This diploma thesis deals with the everyday life of journalists between years 1970 - 1990. It is divided into a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part draws mainly from books on sociology, Statistics Office and publications and journals of "The Journalist" ("Novinář") publishing. There are definitions of the key terms and statistic data on media, culture and life style in the first part. It also depicts Czech society in the time of Normalization, as well as professional and social structure of the population, scholar-ship and the position of a journalist in this era. The practical part is devoted to the interviews with journalists and analyses separate aspects of everyday life. This analysis was made with the usage of the qualitative method and compares particular responses of the journalists with the data from the theoretical part.

Le hasard est un thème classique et récurrent en sciences humaines mais ne constitue guère un objet à part entière pour la discipline sociologique. Le plus souvent, le vocable est évoqué pour l’analyse d’autres thématiques. Des champs tels que la sociologie des risques font ainsi avancer la réflexion sur la question de l’aléa mais ne la situent pas au centre des recherches. Pour comprendre les motifs de cette occultation, ce travail place le hasard comme objet sociologique et l’interroge sous ses angles théoriques et empiriques. L’objectif est de saisir son utilité en société, pour les membres et les institutions la formant, afin d’en révéler les fonctions et les modalités.Pour ce faire, une première partie explore les domaines de la connaissance étudiant le hasard à travers leurs théorisations respectives en suivant une logique pluridisciplinaire (philosophie, mathématiques, physiques, biologie, économie, anthropologie et sociologie). Ensuite, un terrain spécifique est retenu pour rendre compte des manières de vivre ce hasard dans des pratiques quotidiennes. Choisis pour leur popularité, les jeux d’alea sont étudiés dans une deuxième partie rapportant les investigations menées dans les trois secteurs historiques des jeux en France : la « Française des Jeux », les casinos et le « Pari Mutuel Urbain ». Dans un va-et-vient permanent entre recherches théorique et empirique, la place du hasard se laisse finalement appréhender : à la fois concept et moteur d’action, celui-ci s’inscrit dans une dynamique imaginaire traduite par ses représentations. Une troisième partie analyse ce processus de création et d’appréhension du monde social en reliant les connaissances acquises au cours des deux parties précédentes. Finalement, le statut et le rôle de l’aléa dans notre société contemporaine sont mieux appréhendés. / Chance is a classic and recurring theme in social sciences but does not really, by itself, constitute a sociological research topic. The term is generally used in the study of other subjects. For instance, fields such as the “sociology of risks” moved the issue of chance forward by using it in analyses, but these fields do not focus research on chance by itself. To understand the reasons for this, this study views chance as a sociological subject, and investigates it from its theoretical and empirical perspectives. The objective is to discover its usefulness in society, for the members and institutions which form that society, in order to expose the functions of chance.In order to achieve this, the first part of the study explores the different fields of knowledge which study chance in their respective theories, using a multidisciplinary logic (philosophy, mathematics, physics, biology, economics, anthropology and sociology.) Then, a specific field is selected to report ways of living this random and practice chance in everyday life. Because of their popularity, games of chance are studied in a second part of related investigations conducted in the three traditional sectors of games of chance in France: “Française des Jeux” (“French Games,”) casinos, and “Pari Mutuel Urbain” (“Urban Pari-Mutuel Betting.”) In going back-and-forth between theoretical and empirical research, the role of chance is finally understood: both in concept and as a motivation to act, chance is part of an imaginary dynamic that appears in its representations. A third section analyzes this process of creating and understanding the social world by linking the knowledge gained during the previous two parts. Finally, the place and the role of random in our contemporary society are better understood.

DPhil, School of Social Sciences, Dept of Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / This thesis investigates a number of economic and financial practices, processes, relationships, actors and institutions prevalent in the residential areas that form part of Johannesburg that is known as Soweto, all of which have in common the exchange, hoarding, spending and risking of cash money. It describes actual flows of monies between actors and through popular economic institutions which are embedded in social relations of friendship and kinship, neighbourhood life and socially constructed identities. Building on the anthropological literature that seeks to show how money flows carry meaning as well as having function, it inquires into the meanings such flows of money - between popular institutions and social groups and across social classes - have for a range of differently situated participants in the popular economies. It explores the ways in which institutions and practices within the popular economies are deployed by actors and groups so as to direct flows of monies into certain social networks and relationships while redirecting it away from others, highlighting the agency of actors and groups in relation to their position in the local and larger political economy. Employing elements of practice theory, as well as perspectives from both political economy and cultural economy approaches to everyday life, the thesis offers arguments about power, identity, agency and state sovereignty in the context of the history of Black Johannesburg under apartheid and makes a contribution to our understanding of the material and symbolic structures of everyday life in contemporary Soweto and Johannesburg.

