Burning witches: feminism and intimate femicides by burning in a Brazilian metropolis

Abstract

Feminicide configured as the murder of women due to unequal power relations. It is a growing reality that generates problems and exposes unequal gender, ethnic, and class rela-tionships that culminate in extreme violence and death. This paper analyzes three femicide cases by burning that occurred in Campinas (SP), Brazil, from 2018 to 2019. This is a qualitative study that employed the verbal autopsy method to collect information and narratives to describe the cases. The circumstances of the women’s deaths were discussed, integrating in the discussion the con-cepts of feminism, the symbolic representation of fire, intersectionality, patriarchy, and its implica-tions from the perspective of collective health.