Death Without Weeping

“The social, political, agrarian, and health problems of the Northeast extend back to the earliest days of colonization, when the complex formed by the interactions of latifúndio, monocultura, and paternalismo was first established (see Freyre 1986a). I am referring to the consolidation of landholdings into large plantations dominated by a single export crop (sugar, cotton, or coffee) at the expense of diversified and subsistence farming and to the cultivation in exploited rural workers of a humbling set of economic and psychosocial dependencies on their essentially feudal landlords, lords, in the truest sense of the term.” 

This quote outlines the main economic and social argument of the book. The author wishes to illustrate how the nature of the suffering and misery of the Brazilian Northeast can be decisively tied to the large-scale production of sugar cane. The idea is that the effects of this exploitative dependency on the population are broad in scope, affecting minds as well as bodies. 

“As both a woman worker and a clandestina, Biu is doubly exploited. At forty-four, following some fifteen pregnancies, she is no longer physically strong. She is slight of build and severely anemic. It is rare that she can complete the agreed-on work in exchange for her negotiated wage. Often, Biu brings her nine-year old son along with her to supplement her productivity. Yet she does not blame her boss for the minuscule wages she brings home at the end of the week (often only about five dollars). 'I'm finished, washed up,' she explains, without a trace of self-pity. 'My body's not worth anything.'” 

This quotation describes the grinding misery faced by an undocumented female worker. The double exploitation Biu faces is indicative of the impossible position women in this region face. The loss of Biu’s physical strength is directly related to her fifteen pregnancies―a number that seems almost unbelievable. However, it is Biu's insistence that she is worthless that is the most striking. This insistence testifies to the author's original claim: that the trauma of exploitation, desperation, and ambient death changes how individuals see themselves, often for the worse.

"For the poor, the illiterate, the rural migrants livings in the hillside bairros of Bom Jesus, and those for whom almost any work is preferable to cutting sugarcane, there are few options. As one embittered young father put it, 'Sure I love sugarcane―to suck on or to drink [i.e., as rum]. Damned if I have to work in it! But most of us there's no choice. It's a matter of cut sugarcane or die.'" 

This is an unusually lucid and candid opinion on the reality of life in Bom Jesus. This unnamed resident has no illusions as to his poverty, which is not just a material poverty―of goods, possessions, or services―but a poverty of options, a restricted field of choice. There is, in the poverty described in this book, an almost irresistible feeling of absolute limitation of one's choices, one which is difficult to describe out of context. This feeling of limitation is supported by the ambience of death in this community. Infant and child mortality and starvation change how people think, and the choices they make. 

"Hierarchy and dualism characterize social life in the interior of Northeast Brazil. At the top of the social pyramid remain the sugar barons, the usineiros and the large cane producers and suppliers. Within this class, power is articulated in a sometimes extravagant display of wealth, conspicuous consumption, gentlemanly leisure, and political clout. The sugar barons are the real donos and bosses of Bom Jesus. 'The rich,' volunteers one resident of the Alto de Cruzeiro 'are the owners of the city. They are the people who don't have to work for a living, who are 'excused' from the daily struggle that is life. For the rich, living in their mansions and big houses, nothing is ever wanting. Every wish is satisfied They are our bosses, our patrões. They don't owe anything to anybody. Everybody owes them." 

This quotation describes the persistent social hierarchy that surrounds sugarcane production. In a book dominated by the plight of the poor and underprivileged, the state of the rich and privileged is rare, yet significant: their power over other citizens is described as "ownership," evoking the legacy of slavery, in a modern context. Despite this anachronism, however, the persistence of these dynamics suggest that the emancipation from slavery in the 1870s did not and could not abolish all social hierarchies. In context of the larger theme of the book, wealth in Northeast Brazil is treated as a sanctuary from the implicit violence that characterizes the "daily struggle" of life.

"The people of the Alto act, because they must, within a dual ethic, one egalitarian and collectivist, the other hierarchical and dyadic. One guides behavior toward family, kin, compadres, coworkers, and friends who are pobres like themselves. The other guides behavior toward patrões, bosses, donos, superiors, and benefactors. Whereas the first siphons off the most minimal surplus to redistribute it among those even worse off, the other locks the foresters into relations of servility, dependency, and loyalty to those who oppress and exploit them. The one enhances class solidarity; the other contains within it the seeds of class betrayal. The first is the ethic of the open and balanced reciprocity. It is the ethic of the mata. The other is ethic of patronage, of paternalismo, of misplaced loyalties and self-colonizing dependencies." 