Bakgrund: 20 000 personer i Sverige lever med Parkinsons sjukdom. Parkinsons sjukdom är en kronisk, neurologisk sjukdom som karaktäriseras av motoriska och icke-motoriska symtom. De motoriska symtomen försvårar utförandet av aktiviteter i det dagliga livet. Syfte: Syftet var att beskriva hur personer med Parkinsons sjukdom upplever att de motoriska symtomen påverkar det dagliga livet. Metod: En allmänlitteraturöversikt utifrån tio kvalitativa vetenskapliga artiklar. Resultat: En oförutsägbar kropp, förlorad självständighet och begränsning av det sociala livet var tre huvudkategorier som framkom i resultatet med respektive subkategorier. Resultatet visade att personer med Parkinsons sjukdom uttryckte att kroppen var olika från dag till dag vilket stoppade dem i det dagliga livet. Det ledde till en förändrad identitet och en känsla av förlorad självständighet. Konklusion: En ökad kunskap och förståelse för hur det är för personer att leva med Parkinsons sjukdom, kan ge sjuksköterskor möjlighet att bedriva en bättre personcentrerad vård kring personer med Parkinsons sjukdom. / Background: 20 000 people in Sweden are living with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson´s disease is a chronic neurologic disease characterised by motor and non-motor symptoms. The motor symptoms complicate the performance of activities in everyday life. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe how people with Parkinson’s disease experience how the motor symptoms affect their everyday life. Method: A general literature study based on ten qualitative scientific articles. Results: An unpredictable body, lost independence and limitations of social life was three main categories that emerged in the result with respective subcategories. The result showed that people with Parkinson’s disease expressed that the body was different from day to day, which stopped them in everyday life. This led to a changed identity and a sense of lost independence. Conclusion: An increased understanding in how people with Parkinson`s disease experience life, can give nurses an opportunity to give a better person-centered care to people with Parkinson´s disease.

The study of everyday life has become a new challenge in contemporary society. Over the last few decades there have been significant changes of temporal and spatial relationships, which now come in many different forms, some of which are relatively new phenomena (e.g. virtual relationships). The society differentiates also socially and culturally. People with different attitudes and values, habits and behaviours, people of different lifestyles meet at one place and encounter everyday lives of others. These facts demonstrate the importance of everyday life research. Everyday life is routine and self-evident for a man or group of people in a given space and time but otherwise it is variable and differentiated phenomenon. New issues arise in the context of contemporary changes that encourage the questioning the definitions of everyday life and also finding new methods of research. The thesis searches for the position of geography in the research of everyday life and thus contributes to the formation of a subdiscipline of geography that is not yet fully developed. Responding to approaches influenced by Time geography, which tend to reduce the daily lives of people on a path through time-space and create models of human behaviour, the thesis tries to "humanize" the path using concepts that reflect the...

