Malandros, María Lionza and Masculinity in a Venezuelan Shantytown

Abstract

If we were to regard E.H.’s public persona from the point of view of Venezuela’s prevalent official discourses and practices of exclusion, he would no doubt belong to the brand of dangerous barrio (shantytown) youngsters and grown-up men lumped under the label of malandros (thugs). As an ordinary inhabitant of the shantytowns of Caracas, E.H. personifies in his very flesh and personal style the suspicious appearance named by Julio de Freitas (1995: 3-4) as typical of the streets of Venezuela’s capital city. E.H. is an ordinary tierrúo who, once out of his immediate urban territory, his shantytown, frequently notices that others cross the street to avoid him, that merchants lock their shops upon spotting him, that police officers comment on how he does not fit in and that they may reach for their guns or harass him, that taxi drivers speed away while refusing him a ride.