“I am a person who does not exist”: rights and citizenship in the trajectories of undocumented Brazilians

Authors

  • Fernanda da Escóssia IBMEC Rio (Brasil)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26439/contratexto2018.n030.3152

Abstract

This article examines how male and female undocumented Brazilian adults seek the first document of their lives, the birth certificate, in a free service set up by the Court of Justice of the state of Rio de Janeiro inside a bus in the center of the city. This paper presents the history of the Brazilian civil registry system and the birth under-registration focused on adults. It describes the field and methodology used, and examines the participants based on life stories of two women. It discusses concepts such as identity and rights expressed by undocumented Brazilians and reflects on the role of the document as a key to access to citizenship. Based on Bourdieu’s work, the article analyzes the birth certificate as a result of an institutional rite and problematizes the meaning attributed to the document by users. The research is the result of two years of the author’s ethnographic work, which includes part of the research she carried out for her PhD thesis. It was presented at the 7th World Meeting of UNESCO Chairs in Communication, at the International Symposium “Communication, City and Public Space”, held in Lima in May 2018.

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Author Biography

  • Fernanda da Escóssia, IBMEC Rio (Brasil)

    Magíster en Comunicación por la Universidad Federal de Río de Janeiro. Actualmente cursa el doctorado en Historia y Política en la Fundación Getulio Vargas. Es periodista y profesora de periodismo en el Instituto Brasileiro de Mercado de Capitais, en
    Río de Janeiro.

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Published

2018-12-12

Issue

No. 030 (2018): Comunicación, ciudad y espacio público

Section

Dossier: Comunicación, ciudad y espacio público

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