Posto neste livro porque praticava atos que a moral reprova: rebeldia e masculinidade na Escola de Aprendizes Marinheiros do Rio Grande do Norte na primeira metade do Século XX

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the disciplinary power invested on the bodies of the learners in an attempt to forge a strong, obedient, orderly and masculinized body through the violations committed and punishments applied and recorded in the Book of Punishments of the School of Apprentices Marines of Rio Grande do Norte in the first half of the twentieth century. These notes had the function of recording the actions that the apprentices committed and were considered as “faults” by the superiors, a kind of non-compliance with the norms, therefore, a posture considered inconsistent for future “man of the sea”. We discussed the concepts of discipline and punishment proposed by Michel Foucault (2014), from the description of the panoptic as a model of constant surveillance, forms of power exercised over the bodies of learners. The intention was to train their wills and gestures by transforming them into docile and labor-resistant bodies, contributing to the formation of a masculinity. Thus, we were able to observe the punishments applied and what motivated the apprentice to commit sometimes repeated “crimes” recorded in the Book of Punishments. Methodologically, we appropriated the analysis of the speech of Michel Foucault (2012), for understanding the ways to read and feel through the enunciates the discursive constructions elaborated on a given event and from them to write a version of the story. It is concluded that the most “rebel” apprentices were listed and punished for resisting the model of power undertaken over their bodies, seeking, in our view, the production of a so-called rigid masculinity, proper to military institutions.