Beyond the Institutional Order: Culture and the Formation of New Political Subjects in the Peripheries of São Paulo

• Author: Leonardo Fontes
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Date: 01 September 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20933971
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20933971

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 234, Vol. 47 No. 5, September 2020, 79–93

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20933971

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

79

Beyond the Institutional Order

Culture and the Formation of New Political Subjects

in the Peripheries of São Paulo

by

Leonardo Fontes

Translated by

Patricia Fierro

Ethnographic research on the formation of new political subjects in the peripheries of

São Paulo in a context of progressive governments and intense economic and social

change suggests that cultural groups and especially poetry recitals play a fundamental

role in a cultural struggle to articulate the valuation of a more communal way of life and

a peripheral identity. In addition to contributing to the emergence of new public issues

in the outskirts of São Paulo, the recitals have become known as venues for political

formation in opposition to or in addition to more established spaces such as nongovern-

mental organizations, political parties, and the state itself.

Pesquisas etnográficas sobre a formação de novos sujeitos políticos nas periferias de São

Paulo, em um contexto de governos progressistas e intensa mudança econômica e social,

sugerem que grupos culturais e, especialmente, saraus de poesia desempenham papel fun-

damental na luta cultural para articular a valorização de uma sociedade com mais estilo

de vida comunitária e uma identidade periférica. Além de contribuir para o surgimento de

novas questões públicas nos arredores de São Paulo, os saraus ficaram conhecidos como

locais de formação política de oposição contra, ou além de, espaços mais estabelecidos, como

organizações não-governamentais, partidos políticos e o próprio Estado.

Keywords: Culture, Social movements, Periphery, Right to the city, São Paulo

This article seeks to examine the possibility of the formation of new political

subjects (Sader, 1988)1 in urban peripheries in a context of intense political,

economic, and social change. In addition to shifts in the daily lives of the resi-

dents of the outskirts of São Paulo, where the empirical research that underlies

this text was developed, it is important to emphasize the Brazilian political

context in which governments led by the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’

Party—PT) occupied the federal government and, in the case of São Paulo, the

local administration between 2013 and 2016.

This context presented particular challenges and opportunities for the forma-

tion and mobilization of social movements, as well as frustrations, especially for

Leonardo Fontes is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning

(CEBRAP), grant 2019/13125-2, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and has a Ph.D. in

sociology from the Institute of Social and Political Studies of the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

Patricia Fierro is an American Translators Association–certified translator living in Quito, Ecuador.

933971LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20933971LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVESFontes / CULTURE AND NEW POLITICAL SUBJECTS IN THE PERIPHERIES OF SÃO PAULO

research-article2020