Ecos da noite: gênero, prostituição e moralidade em inquéritos policiais de Chapecó (1980 - 1990)

Abstract

This research project investigates the practices and representations constructed by the State and civil society regarding prostitution in the city of Chapecó during the 1980s. Based on the analysis of police investigations, it seeks to understand how public power and social discourses acted in the formulation of moral controls directed at women in urban spaces. Under the perspective of Gender History, the research is theoretically and methodologically based on the contributions of Joan Scott (1996) for the category of gender, on the analysis of Michel Foucault (1987; 1988) regarding the dynamics of power and the production of normative discourses, and on the studies of Margareth Rago (2008; 2012) about the history and hygienization of prostitution in Brazil. The empirical basis consists of a qualitative analysis of primary judicial sources, specifically three police investigations involving crimes of enticement of minors and the maintenance of prostitution houses, available in the archives of the Centro de Memória do Oeste Catarinense (CEOM). Based on the penal legislation in force at the time, the research results point toward the construction of gendered discourses by the authorities, marked by an asymmetric criminal responsibility that fell mostly upon the women who administered these spaces.