Martha Santos Cleansing Honor with Blood | sku-16658564

Cleansing Honor with Blood: Masculinity, Violence, and Power in the Backlands of Northeast Brazil, 1845–1889 is a hardcover listed under Latin American History Books. Martha Santos examines male violence, patriarchy and machismo among lower-class sertanejo men and women in the hinterlands of Ceará. She argues against the view that nature, culture and climate conditioned sertanejos to violence.

Instead, she describes the pursuit of an honorable manly reputation and the use of violence as responses to conflicts over scarce resources and contests for power over women and other men. Santos also traces how economic dislocation, environmental calamity and family separation increased female autonomy and weakened patriarchal authority at home, while public, often violent enforcement of male power maintained patriarchal order.

SKU: sku-16658564.