Outline of a sociology of intimate troubles: The “passages” of a single self between Evangelicalism and crime

Abstract

This article is a study on life trajectories and changes of the self of one single person, following the transformation processes that occurred in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas during the last two decades and focusing on the relationship between Evangelicals and drug traffickers. Based on an ethnography of almost two years in Cidade de Deus favela, the trajectory of a single individual, a former drug dealer and a crack addict who switched between the church and the traffic throughout the fieldwork process, is presented in what can be called sociology of intimate troubles or sociology of self-inquiry, that is, a methodology that aims to capture the actors through their problems.