“To teach my comrades": youth, peripheries and a pedagogy of fireflies

Abstract

While for most of our history, peripheries and favelas have been perceived and above all produced through the prism of deprivation, the last few decades have seen a substantial change in approaches to these territories. The dynamics that take place in these so-called social subsoils of our cities, as well as the way in which the inhabitants of these territories perceive themselves and position themselves in the world, have called into question the various stigmas from which these territories and those who live there used to be read. Based on a mapping of youth initiatives in art and communication on the outskirts of Salvador, Bahia, this article proposes an approach to the work being done by these young people whose interventions show a vigorous and powerful cultural offensive, rather than reactive resistance.