Em 1998, após vinte anos de conquistas de infraestrutura para o bairro do Conjunto Palmeiras, em Fortaleza, Ceará, a pobreza e a geração de trabalho e renda apresentavam-se como os grandes desafios a serem enfrentados por seus moradores. Na busca por alternativas locais, estruturou-se uma estratégia de desenvolvimento comunitário que articulou o consumo à produção local. O consumo foi estimulado, inicialmente, por meio de um cartão de crédito chamado PalmaCard e, mais tarde, pelo uso da moeda social Palmas. Já a produção, foi incentivada a partir da oferta de crédito produtivo articulada à criação de pontos de comercialização locais como feiras, festivais e uma loja solidária, e ao fomento à formação de empreendimentos coletivos. Nascia, assim, o primeiro banco comunitário do Brasil: o Banco Palmas. As ações propostas pelo banco comunitário, com a formação de redes locais de produção e consumo, e o debate sobre o desenvolvimento do bairro abriram caminhos para a experimentação de valores antagônicos aos pregados pela sociedade atual: ao invés da competição, a afirmação do trabalho associado; do individualismo do empreendimento, a decisão coletiva. Por assumir múltiplas dimensões, o Banco Palmas se torna uma experiência potente para a análise das iniciativas de economia solidária que articulam a dimensão econômica às dimensões social e política. O lugar que essas experiências ocupam na vida cotidiana das pessoas passa pela importância da família na organização das relações sociais e da vida, da cultura clientelista, da referência ainda presente do trabalho assalariado, dos costumes e da cultura popular, do lugar da mulher, da relação com o bairro e a cidade e das políticas sociais dos últimos anos. Este trabalho é, portanto, uma tentativa de compreensão e de articulação entre esses elementos que compõem a trama de nossa dinâmica social, sendo o crédito, o banco comunitário, os serviços financeiros e a moeda social alguns de seus personagens. São diversas pontas e tentativas de ligação entre os elementos trazidos à cena. O Banco Palmas pode ser visto como instituição mediadora na promoção de relações diferenciadas para os moradores do bairro, ampliando o acesso à cidade, a espaços de participação e a novos sistemas simbólicos que permitem a conexão da vida a outras redes de sentidos e significados. Ancorada nos escritos de José de Souza Martins e, de alguma forma, nas ideias de Henri Lefebvre as contradições do vivido puderam se tornar material rico de análise. Algumas das principais reflexões tratam da articulação do tradicional e do moderno na configuração do Banco Palmas, da função do crédito na sustentação das relações dos moradores com o banco e da busca, a partir das relações de vizinhança e de família, em constituir uma experiência formal que pode basear a criação de uma referência menos privatizada da vida social / In 1998, after 20 years of achievements within the infrastructure at the neighbourhood of Conjunto Palmeiras at Fortaleza, Ceara, poverty and job and income generation were the major challenges to be overcome by its inhabitants. In search of local alternatives, the local Community Association (ASMOCONP) structured a strategy for community development capable of articulating local consumption and production. Consumption was initially stimulated by a credit card called PalmaCard, and later with the use of the social currency Palmas. Production was driven by offers of production credit and wholesaling strategic for local producers and retailers, fomenting collective entrepreneurs, creation of local retail areas for fairs, festivals and community shops. It was being born the first community bank in Brazil, Banco Palmas. The proposed actions, with creation of a local net of consumptions and production and debates upon neighbourhood improvement, instead of competition, partnership labour avowal; instead of the individualism of entrepreneurship, the collective decision making. By assuming multiple dimensions, Banco Palmas becomes a strong experience for the analysis of initiatives on solidary economy which articulated the economic realm towards social and political dimensions. Besides its importance as a mediation institution and in promoting unique relations for the local community, it enlarges access to the city, to places of participation and to symbolic new systems which allow the connections of life to other networks of sense and meaning. The place in which these experiences occupy in peoples everyday life, bears the importance of family, once it organizes social relations and life, of cultural clientele, of a reference still present of labour, customs and popular cultura, of women\'s place within society, of relationships between the neighbourhood and the city, of social policies from earlier years. This work is an attempt to get comprehension and articulation of elements that constitute this web of social dynamic, being credit, community bank, financing and loan services, and social currency a few of the players. It is a variety of loose pieces and connection attempts among elements brought about the scene. Anchored on writings by José de Souza Martins and, at some level, in the ideas of Henri Lefebvre, the contradictions of the living become a rich material for analysis. Some of the main reflexions deal with the articulation of the traditional and the modern in Banco Palmas configuration; of the function of credit within the maintenance of relationships between neighbourhood and families\' constitution, a formal experience that can be the basis for the creation of a reference of social life less privatized

