Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Gil Larruscahim, Paula (2018) Pixação: the criminalization and commodification of subcultural struggle in urban Brazil. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/70308/ Document Version Publisher pdf Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html PIXAÇĀO: THE CRIMINALIZATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF SUBCULTURAL STRUGGLE IN URBAN BRAZIL By Paula Gil Larruscahim Word Count: 83023 Date of Submission: 07 March 2018 Thesis submitted to the University of Kent and Utrecht University in partial fulfillment for requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy after following the Erasmus Mundus Doctoral Programme in Cultural and Global Criminology. University of Kent, School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Research Utrecht University, Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology 1 Statement of Supervision Acknowledgments This research was co-supervised by Prof. Dr. Dina Siegel and Dr. Damián Even though the writing process that made this body of work come on Zaitch (Utrecht School of Law, Utrecht University) and Dr. Johnathan Ilan (City paper was a very lonely one, the accomplishment of this work was only possible University of London). thanks collective work. This work involved people since the very early stage of the Phd – or even a pre PhD moment. It was years of research and personal commitment with the subject around street culture, pixação and graffiti that certainly are not ending here. First and foremost, I want to acknowledge my profound gratitude to my supervisors, Dr. Damián Zaitch and Dr. Johnathan Ilan, who since the very beginning of this research supported and encouraged me to undergo an ethnographic journey with pixadores in São Paulo. Thank you both for sharing your thoughts and knowledge. For for always reading and analysing my writings thoroughly and carefully, continuously encouraging me to be critical and to persevere. I also would like to acknowledge the support from the EU Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate Fellowship, which provided me with outstanding material conditions to conduct this research. My profound respect and appreciation to all those who willingly and even enthusiastically participated in this research and who trusted me to share their ideas, feelings and life experiences. Especially to all pixadoras and pixadores who gave me the opportunity to acknowledge ‘a Brazil within Brazil.’ Your openness and trust made the time that I spent in São Paulo a deep life experience that certainly goes beyond the limits of this research. To ‘cousin’ Brian J. Frederick for all the proofreading and inputs, but foremost for your invaluable and sincere friendship. To all my DCGC fellows, but especially for Veronica Nagy and Cornelis Mol. You helped me feel at home in Amsterdam. I cannot forget to thank Julia, Nilai, Roos, Camille, Claudio, Aice, Clara, Dennis and Vitor, who are more than PhD colleagues. You have become true friends, and I treasure you. In Brazil, to all my friends and companheiros, who despite the great distance were always encouraging me, but especially to Salo de Carvalho. Besides being largely responsible for having awakened in me the critical thought in the criminological field, you were the principal supporter for me to venture into the entire path of this research. Thank you. 2 3 My sincere thanks to psychoanalysis, to Vera Ruschel and her attentive Declaration Upon Oath and impeccable listening over these years. To David Stuligross, for the careful and accurate proof reading but I declare that the research embodied in this thesis is my own work and especially for helping me to keep my chin up in the last and hardest period of has not been previously been submitted for a degree at any other university. the writing. No commercial doctoral advisory services were used in conjunction with this For Paul, who became part of this journey and was always there for me. research. Neither have any sources or aids – other than those listed in the thesis To my family and relatives in Brazil and Germany. To my borther Márcio, – been used. who in the very beginning helped me with the project research and encouraged me to apply for the program. To my father, who taught me how important it is to dream and who has always supported me unconditionally in all my choices in life. And finally, and most of all, to my mother, Elinora Gil, and to my daughter, Rosa Gil, to whom this book is dedicated. 4 5 Abstract outside of legal parameters and even frameworks of basic human rights. This research also suggests that socio-spatial segregation in São Paulo plays an In July 2014, two pixadores were murdered by military police officers important role in the rise of pixação, and that pixadores also engage in pixação in São Paulo, Brazil, while they were trying to perform pixação in a residential as a way to overcome this segregation. Another key finding is that pixadores have building. The doorman trapped Ailton and Alex on the top of the building and recently started to transform their subcultural dynamics into political action. called police, saying that he suspected a robbery. Police officers came in, and Finally, this research suggests that criminalization and commodification should Alex and Ailton were dead a few minutes later. At the end of the same year, the be considered as interwoven processes, especially in the neoliberal era. For film Pixadores was launched at European film festivals. It won the award for best that matter, the research presented here demonstrates that commodification film at the One World film festival in Romania and the best direction award at does not necessarily lead to the neutralization of the transgressive elements of the Aubagne Film Festival in France. resistant subcultures. Pixação emerged as a subculture during the mid-1980s in São Paulo. Most pixadores are men who come from the peripheries of this megalopolis. They Key words: pixação subculture, graffiti, criminalization, socio-spatial paint their signatures (pixos) and the name of their crews using an unintelligible segregation, police violence, Brazil, resistance, commodification of transgression Arabic-gothic calligraphy, in black latex ink or with spraypaint cans, across the São Paulo cityscape. Pixação has never had a comfortable relationship with the authorities and activities related to it have been increasingly criminalized over the decades. While pixadores have been drawing increasing attention from both the market and international media, including being portrayed in the movie mentioned above, pixadores continue to be criminalized, prosecuted and even tortured and murdered by the police. In Brazil, the criminalization of pixação is based on its opposition with graffiti, whick a criminal law considers as art. The novelty and relevance of this study lies in its criminological examination of pixação subculture. It explores how pixadores experience and perceive the relationship between the criminalization of pixação and the specific issues that they confront within their social and cultural context, to examine the extent to which these perceptions and experiences are transformed into practices of resistance against these problems. Ethnographic fieldwork took place mainly in São Paulo between September 2013 and July 2014. This study analyzes pixação primarily through the lenses of critical and cultural criminology, and also makes connections with urban studies and social movement theory. Contributing to the current state of knowledge on pixação, one of the key findings of this research is that the that the primary criminalization of pixação, that is, being framed as crime in opposition to graffiti in a specific legal act, has actually helped to legitimate an extant and already disruptive police practice, secondary criminalization, as well as extrajudicial punishments completely 6 7 Table of Contents 3.4.2 ‘Shared Problems’: analyzing pixação subculture in its specific social and cultural context ______________________________________ 64 Statement of Supervision _______________________________________________________ 02 3.4.3 Resistance as a conceptual variable _______________________________ 65 Acknowledgments _______________________________________________________________ 03 3.4.4 Resistance as praxis _________________________________________________ 67 Declaration Upon Oath _________________________________________________________05 3.6 Conclusion ____________________________________________________________ 69 Abstract __________________________________________________________________________06 Chapter 4 - Methodology: Ethonogrpahic Research within Chapter 1 -