This paper explores how material and immaterial transmissions within kinship networks shape intergenerational dialogue and collective memory in Barão de Juparanã, a community in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, locally known as the ‘city of cousins’. Drawing on ethnographic and visual anthropology research, I examine how family photo albums, oral narratives, and genealogical artefacts reveal not only biological inheritance but also social, emotional, and supernatural ‘contagions’ including illness, misfortune, and ancestral ‘curses’ that reverberate across generations.
Moving beyond genealogy as a tool for lineage tracing, the study foregrounds a broader conceptualisation of inheritance that encompasses both nurturing legacies and harmful transmissions. The analysis engages with the notion of hauntology, in which unresolved familial traumas and afflictions persist, haunting the present and shaping embodied experience. This ambivalent inheritance invites a rethinking of kinship as a site of ongoing negotiation between memory, identity, and healing.
The research also critiques biomedical models of disease transmission by incorporating culturally embedded interpretations of illness and fate, thereby underscoring the need for culturally responsive approaches to public health. Through intergenerational dialogue, families produce alternative temporalities and systems of knowledge that challenge dominant narratives while reinforcing communal resilience and practices of social repair.
Ultimately, the paper argues that attending to both material and immaterial forms of transmission within genealogical practices offers critical insight into futures of collective well-being, particularly in contexts marked by racialised, gendered, and historical inequalities. It contributes to ongoing debates on the transformative potential of intergenerational dialogue in fostering inclusive, justice-oriented social futures.