Este trabalho procura revelar um movimento do pensamento teórico. Esse pensamento parte de uma consideração ou reconhecimento: o da pertinência da noção de violência urbana para o entendimento dos conteúdos da problemática urbana que se anuncia no mundo moderno. O processo investigativo, no entanto, revelou os limites explicativos do termo violência urbana, completamente definido e confundido no âmbito das Ciências Humanas, de um modo geral - com a noção de criminalidade. Essa identidade (violência-criminalidade) coloca problemas à análise crítica do urbano, e obscurece os caminhos para o desvendamento da essência dos conteúdos da prática social que pretendem ser expressos por meio do termo violência urbana. Do reconhecimento dos limites, o pensamento se movimenta para um segundo momento da pesquisa: o do reconhecimento da insuficiência da noção de violência urbana para o desvendamento da relação entre violência e problemática urbana. A partir desse movimento, o objeto da pesquisa se mobiliza. Posto que nossas perguntas essenciais não puderam ser suficientemente respondidas a partir da noção de violência urbana, uma inversão analítica se pôs como necessidade. Para além da noção de criminalidade, o objetivo da pesquisa passa a ser o desvendamento da constituição de uma violência que está necessariamente fundamentada e articulada com os processos de produção do espaço urbano e de reprodução das relações sociais. Procura-se, assim, refletir não mais sobre a violência urbana, mas o próprio processo de urbanização como um processo essencialmente violento. Para isso, definimos três vias de entrada para acessar os conteúdos propriamente violentos do processo de urbanização, a fim de revelar como forças intencionais e provocadoras de profundos danos sociais se realizariam no urbano. Em primeiro lugar, consideramos o papel da propriedade privada da terra, como um dos fundamentos que realiza a violência do processo de urbanização. Procuramos compreender em que medida a violência é representada pelos processos de expropriação e segregação, ligados estruturalmente à instituição da propriedade privada da terra como fundamento da urbanização. Em segundo lugar, destacamos o papel do Estado - representado pelo urbanismo/planejamento urbano na produção do espaço urbano e na reprodução das relações de troca, cujo conteúdo imanente é a violência. Por fim, procuramos desvendar como alguns dos constrangimentos postos no e pelo processo de urbanização capitalista constituem, ao nível da vida cotidiana, formas de manifestação da violência intimamente ligada a esse processo. Ainda que a pesquisa não tenha constituído propriamente um estudo de caso, partimos da investigação de um fragmento espacial da metrópole de São Paulo: o fragmento que compreende o bairro Real Parque, as favelas Real Parque e Jardim Panorama e o Empreendimento Parque Cidade Jardim, todos situados administrativamente no distrito do Morumbi, zona oeste da capital paulistana. Através da articulação entre totalidade e particularidade procuramos desvendar os conteúdos do processo de urbanização capitalista, centrando nossa análise em um desses conteúdos a violência -, que não se constitui como o único conteúdo, nem como o mais importante, mas certamente como fundamental ao desvendamento da produção do espaço urbano a partir de seus fundamentos críticos. / This thesis attempts to propose a movement of theoretical thinking. This movement begins with a proposition or acknowledgment: the relevance of the notion of urban violence for understanding the contents of the urban problematic that the modern world announces. The investigation, however, has revealed the limits of the phrase urban violence, defined by and confused with in the social sciences in general the idea of criminality. This identification (violence with criminality) poses obstacles to a critical analysis of the urban, obscuring the path towards an understanding of the essence of the social practice that is supposedly grasped by the notion of urban violence. Acknowledging these limitations, the reflection shifts to a second moment of the research: that of coming to terms with the inadequateness of the notion of urban violence for revealing the relations between violence and urban problematic. This brings us to the subject of this research. Considering that our key questions could not be answered with the notion of urban violence, an analytical inversion emerged as necessary. Moving beyond the notion of criminality, the aim of this research is to cast light on the emergence of a violence that is linked with and has roots in the processes of production of the urban space and reproduction of the relations of production. We intend, thus, to bring into focus not urban violence, but instead the very process of urbanization as a process that is essentially violent. In order to do so, we have identified three access points to the violent aspects of urbanization, with the aim of revealing intentional and socially damaging forces that are embodied in the urban. Firstly, we have considered the role of private property as one of the bases of urbanizations violence. We have attempted to understand the extent to which violence is materialized in the processes of expropriation and segregation structurally linked with private property as the basis of urbanization. Secondly, we have highlighted the states role represented here by urban planning in the production of urban space and in the reproduction of market exchange relations whose immanent content is violence. Finally, we have tried to demonstrate how a number of constraints posed by capitalist urbanization translate, at the level of everyday life, into manifestations of the violence closely linked with this process. While we have not defined a case study, we have set out with an investigation of a spatial fragment in Sao Paulo: Jardim Panorama and the neighboring development Parque Cidade Jardim, located in Morumbi district, in the western section of the city. By articulating totality and particularity, we have tried to bring to light the contents of capitalist urbanization, centering our analysis on one of such contents (violence). Violence is certainly neither the only nor the primary aspect of the urbanization process, but it is certainly relevant for grasping the production of urban space from the perspective of its critical foundations.

