'This is Iraq. People are afraid': resistance and mobilization in the Maré favelas (Rio de Janeiro)

Violence among criminal groups in dispute over domination of drug traffick ing in the favelas and intervention by the state security forces in those areas encourage a climate of fear and oppression that intensifies the segregation that historically afflicts their residents. In Maré, an area of Rio de Janeiro made up of sixteen favelas, some of the most powerful drug trafficking factions operate, and armed conflicts and aggressive behavior by the police are commonplace. This is the backdrop against which the residents of Maré and local organizations have mobilized against the constant violations of their human rights, following an upsurge in the number of conflicts. This article intends to debate the issue of violence in Rio de Janeiro, presenting some of the social struggles that the population of Maré has fought in recent times.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Neighborhood’s reinvention? Ethnography of the public art gallery at Quinta do Mocho

Quinta do Mocho, located in the city of Loures, has become known by the media as one of the main “problematic neighborhoods” of the metropolitan area of Lisbon, a label based on the alleged relationship of its young residents with drugs trafficking and violent crime. Nowadays, the reasons that made Quinta do Mocho newsworty have become different, as the neighborhood was converted into the largest open-air urban art gallery in Europe, with more than seventy pieces of graffiti decorating this social housing, where about three thousand people live. Incorporated in the Public Art Gallery (GAP), this project began in September 2014, within the urban art festival called “O Bairro I o Mundo, organized by the Teatro Ibisco Association and the Loures City Council. If this project of artistic intervention is changing the Quinta do Mocho image from outside, it is important to find out how the inhabitants, the overwhelming majority coming from former Portuguese colonies, are dealing with these changes. Will the population become involved in the artistic intervention that is developing in the neighborhood? To what extent with the valorization of the neighborhood through art be capable of reconfiguring the place of its residents, especially the young people, in the hierarchy of the city? Based on an ethnographic accompaniment to the guided tours that the young people carry out in the neighborhood, I will reflect on the art, the segregation and dynamics of political-citizen engagement. If artistic expressions are an excellent way to get around the segregations and stigmatization process among the subaltern classes, it is important to discuss its limits, as well the political instrumentalization of art to approaching social problems.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Neighborhood’s reinvention? Ethnography of the Public Art Gallery at Quinta do Mocho

Quinta do Mocho, located in the city of Loures, has become known by the media as one of the main “problematic neighborhoods” of the metropolitan area of Lisbon, a label based on the alleged relationship of its young residents with drugs trafficking and violent crime. Nowadays, the reasons that made Quinta do Mocho newsworty have become different, as the neighborhood was converted into the largest open-air urban art gallery in Europe, with more than sixty pieces of graffiti decorating this social housing, where about three thousand people live. Incorporated in the Public Art Gallery (GAP), this project began in September 2014, within the urban art festival called “O Bairro I o Mundo, organized by the Teatro Ibisco Association and the Loures City Council. If this project of artistic intervention is changing the Quinta do Mocho image from outside, it is important to find out how the inhabitants, the overwhelming majority coming from former Portuguese colonies, are dealing with these changes. Will the population become involved in the artistic intervention that is developing in the neighborhood? To what extent with the valorization of the neighborhood through art be capable of reconfiguring the place of its residents, especially the young people, in the hierarchy of the city? Based on an ethnographic accompaniment to the guided tours that the young people carry out in the neighborhood, I will reflect on the art, the segregation and dynamics of political-citizen engagement. If artistic expressions are an excellent way to get around the segregations and stigmatization process among the subaltern classes, it is important to discuss its limits, as well the political instrumentalization of art to approaching social problems.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

B-boys (Rio de Janeiro) and rappers (Lisbon) in search of recognition: a brief comparison

Since the first appearance of rockers, there has been an explosion of youth cultures (mods, punks, teddy boys, etc.). Today’s youth movements are now led by rappers, b-boys, funkeiros, 1surfers, goths, emos and others. Globalization has connected different countries, cultures and organizations, producing shared identities for a common, transnational community. There are now young people all over the world who rap or break-dance, enjoying aspects of so-called ‘hip-hop culture’.2This efficient means of asserting identity and gaining visibility is used by young people in the outskirts of Lisbon in Portugal, and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, to try and counter the subordinate status thrust upon them. In this chapter, I compare the creative way in which two groups of young people –b-boys from Maré, a favela (shanty town) in Rio de Janeiro, and rappers from Arrantela, a suburb of Lisbon –appropriate cultural styles to create positive self-image and question prevailing ideas about their place in society, contributing towards new meanings for their identity as poor, young, black people. Both groups make use of performance as a way to feel their existence is valued, at the same time building more wide-reaching parameters for integration into their cities.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Street art commodification and (an)aesthetic policies on the outskirts of Lisbon

In this article, I discuss how street art has become an ally of urban policies molded by the creative city paradigm in marginalized neighborhoods of Lisbon (Portugal). Based on a dense ethnography of a peripheral neighborhood of this Southern European city, I follow the trail left by how public power uses the commodification of street art as an instrument for urban regeneration, touristification, and management of inequalities. The different meanings and interests around this policy are examined in street art festivals and tours, focused on the participation of young people as local guides. This urban policy has changed the negative public image of the neighborhood, with street art being combined with a multicultural experience commodified in guided tours for tourists. However, by ignoring the opinions of the residents on the interventions, this policy follows a top-down approach in which street art aesthetics operate as a device of subjugation and maintenance of the subaltern, beautifying processes of exclusion.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The reinvention of a peripheral neighbourhood in Lisbon: Reflections on urban art, ethnography and public policy

