Conviviality on the Brink

Current academic usages of the notion of conviviality often carry a normative connotation in which it is opposed to tension and conflict. Instead, I propose to use conviviality as an analytical term. This everyday living together is characterized by tensions, contradictions, and inconsistencies that complicate abstract theorization and the use of clearly defined concepts whose role is, as Stuart Hall once suggested, to give us a good night’s rest by feigning a stability we long for. If conviviality is, as I suggest, understood as a notion that embraces the inconsistencies, multiplicities, and complexities of new urban ways, I inquire into the emerging relationalities between recently-arrived Senegalese and their social context in Rio de Janeiro under the impact of multiple hierarchical orders, including race, origin, education, and class.