This passage is a forceful indictment of what the author observes to be the "dual ethic" operating in the Alto community. The duality of this ethic refers to how lower-class residents simultaneously operate two separate codes for dealing with members of their own class, versus their social superiors. The description of this ethic is meant to illustrate how class relations affect culture. The author is blunt about her opinion of this ethic: while she praises its sacrifice and solidarity (towards fellow pobres), she takes issue with how the corresponding ethic hampers solidarity by creating unequal loyalties to those of upper classes. Most poignantly, the author describes this through the peculiar idea of "self-colonizing" dependency, a concept which describes how the culture of the mata reinforces its own repression in these socioeconomic hierarchies. 

"The life and work histories of the people of the Alto are strewn with references to their 'good' and 'bad' bosses. These references make up a key theme in a kind of Alto morality tale, one pointing to the tensions of casa, rua, and mata and the underlying dynamic of class conflict. The narratives of Alto women resonate with accusations of injustice at the hands of their bad patroas and with praise for rescue and redemption at the hands of their good ones. The bom patrão is represented as a nurturant protector, as the good parent in this familistic, patriarchal world." 

This quotation identifies the duality of the informal patronage system of the Alto as a perverse dependency, one which saddles its residents―particularly its women―with vicious cycles of dependency upon their socioeconomic superiors. The author argues that these are illustrations of class conflict created by the lack of formal social systems. The interaction between casa, rua, and mata are an indication of the fragmentation of this social order: individuals in the Alto must navigate a variety of different social contexts, simply to meet their basic needs. Finally, the author illustrates that while this system presents itself as broadly filial, it is in fact detrimental to family life. 

"'The major cause of chronic under nutrition may be purely economic,' wrote the authors of The Biology of Human Starvation, 'but the primary cause of modern starvation is political strife, including war' (Keys et al. 1950:3). I do not want to quibble over words, but what I have been seeing on the Alto do Cruzeiro for two and a half decades is more than 'malnutrition' and it is politically as well as economically caused although in the absence of overt political strife or war. Adults, it is true, might be described as 'chronically undernourished,' in a weakened or debilitated state, prone to infections and opportunistic diseases. But it is overt hunger and starvation that one sees in babies and small children, the victims of a 'famine' that is endemic, relentless, and political-economic in origin." 

In this passage, the author comments upon the idea that widespread starvation in the modern war is only possible in situations of overt political strife―specifically, war. The author contends that the circumstances on the Alto do Cruzeiro amount to more than simply "malnutrition," and in effect constitute a famine, despite the lack of any open war or political unrest. However, Scheper-Hughes's point is not that the authors of The Biology of Human Starvation are entirely incorrect in their assumption, but rather that their concept of "war" and "political strife" are not sophisticated enough to account for situations such as in Northeastern Brazil. Specifically, while Scheper-Hughes is adamant that this situation can be called a "famine" without any exaggeration, she believes it is the result of a more subtle form of warfare―class conflict, unrecognized by the authors of the original text. 

"Childhood malnutrition has certainly contributed to the persistence of chronic illiteracy of the impoverished sectors of the Northeast, despite more than three generations of near universal primary school education. One, the Alto do Cruzeiro, where illiteracy remains the norm and where only 30 percent of Alto women in my sample of seventy-four households could even sign their names, all attended primary school for at least a brief period of time before deciding that schooling was a waste of time. 'I went to school for three years and never learned a thing,' 'Letters could never enter my head,' and 'School is not for matutos' were common explanations given for their illiteracy. But Alto children are not 'slow' or 'dumb' in any sense of the term, although, as in any population, there are ranges in intelligence. For the most part they are lively observers of human life and activity, full of sharp wit, and playful with words. Nonetheless, most Alto children are unable to concentrate in school, and it is the exceptional child who graduates from the final fifth grade class with any real knowledge of reading or writing." 

