Rumo às epistemologias das quebradas: iniciativas juvenis em arte e comunicação em Salvador (Bahia, Brasil) e Cali (Valle Del Cauca, Colômbia)

Abstract

This “teia-tese” is a work made with layers and dialogue. The crossroads was adopted as a conceptual provider to observe how youths act politically, producing art and communication in the working-class suburbs of Salvador (Bahia, Brazil) and Cali (Valle Del Cauca, Colombia). After an initial mapping 173 collectives (127 in Salvador and 46 in Cali) were identified, 28 of which were followed in this research. Together, we organized a participatory research group. From dialogues (talks, writing workshops, virtual exchanges, etc.) the research hypothesis was consolidated, as well as the question that began to guide this “Web-Dissertation”: Using their artistic productions as tactics and protest, are the group of young people from the suburbs of Salvador and Cali producing knowledge capable of contribute to the emancipation processes of their territories? Would this process lead in the direction of an epistemology of the suburbs? To open this discussion, I found support in the interactions with the young groups and, additionally, in “Epistemologias do Sul” (SANTOS, 1989; 2017), in “Movimento Negro Educador” (GOMES, 2017), in “Pedagogia das Encruzilhadas” (RUFINO, 2018; 2019) and in “Letramentos de Reexistência” (SOUZA, 2011). The challenge was to observe the epistemes that stress a so-called “single epistemology”. I connected the youth experiences with the aim of identifying recurrences between their practices and productions and, from these, to observe convergences (not the equivalences, since this is not a comparative study). The identified convergences are related, therefore, to the ethical-aesthetic basis that supports what I call emancipating cultural push, configuring the possible epistemology of the suburbs. I noted that these “youths in movement” organize themselves having art and communication as pedagogical foundation, their ancestry as compass, their territory as anchor and the bet in the communal element as a catalyst for action. Through the political use of words, these youth elaborate epistemic bypasses: collective tactics that aim to give a new meaning to the stigmatized imaginary. This knowledge production that occurs under tension, in a constant negotiation with the establishment, finds support in the Afro-diasporic cosmovision. The construction of a community sense allows the initiatives to promote a continuous process of self-formation and peer-formation that, in turn, is related to a movement to defend the territory and the life that inhabit it. With their actions and artistic and communication productions, more than resisting, they are challenging different canons, remaking questions and pressuring what is conventionally called legitimate knowledge.