Research notes on gender issues in ”Bumba-meu-boi”

Abstract

This text aims to socialize brief impressions, in the form of notes, about gender issues in the Bumba-meu-boi game. For this, I take as a place of speech, analysis and compression the research developed, from 2017 to 2020, on the occasion of my doctorate in History, in the Postgraduate Program of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), whose Thesis, defended in January 2021, is entitled – “The maranhense bumba-meu-boi roared in Roraima: the (re)production of a symbolic-cultural territory (1975-2019)” -. It is worth noting that, although, at first, the concept of gender was not listed as the main key to the reading and sociocultural interpretation of revelry, it ended up not going unnoticed, especially for ordering meanings, social practices and power relations of men and women in the game of bumba-meu-boi from Maranhão matrix. The research methodology with a qualitative approach gathered different sources: field research in the states of Maranhão and Roraima, social networks (Instagram) of the main groups from Maranhão, as well as photographic records and semi-structural interviews (recorded in audio/video) and , later treated and analyzed as research sources. Finally, the text points out that, nowadays, women have conquered space and visibility, but the macho mentality still persists to determine the best social and cultural roles, in addition to objectifying the woman's body through femininity and sensuality.