Esta pesquisa trata de reconhecer e localizar na obra do escritor francês Georges Perec (1936-1982) o que instiga uma produção significativa ligada à Arte Contemporânea por meio do diálogo com três artistas: Arman, Joe Brainard e Édouard Levé. A parte da sua obra que interessa à pesquisa é aquela fixada no real, no espaço, nos lugares, nos rituais e procedimentos repetitivos, no cotidiano e nas coisas materiais que constroem um mundo de desimportâncias um mundo comum que serve de pano de fundo às ações diárias do banal urbano. A pesquisa está dividida em três capítulos, cada um deles centrado numa maneira particular de agrupar as coisas: no primeiro, dedicado à acumulação, procura-se diferenciar a coisa do objeto e identificar como os valores da sociedade de consumo se apresentam nas obras de Perec e de Arman; no segundo, dedicado à coleção, o interesse são as coisas comuns, o cotidiano indistinto, e a formulação de regras que ajudam Perec e Joe Brainard a compor um sentido para seus fragmentos de lembranças; já no terceiro e último capítulo, é o arquivo que guarda documentos, resultado de projetos de seus criadores, que vai permitir a Perec e a Édouard Levé encararem seus não-lugares para revelar o que acontece quando não acontece nada. / This research aims at recognizing and locating, in the work of the French writer Georges Perec (1936-1982), some of the elements of his production that can be seen as significantly linked to Contemporary Art. This process of recognizing and location will be take shape through the dialogue with three artists: Arman, Joe Brainard and Édouard Levé. The part of Perecs work that interests this research is the one grounded in reality, in the urban space, in places, rituals and repetitive procedures, in everyday life and in material things that make up a world of irrelevance - a common world that serves as background to the daily actions we see in ordinary urban life. This research is divided into three chapters, each one of them focusing on a particular way of grouping things: the first one which is dedicated to the accumulation, tries to differentiate the concept of thing from the notion of object and identify how the values of consumer society appear in the works of Perec and Arman; the second chapter, which is dedicated to the collection focuses on shared things, on the indistinctive aspect of everyday life, and on the formulation of rules that help Perec and Joe Brainard make sense of the fragments of their memories; now, in the third and final chapter, it is the file (which results from the artists projects) that will allow Perec and Édouard Levé to envisage their non-places to reveal what happens when nothing happens.

Esta tese se propõe a investigar as potencialidades estéticas e críticas vinculadas à presença dos atores do cotidiano no âmbito das artes cênicas contemporâneas, com recorte em criações produzidas no Brasil e na Europa neste início de século XXI. O termo compreende pessoas que não necessariamente possuem formação artística e são convidadas a participar de uma criação a partir de uma perspectiva autorreferencial. Parte-se da hipótese de que a incorporação dos atores do cotidiano colabora para alterar o próprio \"regime de visibilidade\" (RANCIÈRE, 2009) dos corpos e subjetividades no âmbito das artes cênicas, ao ampliar as possibilidades sobre quem pode atuar no teatro e na dança. A partir do diálogo com os conceitos de teatros do real (SAISON, 1998; FERNANDES, 2010; MARTIN, 2013), teatralidade expandida (DIÉGUEZ, 2014; SÁNCHEZ, 2015) e teatralidade do público (CORNAGO, 2015), a pesquisa centra-se na análise da trajetória e de obras específicas de artistas da cena contemporânea que se destacam pelo trabalho com os atores do cotidiano, como o diretor francês Jérôme Bel, a brasileira Cia. Hiato, o coletivo suíço-alemão Rimini Protokoll e o diretor catalão Roger Bernat. A partir dessa análise, são traçadas algumas potencialidades vinculadas aos trabalhos, com destaque para a subversão de tradicionais códigos cênicos da representação, a intensificação da partilha de experiências com o espectador, a aproximação das artes cênicas com os campos da realidade e do cotidiano, a problematização de questões relativas à alteridade, a irrupção de uma teatralidade do coletivo, a projeção de espelhamentos com o público e sua participação na obra e, finalmente, o diálogo com o contexto onde o espetáculo acontece. Esse tipo de participação reflete um modo específico de expansão de linguagem do teatro e da dança. E mostra como a presença dos atores do cotidiano colabora para transformar as \"maneiras de fazer\" e os \"modos de pensabilidade\" (RANCIÈRE, 2009) das artes cênicas contemporâneas. / This thesis aims to investigate the aesthetic and critic potentialities related to the presence of the actors of everyday life in the context of contemporary performing arts, addressing creations produced in Brazil