O exército como família : etnografia sobre as vilas militares na fronteira
Abstract
This thesis is based on an ethnographic research on family dynamics in military villages
located in the border region in the northwestern Amazon of Brazil. Our starting point
considers the idea that the Brazilian Army seizes the "family" while native category
which expresses the collective of the organization (the Military Family), prescribing
relations to be modeled on solidarity and respect among its members (affections and
moral duties that the military regard as “natural” behaviors of the family), which also
extend to relations between their spouses/children and other military families, who
perceive themselves as "relatives" in this universe (the physical proximity of these
people within the villages - military sites - and the daily relations sharing would allow a
family experience beyond consanguineous relationships). Through this, it is observed
that the family is the object of constant care and it is sought to think the Army, on the
one hand, doing and undoing familiarization through a system of standards and
prescriptive behaviors (ideal model) which intervene in everyday relations of people
who are part of this collective, and which aim to ensure the functioning of the military
community as a family ruled by principles of hierarchy and discipline (structuring
dimensions of the institution). On the other hand, the study explores, faced with this
apparent uniformity of life in the barracks, how family members (especially the wives
of officers and sergeants) think themselves in this system and also make and break
family, stimulating a series of relationships within a conviviality in military towns,
engaging in conflicts, gossiping and alliances. Throughout the thesis, therefore, we
describe how both (institutions and individuals) flexibilize the family(ies), in order to
produce other specific configurations of a military kinship.