‘They say he is a man now’: a tale of fathers and sons

Abstract

Similarly to other minimalist societies lacking formalised social structures and offices, emotions play a central role in sustaining, expressing and evaluating relationships among the Calon Gypsies of Bahia. An analysis of emotions therefore has to take into account Calon views of personal transformation and how people’s interactions, as well as their views of themselves and situations, are patterned and described through emotions. The article is centred on three episodes that focus on the father-son relationship and are marked by strong affective ties. Love, fear and anger for one’s father or son, and a memory of care and sharing, are set against a world that is perceived as hostile and underpin the Calon institution of revenge. This article describes how, through the performance of culturally intelligible forms of violence, actors in specific social positions manipulate and create social order. As this order is unambiguously gendered, the article explores the making of a gendered, specifically masculine subjectivity: how through an affective relationship with others, one becomes and remains a man (homem).