and Europe at the beginning of 21st century. The term includes people who do not necessarily have artistic training and are invited to take part in current creations from a self-referential perspective. We start from the hypothesis that the incorporation of actors of everyday life collaborate to change the \"regime of visibility\" (RANCIÈRE, 2009) of bodies and subjectivities in the context of performing arts, by broadening the possibilities about who acts in theatre and dance. From the dialogue with the concepts of theatres of the real (SAISON, 1998; FERNANDES, 2010; MARTIN, 2013), expanded theatricality (DIÉGUEZ, 2014; SÁNCHEZ, 2015), and audience theatricality (CORNAGO, 2015), this research focuses on the analysis of the trajectory and of specific works of artists from the contemporary scene who stand out by their work with actors of everyday life, such as French director Jérôme Bel, the Brazilian Cia. Hiato, the Swiss-German collective Rimini Protokoll, and Catalan director Roger Bernat. From this analysis, we outline some some potentialities linked to their works, focusing on the subversion of traditional theatrical codes of representation, the intensification of experience sharing with the spectator, the approach of the performing arts with the fields of reality and everyday life, the questioning of issues relating to otherness, the irruption of a theatricality of the collective, the projection of mirrors with the audience and its participation in the work, and, finally, the dialogue with the context in which the spectacle takes place. That kind of participation reflects a specific way with which theatre and dance have been working their language expansion. And it shows how the presence of everyday actors collaborates to transform the \"ways of doing\" and the \"ways of thinking\" (RANCIÈRE, 2009) of the contemporary performing arts.

Abordamos os romances Guia afetivo da periferia, do escritor brasileiro Marcus Vinícius Faustini, e Marginais, do escritor cabo-verdiano Evel Rocha, com o interesse de estudar seus protagonistas, personagens pobres que vivem em zonas urbanas. Motivou-nos o interesse de entender como estão representadas e, por isso, tratamos de investigar suas experiências cotidianas, a partir do que pudemos identificar algumas de suas características e atitudes. Essa investigação teve como suporte teórico textos que defendem a importância de uma hermenêutica do cotidiano, recomendando a sua realização como uma forma de se potencializar a documentação de experiências de vidas anônimas e de demandas sociais legítimas, mas escondidas para a conveniência dos grupos hegemônicos. Essa hermenêutica se baseia na compreensão de que aquilo que se vive informalmente deve ser entendido como uma alavanca para o conhecimento humano. Analisamos cinco unidades temáticas mínimas que se evidenciaram comuns aos romances: vida, morte, doença, trabalho e território. Constatamos que a forma como os dois textos retratam a vida na periferia são complementares, não obstante, individualmente, privilegiem visões unívocas da realidade social que retratam. Também constatamos que os romances tanto inovam na abordagem de alguns temas, como o combate à tuberculose e a opção pelo autoemprego, como, de algum modo, ratificam posições que cerceiam os seres humanos, como quando atrelam a noção de decência ao fato de se estar ou não empregado e a pobreza à criminalidade. / We have addressed the novels Guia afetivo da periferia, by the Brazilian writer Marcus Vinícius Faustini, and Marginais, by the Cape Verdean writer Evel Rocha, in order to study their protagonists, characters that live in poverty in urban areas. Our motivation was the need to understand how they are portrayed. We therefore delved into the investigation of their daily experiences, and from that we were able to identify some of their characteristics and attitudes. The investigation was based on theoretical texts that defend the importance of a hermeneutic of everyday life, pointing to it as a way of optimizing the recording of anonymous life experiences and legitimate social demands that are hidden at the hegemonic groups\' convenience. Such hermeneutic is based on the understanding that informal life experiences should be understood as leveraging human knowledge. We have analyzed five motifs that proved to be common to both novels: life, death, disease, work and territory. We found that the way both texts portray life in the inner cities are complementary, although, individually, they emphasize one-sided visions of the social reality they portray. We have also found that the novels innovate in the way they address some themes, such as the fight against tuberculosis and the option for self-employment, and at the same time somehow ratify positions that restrain human beings, for example when they link the notion of decency to having or not employment contract and poverty to criminality.