITY: WOMEN OF COLOR AND IMPERIAL FORMATIONS IN NATAL 1937-1947 ...... 49 “THEY DON’T MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TO,” SEX WORK THEN AND NOW ..................................... 64 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................... 71 CHAPTER TWO: QUEER SPACE IN THE FESTAS JUNINAS OF NORTHEASTERN BRAZIL ..................................................................................................................................................................... 73 “QUADRILHA JUNINA”............................................................................................................................. 73 INTRODUCTION: AS FESTAS JUNINAS ........................................................................................................ 73