This passage is important not only as it highlights how the chronic malnutrition of the Alto affects its most vulnerable residents―its children―but it underscores the long-term damage being done, in terms of these children's futures, and, in effect, the futures of the community as a whole. It is a fact that malnourished children suffer severe cognitive and behavioral impairments; the author connects this material deprivation to the high rate of illiteracy in the Alto communities. The attitudes the author includes from the matutos regarding this phenomenon of widespread illiteracy testify to the extent these problems have been absorbed and normalized in the culture, how this baseline of depravation becomes the status quo. Beyond even these issues, there are further threats: the inability of children to better their prospective outcomes through education and the inability of these populations to promote literacy. This severely limits the possibility of their effective participation in political and social life, further intensifying class divisions. 

"Men like Tomás are paralyzed within a stagnant and semi-feudal plantation economy that treats them as superfluous and dependent. The weakness of which these men complain is as much social structural as physical. They are trapped in a "weak" position. A healthy, vigorous person does not give a thought to the acts of breathing, seeing, walking. These come without thinking, and they go without saying. But these men (and women) have been made exquisitely aware and self-conscious of 'automatic' bodily functions. They describe themselves as breathless, wobbly disoriented, embarrassed, and unsure of their gait." 

This quotation describes the ambiguous "nervos" that afflicts many poorer residents of the Alto. The author argues that this is not altogether a physical ailment, as much the psychosomatic expression of their lower-class status; that is, the anxiety of their clearly-inferior position in society. This is a shift from the author's original hypothesis, that this "nervos" is largely brought about by chronic malnutrition and food insecurity. Instead, this passage argues that self-consciousness is as much to blame as any exterior influence.

"An obvious subtext ran through these women's nervous complaints: the free-floating anxiety of women saddled with too many, too sick, and too needy-hungry children with too little support in rearing them. The symptoms of irritability, sadness, fatigue, headaches, and nervousness were often the prelude to a request for sterilization, a request that was rarely granted. For these 'nervous' women and their fussy, malnourished children, tranquilizers and sleeping pills were easier to come by than either food or tubal ligations." 

This quotation is significant because it connects what might be nebulous complaints of anxiety to an obvious social problem, one with roots in inequality. The inaccessibility of reproductive options for women in the Alto is a glaring issue, one which the author addresses here. A clear link is made between women's inability to access birth control and their personal and medical problems; this link goes a long way to establishing a social and legal component to what the residents call “nervos.”While the legal framework around this issue is not delved into in this quotation, it reinforces the author's argument between the policies set and their ill effects on the population.

"Northeast Brazil is still at a transitional stage of state formation that contains many traditional and semifeudal structures, including its legacy of local political bosses (coroneis) spawned by an agrarian latifundista class of powerful plantation estate masters and their many dependents […].To this day most sugar plantation estates are protected by privately owned police forces or at least by hired pistoleiros. The web of political loyalties among the intermarried big houses and leading families of the interior leads directly to the governor and to the state legislature, which is still controlled by a traditional agrarian oligarchy. Consequently, civil police, appointed by local politicians, often collaborate with hired gunmen in the employ of the plantation estates owners and sometimes participate themselves in the operations of the ‘death squads,’ a widespread and pernicious form of police ‘moonlighting’ in Brazil.” 

The above paragraph details the extent to which the modern Northeast is still characterized by quasi-feudal systems of power. In the context of this chapter, the author's intention is to show how the continual threat of violence from and to the lower classes creates a division of power, away from public structures, and into private hands. The domination of the region by an "agrarian oligarchy" is intended to show that this region is neither modern, nor liberated. Instead, the plantation owners retain a too-large share of power over other residents, a form of power which, the author attests, is frequently used to conduct violence on their behalf. This violence is not only sanctioned by the police but goes as far as to employ the police in its commission.

"Nowhere, perhaps, is the anonymity and disposability of their bodies and their lives made more explicitly clear to the peasant-workers of Bom Jesus than in the symbolic violence directed to their remains in the municipal cemetery, a social place that in microcosm reproduces the social and political structure of the community. The bodies of their loved ones accumulate in the municipal graveyard's bone depository, while the wealthy and middle classes build family vaults and elaborate marble tombstones that are privately owned, permanent, and inviolate, even when fallen out of use for many generations." 

Burial is a particularly significant aspect of culture in the Alto. Despite this, however, the poor and destitute of the Alto and the Northeast do not have the same privileges when it comes to the internment of their bodies as other classes. In the author's view, this is a form of "symbolic violence," one that echoes residents' fears and complaints over their lack of control and protection of their bodies―living and dead. In this line of argument, the extent of the exploitation and division is such that the political structure of the community extends into the cemetery: the remains of the poor are treated with little care, compared to those of the middle-class and wealthy. The themes of "anonymity" and "disposability" are intended to show how the economic and social arrangement of this community becomes permanent.

