This study discusses the case of Jairo. Born in Florianópolis, black, a domestic servant's son, Jairo experiences lifelong economic, social, and racial exclusion: during childhood he drops out of school in the fourth grade before even learning how to read and write; as a teenager, working in construction and odd jobs, he fails to adapt to the world of work and gradually gets involved in misdemeanors (drug use, petty theft). At 19 he is arrested (beaten), tried, and convicted to 17 years in prison for having assaulted, robbed, and raped a white middle-class tourist in the dunes near his house, when she was walking back from the beach. Even while agreeing that the case illustrates one of the most barbarous forms of violence against women, and one that must be combated, the current article focuses on another issue. This particular case highlights a given dimension of relations between locals and foreigners in the paradisiacal beach landscape of Florianópolis, namely the violent side of these relations, in which race, culture, class, and gender aspects converge (and in some cases accumulate).
Race; culture; class; gender; rape; violence