About circuit parties and the notion of Scene: reflections on an ethnographic work with the goths in São Paulo

Abstract

The gothic scene in São Paulo is a notion that runs from the early 1990s through the production of nightclubs and fanzines, as well as other cultural productions focused in the gothic public. With ethnographic work, it was identified that the regularity of cultural practices and the exercise of goth’s sociability in São Paulo are understood through the gothic party circuit. But this notion of circuit doesn’t turn the category of scene reducible. The goths from São Paulo share cultural flows in the dimension of the world gothic scene, indicating the worldwide dimension of this youth culture. However, local specificities of this scene, especially those relating to the actions of specific social actors, suggest that the notion of São Paulo gothic scene carries a temporal dimension in which we understand the organization of the goth’s meaning universe in Sao Paulo, as well as their modifications.