"In the otherwise highly bureaucratic world of Bom Jesus, child death has yet to seize the imagination of political leaders, administrative and civil servants, physicians, and priests or religious officials as an urgent and pressing social problem about which 'something must be done.' Rather, there is a failure to see or to recognize as problematic what is considered to be the norm (as well as normal, expectable) for poor and marginal families. Michel Foucault (1975, 1980) has written of the hostile gaze, the punitive net of surveillance cast by the state and its disciplinary and biomedical technicians over the sick and deviant majority. Here, I am writing about an averted gaze, the turning away of the state and its agents in their failure to see, to acknowledge what should be right before their eyes." 

This quotation outlines a specific element of the chapter’s argument. Throughout the course of Death Without Weeping, the author argues that the high mortality rate experienced by women in the Alto is a direct result of the inequality of class conflict. Furthermore, she claims that the modern medical apparatus is complicit in this class conflict. In this quote, she specifies and demonstrates how this occurs. To do so, she insists, prior to this account, that the idea of "class conflict" is best illustrated through a posture of indifference, rather than outright malice or resentment. She argues that through indifference, the upper classes and authorities have effectively consigned large parts of modern Brazil to high infant death rates, and perpetuate this crisis through indifference. The problem is not believed to be solvable, as evidenced by the insufficient record-keeping surrounding infant births and deaths on the Alto.

"In all, the independent reproductive practices of the middle classes of Bom Jesus are not too dissimilar from those of North American Catholics. Those of the poor are another matter. If official church teachings affect their reproductive patterns, contributing to the high fertility/high mortality cycle that I have described […] the church has the devil to pay in terms of accountability. But Catholic teachings are deflected and creatively refashioned on the Alto within the context of a lively popular culture of spirituality and an alternative, folk bioethics concerning the definition, meanings, and value of early human life." 

This quotation attempts to sort out the relationship between reproductive practices, class status, and religion. The author makes a connection between the relatively liberal reproductive practices shared by middle-class Catholic women in Bom Jesus and North America. These liberal reproductive practices are contrasted with those of "the poor"; the immediate hypothesis would suggest that poorer women are more conservative than their middle-class counterparts in Northeast Brazil. The author intends this observation as a possible indictment of the Church's indirect role in exacerbating this crisis of infant mortality. However, the author instead argues that religious practice on the Alto is not as orthodox as it might seem, and that religious practice is locally determined.

"The mother, then, has merely allowed 'nature' to take its course. She sees herself as cooperating with God's plan and not (as in the case of induced abortion) as thwarting God. The true, real cause of death is seen as a deficiency in the child, not in his or her poor, distracted mother. Zulaide, pregnant for this fifth time at the age of thirty-two, speaks of her puny one-year-old sitting in her lap, ‘He's still living, but he won't be for long! He can't stand up; he can't speak a word. He spends most of his day on the floor because I can't hold him in my arms all day. He has fevers and diarrheas, diarrheas and fevers. The doctors say that he will be like this unless I take him to the Children's Hospital in Recife. But I can't afford to treat him special. I couldn't breast-feed him because I am not in good health. It wouldn't help him or me, would it? I can't make him special foods. He's no better than the others! So he gets the same inferior quality of milk in bulk that they do. I know it is too weak for him, and that's why he is so witless. But if he dies, so be it. He is not the only one I have.’” 

This quotation represents one instance of the grim, desperate economic calculations that mothers of Bom Jesus must entertain and displays in detail the lucidity and desperation that characterizes these women, in these circumstances. This mother makes a clear connection as to how the deprivation of her own condition, and her responsibilities to her family as a whole, have altered her thinking, and force her to alter it yet still. Additionally, it shows how within this community, sophisticated and clarity brought by experience blends with misinformation―such as with the viability of breast-feeding―and an ambience of powerless and despair. It is this ambience of despair that drives the economic considerations of this mother's reflections.

