Laughter out of place: race, class, violence, and sexuality in Rio shantytowns

¶ … book for academic audiences has several challenges. The most significant of these is the challenge of offering information that contributes to the existing knowledge base within a particular subject choice. I believe Donna M. Goldstein, author of Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown, did an admirable job of this in her work by focusing at least some attention on how laughter plays a role in the often harsh environment she describes. She also does more than merely focus on the academic description of this environment. By creating a leitmotif narrative with Gloria as her main character, the author also finds an entertaining, if often tragic, way to bring her facts to life. In this way, the book caters for a variety of both academic and general audiences. If any criticism can be offered, it would be towards the relative lack of focus on the laughter element, especially in the first chapters. This could have been a valuable connecting factor throughout the book. In general, however, the book is entirely readable and thoroughly moving.

The structure of the first chapter puzzles me a little. The description appears chronological and focused until the author refers to the impending New Year's celebration that would take place. After this, there is a jump, where a section of the chapter is devoted to the author's background and academic reasons for visiting Rio. After this, the chapter jumps again to a detailed discussion of Carnival and its specific meaning for the local population, as well as how laughter plays a role in this. I feel that the section on the author's background would have served its function better at the start or the end of the chapter.

I think the chapter might have been better structure by putting all the background sections either at the start or the end of the chapter. As it is, the structure seems bit haphazard, with the narrative description of the environment, its people, and the author's experiences interspersed with more background, academic, and interpretive descriptions. Furthermore, I would have liked to see a more detailed description of the various types of laughter occurring in the area investigated closer to the start of the chapter, since this is the apparent premise of the entire book. Starting with a narrative description, as the author does, although it provides some interesting and entertaining reading, does little towards clarifying the premise of what is to follow. In a non-fiction book, it is indeed important to be entertaining on occasion. However, the nature of the book also requires a certain format and clarity that is generally not expected in fiction. The first chapter of this book appears to be more concerned with entertainment than actual clarity, at least until some pages later in the chapter.

The first chapter of this book does, however, provide some in-depth information about the environment and its people, especially in terms of the country's history and political evolution. However, I would have liked to see how this interrelates with the main topic of the book, which is laughter.

The second chapter connects well with the first by addressing the topic of domination, and specifically how this affects the lives of domestic workers. The topic of inequality was addressed at the end of the previous chapter. It also appears to be somewhat superior to the previous chapter, in that there is a much clearer connection among the sections. The first section starts with a dramatic presentation of Gloria and her life at work, which is representative of the main plight of many people in the country: poverty. This connects well with the background discussions on poverty in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro, as well as how this connects with the central aspects that are the focus of the chapter, which include domination and colonialism in the country. While this chapter appears structurally stronger and more logical, it shares with the first chapter the main weakness of sequence. It puzzles me that the structure of the chapter, like the first, is not consistent in terms of narrative and academic information. After a background discussion of the economic, social, and political situations in Brazil, the chapter suddenly reverts again to the more personal narrative of Gloria and her friendship with Dona Beth. Furthermore, the section on laughter is quite small relative to the rest of the chapter, which hardly mentions this aspect at all. Again, since this is the central premise of the book, I would have liked to see it take a much more dominant position in all the chapters.

In Chapter 3, it is unclear to me how a discussion of racism in the United States is relevant to a book on laughter in Brazil. Certainly, the chapter does focus on the role of racism in sexual relations in Brazil. What is not clear, is why a discussion of racism in the United States is necessary to shed light on this. It would have been good if the author could have provided some reasons for the choice of including this discussion.

What this chapter does do better than those before it is its structure. The connections between academic discussion and the narrative featuring Gloria and her friends are much smoother than in the previous chapters. Also, the chapter ends with a strong conclusion regarding the normalization of everyday racism and prejudice in Brazil.

This chapter could interest both academic audiences, those interested in a Brazil in a more generalized way, and also sociologists who are interested in investigating the dynamics of social relationships and how these influence prejudice.

Chapter 4 appears to be the strongest, structurally, of the first five chapters of the book. it's central topic is immediately clear and focused, with a long beginning narrative on Gloria's first-born, Pedro Paulo, who succumbed to a life of crime. His life narrative is used as a backdrop for the academic consideration of what it means to be a child among the lower classes in Brazil. More than the preceding chapters, this chapter also provides a greater sense of logic in terms of how personal narratives are interspersed with academic information. While laughter still receives somewhat rudimentary attention, there is an attempt to make it a greater part of the narrative than in the previous chapters.

This chapter would appeal to audiences interested in sociology and psychology as pertaining particularly to children, their development and growth.

The following chapter offers a more academic point-of-view on violence in Rio de Janeiro. In terms of the rest of the book, this chapter is a little unusual in that it starts almost immediately with the general academic narrative rather than a personal narrative that involves Gloria. She only makes an appearance much later in the chapter, to provide an example of the mainly historical narrative of Chapter 5. Since this chapter offers a large amount of legal and policing information, professionals such as lawyers and police force employees would most likely be interested in it. As in many of the other chapters, there is an absence of focus on laughter in this chapter.

I am not sure that Chapter 6 has the best position in the book. Since it concerns subject matter regarding sexual relations in Brazil, I think it would have connected better with the rest of the book by being positioned after Chapter 3, where sexual relations are also part of the discussion, although in a far different context. Chapter 6 itself begins in a rather strong way, again with a narrative that involves Gloria. When starting the theoretical discussion. The author specifically mentions the necessity for putting aside personal western notions regarding feminism and sexuality in order to gain the most from the information in the chapter. This echoes one of the main strengths of the book, which is that the author herself has put aside such notions, despite the inherent danger of subjectivity as a result of the way in which the book is structured and narrated. A particular strength of this chapter is the section titled "The Carnivalization of Desire," which focuses on the role of joking and laughter in matters of a sexual nature. It provides a very good focus on laughter and how it relates to the subject of the chapter. I believe the author would have done well to include more sections like this in her previous chapters as well.