Luzia-Homem and the law: habitus, speed of legal procedures and social exclusion

Abstract

This structured manuscript aims to analyze Domingos Olímpio's work "Luzia-Homem," a landmark of Brazilian Naturalism, focusing on specific moments in the novel to assess the applicability of Bourdieu's concepts of "habitus" and "homology." The aim, therefore, is to relate the actions of the justice agencies that appear in Domingos Olímpio's novel to the aforementioned concepts, while also evaluating how subjectivity finds its development limited in both the natural and artificial environments. The drama of the Northeastern migrant, portrayed in this regionalist novel, provides elements for an assessment of the historical period of the work, set in 1878, and for a perspective on the present day, using the socioeconomic structure and the legal system as parameters. Thus, initially subjectivity is addressed, going through Bourdieu's concepts until arriving at an approach of some elements of the justice organs that appear in the plot of “Luzia-Homem”, having as a conclusion of the scientific work developed the concrete adjustment of the concepts of the French sociologist not only to the facts of the fictional novel, but also to elements of human action in contemporary reality. The historical method is adopted, as well as the bibliographic survey, based predominantly on synchronic historical bibliographic research.