Pilgrimage and autoetnography – (Des)covering masculinities in Alto Minho

Abstract

The ethnographic research on the Auto da Floripes, popular theater and ex-libris of the culture of Alto Minho, located in the North region of Portugal, has as its central narrative the battle between the Turks and Christians. The performance resembles the Vincentian autos, whether in the theater’s structure of representation or in the moralizing messages contained in the text, end up reverberating in local experiences. The male initiation rite of the group of actors becomes a system of exclusion and exclusivity in Lugar das Neves, by defining socially accepted patterns of representation. The elaboration of an autoethnography, as an anthropological methodology, puts me in a position to delve deeper into gender issues that are experienced while societies are studied. For the composition of this research as experiences as a young anthropologist, Brazilian and gay, it helped me to weave, from the theories of queer studies, a dialogue with hegemonic issues and hegemonic systems of gender.