The spatiality of the street

the case of the Sul de Minas LGBTQIA+ Pride Parade in Alfenas

Abstract

The street allows different trajectories to intersection in the course of everyday life. Now when individuals and collectives occupy the streets as a form of celebration and claims, the spatiality of the aspect breaks with the ordinary and the programmed. The street becomes the platform and instrument of political action. In this sense, this article discusses the use of the street through the holding of the Sul de Minas LGBTQIA+ Pride Parade, in Alfenas, located in the south/southwest portion of Minas Gerais. The working hypothesis is that the appropriation of the street by the parade brings to light the contradiction between use value and exchange value, because even based on political-economic relations, it creates the conditions for the possibility of an inventive appropriation based on expressions of gender and sexuality rejected from the high economic circuit. As the parades function, the social ritual is established through its constituent elements: the choice of the gathering place, the route of the event and the place of dispersion. For this purpose, the article is based on a Lefebvrevian perspective, where humanity is a product and producer of its own work, the city. The results indicate that the use of the street by the parade requalifies the urban, as it is approached by the community through their bodies and symbols in favor of a set of material claims and dignified living conditions.