Literature as action and cooperation

sociological contributions towards an understanding of a cultural movement in the urban periphery of the city of São Paulo

Abstract

In this text, I elaborate methodological reflections about an important moment of a fieldwork carried out with the Movement of Marginal Literature in São Paulo, Brazil. In order to do so, I present my experience in a specific instance of production, diffusion and consumption of literature, the Sarau da Brasa, a cultural collective which has emerged in the neighborhood of Brasilândia, the northern part of the city. Then I draw upon some materials obtained throughout my research, including from other events I have attended, to shed light on the way the members of the literary movement act and organize themselves. By bringing a specific peripheral literary scene to the analysis, I aim at examining the dynamics of the “saraus” (poetry slams, open mic events)which allow the emergence of writers who call themselves “marginal”, as well as the production of literary objects brought from the bonds that the agents establish with peripheral spaces. Although “saraus” have their own distinctive attributes, translated in the modus operandi, in the form of self-organization, in the format, in rituals followed during activities, and in the ideological basis behind projects, I argue in conclusion that common agencies, networks and cooperative arrangements lead them to constitute a new cultural and urban movement.