Work, inheritance and gender: family history and difference games

Abstract

This article focuses on two generations fo the Rennó family. The main objective is to understand the implications of a family project formulated by the first generation to three interrelated questions that were found during the fieldwork: the labour division, heritage and gender. I will demonstrate how the adoption of this familiar project on the one hand legitimates an informal process of heritage antecipation and, on the other hand, leads to the migration of part of the second generation of the family. With these questions in mind I will analyze how a process of continuous insertion in the national system and participation in urban life re-organizes the family simbolic universe, taking as an example the complex re-definition of gender. This re-signification process can be seen through the family's history, allowing for a historical approach that begins with the birth of the first son in the 40's and continues until the present time.