"But ultimately I remained frustrated. The folk category of child sickness was impossibly loose, fluid, elastic, and nonspecific. It was ambiguous. How could a mother be certain that before her was a case of nontreatable gasto as opposed to an ordinary case of pediatric diarrhea? How could a mother discriminate between ordinary teething and the more dreaded and potentially fatal symptoms of trapped teeth? When was a susto just a bad fright, a mere startle reflex in an infant, and when was it likely to knock the soul right out of a baby? Nations and Rebhun (1988) are probably correct in suggesting that most cases of child sickness, or doomed child syndrome, are diagnosed after the fact of a child's death. Then, for certain, one can say, 'Não teve jeito' (There was no solution, no hope, no cure). The evidence is right before one's eyes in a little blue coffin. This is compatible with the way that poor Brazilians generally diagnose their ills―that is, through a process (see Loyola 1984) of ‘successive elimination,’ a method of trial and error that reduces all the possible diagnoses down to the last one to be eliminated, a kind of differential diagnosis." 

This passage serves as a counterpoint to the author's prior-stated intention to identify with her subjects, versus remaining "objective.” It also indirectly disproves the author's earlier hypothesis: that infant death is processed by the community in a folk "localization" of Catholic Christianity. Instead, what the author is confronted with is a convoluted system of ex post facto rationalizations, the origin of which is the habituated powerlessness and confusion regarding infant care. The extent of infant care is so depressed, that even insight into child health is disrupted. What confronts and dismays is the realization that this system of folk belief is a stand-in for the kind of medical care and understanding unavailable to these residents.

"Contemporary theories of maternal sentiment―of mother love as we know and understand it―are the product of a very specific historical context. The invention of mother love corresponds not only with the rise of the modern, bourgeois, nuclear family (as Elizabeth Badninter [1980] pointed out) but also with the demographic transition: the precipitous decline in infant mortality and female fertility. My argument is a materialist one: mother love as defined in the psychological, social-historical, and sociological literatures is far from universal or innate and represents instead an ideological, symbolic representation grounded in the basic material conditions that define women's reproductive lives."

This quote wishes to critique the universality of the concept of "mother love" as the product of a particular historical context, one consistent with modern ideals, and provided by the decline of infant mortality and female fertility. In keeping with the materialist form of her argument, these are the "basic material conditions" that engender these ideals. Effectively, the author argues that the kind of "mother love" understood and experienced in developed nations is only possible under a certain level of development. Furthermore, Scheper-Hughes intends to illustrate how different material conditions of reproduction create different styles of "mother love." 

"'I am three times cursed. My husband was murdered before my own eyes. And I could not protect my son. The police made me pick over the mutilated in the morgue to find my De. And now I am forced to go on living. I only wish I had the luxury to hang myself. My husband could die. My son could die. But I cannot die. I am the matriz. My children and grandchildren still suck from my roots. Don't pity the young men and the infants who have died here on the Alto do Cruzeiro. Don't waste any tears on them. Pity us, Nancí. Weep for the mothers who are condemned to live.'" 

This is a powerful quotation from "Black Irene," a recurring figure throughout Death Without Weeping. Irene testifies to the deep despair felt by mothers and women of the Alto, who must endure the continual trauma and tragedy of their lives. Her feeling of life as a continual "curse" expresses her deep misery, yet reorients how to think about suffering and empathy: whereas it is customary to feel and express sympathy and emotion for loss, this quotation reemphasizes that the living suffer infinitely more than the dead.

"'No, Nancí, I won't cry,' she said. 'And I won't waste my life thinking about it morning to night. My life is hard enough. One husband hung himself, and another walked out on me. I work hard all day in the cane fields. What good would it do me to lie awake crying about my fate? Can I argue with God for the state that I'm in? No! So I'll dance and I'll jump and I'll play carnaval! And yes, I'll laugh, and people will wonder at a pobre like me who can have such a good time. But if I don't enjoy myself, if I can't amuse myself a little bit, well, then, I would rather be dead."

This quote of Biu's illustrates her particular ethos towards life―the particularity of which is found in the emphasis on "won't," in the first line. Biu is fully aware of the hardship she must face, but understands full well she does not have the luxury to dwell upon it, to indulge in self-pity. What this quote illustrates is that Biu's characteristic determination, independence, and work ethic is not innate, but a choice, a choice she makes repeatedly, based upon her own reflections and ideals; she can cry, but she won’t. However, apart from this statement of resilience, this quotation provides yet another example of the lucidity and clarity with which the people of the Alto understand themselves and their circumstances―and understand that in spite of anything, their lives have worth, and their choices matter.

