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Accepted Paper:
The ordinary ethics of invisibility: play, intimacy, and the making of relatedness in Maranhão
Matan Shapiro
(King's College London)
Paper short abstract:
Since a measure of concealment is inherent in jealousy and seduction, both these play-forms, render 'invisible' those actions that challenge conventional moral injunctions.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I examine ordinary ethical practices that underpin intimate relations in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. I focus ethnographically on jealousy and seduction as complementary forms of play, which simultaneously affirm and challenge such aspects of emotional relatedness as trust and love. I argue that since a measure of concealment is inherent in both these play-forms, they render 'invisible' those actions that challenge conventional moral injunctions, such as sexual infidelity. I consequently offer an ethnographic theory of 'invisibility' by which opacity, uncertainty and paradox become intrinsic to the emergence of intimate relations as ethical practices in their own right.