From the urban periphery to the city center: culture and politics in postmodern times

Abstract

The relationships between culture and politics have gained new contours in Brazil since the 1990s. The cultural explosion of the urban periphery - with rap in the forefront - expressed itself in a dualistic logic that split society into blacks and whites, wealthier city centers and the poorer periphery, the "bros" and the "playboys." This dualistic view, in turn, reflects a manner of thinking shackled to the immediate present - in this case, the abstract refusal of the "establishment". The same modus operandi could be seen in the middle class that took to the streets in the so-called June Days of 2013. Driven by the logic of the spectacle and manipulated by the media, the June Days also expressed, in the other edge of society, an aestheticization of politics that reenacted, in its own way, its persistence in the visible, immediate present.