"There are also excesses in carnaval. Sexuality, which is a gift from God, is often degraded and disrespected, especially in the form of female nudity. People can lose their sense of shame in carnaval. But carnaval is also an anesthesia for the people. It deadens the pain of so many problems and crises, all the hardships that our country is going through today. Carnaval is, so to speak, the opiate of the people. But that is not to condemn it. For people need to play. It is a time of great joy and of movement. People want to be happy. You can see that most of the people who are dancing in the blocos and samba schools are from the poorest classes. This is their one time during the year when they can stand out and be valorized for themselves. Carnaval is their heritage, and they have a right to it." 

This quotation, from Padre Agostino Leal, describes some of the social significance of carnaval, from a Catholic perspective. Padre Leal argues that carnaval is a time of excess, yet one which is important, even sacred to the community. In making this argument, he describes carnaval as an "opiate" for the pain of daily life. In doing so, he makes a connection between the celebration of carnaval and the deep social and economic issues plaguing the Northeast. The festival, he reasons, speaks to people's deep "need to play," to forget these troubles and experience a state outside of misery, repression, and exploitation all around them.

“Nothing is really forgotten in carnaval. ‘The awful thing is that nothing is ever forgotten.’ The face and the image of death are never very far from the frenzied animation of carnaval. Death's presence, immortalized in the film Black Orpheus, hovers in the background of all carnaval play. The seductive, mesmerizing steps of the samba and the great bounding leaps of the Nordestino frevo are played to, and danced against, death. Carnaval is both a celebration of the flesh and a farewell to the flesh, as it is in the original Latin carne vale. ‘Unto dust thou shalt return.’ As the famous carnaval song ends: ‘Happiness is fleeting. Sadness is forever. And playfulness comes to an end of quarta-fiera [Ash Wednesday].’”

This quote provides an illuminating connection between the social significance of carnaval among the people of the Northeast, and its Christian symbolism. The centrality of Death is, for the players and spectators of the festival, true to life. The dancing, the costumes, the "frenzied animation" can be understood as a means to represent the place of death in society. For those on the Alto, the meaning is much more immediate, and has to do with their own marginalization. For these people, the continued social and economic marginalization places them on the edge of society, and constantly on the brink of death. 

"The people of the Northeast have suffered a long history of popular uprisings, armed struggles, messianic movements, anarchist fantasies, social banditry, and Peasant Leagues, all of them crushed. And two decades of military government have driven the point home and taken a toll on people who cannot be depended on to police, silence, and check themselves. ‘Silence is protection,’ the people of the Alto are wont to say, often adding, ‘Whoever says nothing has nothing to fear.’ As for resistance, the leaders of UPAC often counsel each other to ‘take the path of least resistance’ each time they confront the unreasonable opposition of os grandes to their modest plans for improving the shantytown." 

This quotation explains the apparent passivity of the people of the Northeast, and puts the obvious ineffectiveness of political participation in context. Simply put, the constant threat of political violence fosters an environment that suppresses nearly all forms of substantive political activity and organization. In this environment, silence becomes another technique of survival. However, the effect of this political suppression goes further than discouraging overt political unrest or violent action; it blunts even modest, necessary measures to improve the lives of residents of the Alto. In this capacity, the author implies that the leaders of these organizations are also to blame, as well as the authorities. 

"For though there is much that separates and divides them, the people of the Alto are still united by a common destiny and a shared social identity in the shadow of their Cruzeiro, their monumental cross. They see themselves as a bairro sofredor, a patient and long-suffering community of sinners, and they make daily reference to the Alto as their ‘Calvary,’ their hill of penance as well as their hill of redemption. And so the shantytown is also called meu Alto do amor, the ‘hill of my affections,’ my beloved hill. And in addition to their individualized jetios and malandragem, there is also the Nordestino festive spirit―the parties, the revelries, and the often spontaneous gatherings on the Alto do Cruzeiro that are the transcendent, transgressive, and sometimes transformative celebrations of the collective, social body." 

This passage illustrates the significance of liberation theology to the social fabric of the Alto. In this configuration, the Alto is seen as a "collective social body," to which religious significance is attached. Christianity becomes a medium in which the community is able to come together and view itself as a single entity with a single destiny. The promises of redemption and transformation in the Christian religion are given immediate social and political ends within the framework of liberation theology. In this framework, the suffering of a community is an implied form of penance for sins, but is given an ultimately positive meaning.