Distinctive logics, cultural circulation, and tensioning of symbolic boundaries

cultural production from and in the peripheries of São Paulo-SP

Abstract

In the last two decades, the city of São Paulo has witnessed the implementation of public policies aimed at fostering cultural production in the periphery, leading to the expansion of cultural initiatives and collectives that signal and claim the characteristics of peripheral experience and sociability. At the same time, broader social processes – such as the increased circulation of repertoires due to mundialization of culture, and social inclusion policies – have been enabling the increased circulation of peripheral agents in spaces of legitimate culture consecration, previously restricted to the elites. In light of this scenario the paper suggests the configuration of a specific form of cultural capital, which combines the everyday experience in periphery with the incorporation of languages and forms of expression legitimized by instances of consecration, questioning whether, and to what extent, this capital has been mobilized in the tensioning of the logics of distinction that sustain established symbolic boundaries.