In Quinta do Mocho, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Lisbon, young residents have started working with the city council as community guides for an urban art project. In a few years, the neighborhood, which had until that point been represented as a synonym for violence and decadence, became an open-air “art gallery” visited by thousands of tourists. In light of this new context, it is important to discover how the neighborhood’s residents are dealing with these changes. Based on an ethnographic accompaniment of the guided tours and daily lives of the young guides, this chapter aims to contribute to a reflection on art, ethnography, stigma, segregation and public policies.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Wojna i pokój. Konflikt społeczno-polityczny a sztuka ulicy

This essay’s main concern is urban art and postcolonial identitary configurations in Portugal. Focusing on several artistic and cultural productions arising from the “peripheral” spaces of Cova da Moura and Quinta do Mocho in Lisbon (two spaces which are marked by the presence of populations of African origin), it examines how urban creativity is challenging straightforward and unproblematic understanding of the country’s relation with its colonial past. Associated with violence and marginality in the Portuguese imagination, both racialized neighborhoods are nowadays active contexts of cultural production and are particularly fertile in terms of urban art and music. Nowadays, they are integrated into the cultural circuits of Lisbon, a city that has become a top international cultural and touristic referent. This article’s central objective is analysis of the contradictions brought about by this process.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The black beat of Lisbon: Sociabilities, music and resistances

Since the 1970s, Portugal has established itself as one of the largest migratory flows of Africans to Europe, especially from its former colonies to the Portuguese capital. Gradually, there are numerous precarious and informal construction neighborhoods, with the presence of Angolans, Cape Verdeans, Guineans and Sao Tome, where cultural expressions of the diaspora's musical repertoire are affirmed. From the 2000s, the phenomenon of music digitization contributed to the maintenance of permanent and instantaneous exchanges with what was played and consumed in the countries of origin. New opportunities for crosses and reinterpretations of musical genres have become possible, reinforced by the local senses conferred by young people born and / or raised in Afro-Lisbon producing innovative aesthetic expressions. Started by young blacks, a musical scene with its own circuits of production, circulation and consumption known as "batida" appears in the outskirts of Lisbon, a style influenced by African rhythms, namely Angola's kuduro and electronic music. Djs were the main responsible for affirming this new style, giving this sound a centrality in the market of youth consumption in Portugal and in Europe. Quinta do Mocho is a key neighborhood to understand this dynamics, where from very precarious conditions, some young people took advantage of the opportunities offered by digital devices to create this rhythm, also moving local sociabilities and parties. Home to some of the country's top "batida" Djs, Quinta do Mocho has become an area of intense musical production, where home studios and street parties influence the new global fashions. If some of the DJs in the neighborhood make a music career, most of them do not have the opportunity to make it a full and autonomous profession. In this article, we propose to analyze the trajectories of these young Djs, correlating their life experiences with the transformations that have occurred in the neighborhood and in the musical genre "beat" in recent years. We intend to analyze the relationship between creativity and sociability in music with the resistances built by them in relation to racism, segregation and colonialist forms of social demarcation of existence, space and knowledge.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Insurgent aesthetics: Creole rap from the outskirts of Lisbon

The invisibility of the people of African descent in Portugal has been challenged in recent years by a diversity of agents. From the artistic-cultural field to political activism, the voice of those who contest a homogeneous model of Portugueseness based on whiteness and a narrative of exceptionality grows. Black rappers from the outskirts of Lisbon were one of the pioneers in denouncing these contradictions, narrating in their songs the intercultural daily life of their neighborhoods and the tensions of living in a society that sees them as outsiders. The possession of digital devices has opened up new opportunities for these peripheral artists, multiplying the possibilities for them to be heard and made visible. In close connection with the new technologies, they build an insurgent aesthetic that values marginalized areas of the city while at the same time making visible an Afro-Lisbon that is not recognized by the official institutions of State.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Bottom-up creativity and insurgent citizenship in “Afro Lisboa”: Racial difference and cultural commodification in Portugal

This article analyzes recent audio-visual creativity by young Afrodescendants emerging out of the outskirts of Lisbon. We argue that those cultural productions are challenging unproblematic identifications of the Portuguese capital as a multicultural city shaped by African communities. Responding to issues of racism, police violence, and urban marginalization, but also to celebratory views of Portuguese society as exempt of racial discrimination, the communities inhabiting the neighborhoods of Cova da Moura and Quinta do Mocho are employing creative means to develop a positive identification of afro-diasporic communities. Engaging those means, this article places bottom-up creativity side by side to the activity of Lisbon cultural institutions such as museums and contemporary art centers. It also addresses the relevance of visual and musical creativity to counter the stereotypes and images frequently used to categorize racialized subjects and communities in Portugal. Finally, it explores the strategies employed by the residents of the above mentioned neighborhoods to struggle against the process of cultural gentrification Lisbon is going through.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio