Foucault’s Apparatuses of Sexuality and Alliance Confronted Empirically: The Social Construction of Sexuality of Adolescents Living in Poverty in an Amazonian City of Brazil

Résumé

The objective of this article was to identify the possible constructs of one or more apparatus of sexuality and of alliance in adolescents living in poverty in Brazil. The research methodology was a qualitative assessment using an ethnographic approach. The principal data collection technique, in addition to ethnographic observation and documentary analysis, was face-to-face in-depth interviews. Fourteen adolescents living in the same Belém neighbourhood were observed and interviewed, as well as their parents. The data analysis revealed an apparatus of sexuality as an apparatus of safe sex whereas an apparatus of alliance, according to Foucault, was described after analysis and confirmation of the data as an alliance of powerfulness. These results is bringing new light on the question of the social construct of sexuality among adolescents living in poverty, put into better position the use of Foucault’s concepts, considered till now only as philosophical abstractions, and not as empirical results.