Ocupa Belo Horizonte: cultura, cidadania e fluxos informacionais no duelo de MCs

Abstract

The study has aimed to discuss the re-appropriation of public space in the city for social groups and the informational flows created from the interaction between them. In recent years, the emphasis on economic bias by the State has been bringing locals and regulars restrictions on the use of public places of everyday life. Freedom of movement collides with initiatives to privatize sites before intended to meet people and other collective experiences. The qualitative research had as its object of analysis the Duelo de MCs, an hip hop movement that occupies the area under the Santa Terezas viaduct, in downtown Belo Horizonte, on Friday nights, and brings together young people, mostly black, with different sociocultural levels and from different regions of the city to battles between MCs with rhyming improvisation to the sound of rap music. The theoretical framework was based upon the discussion of postmodern cultures and concepts of public, informational city, right to the city, cultural citizenship and information as a social phenomenon. Furthermore, has presented a brief history of the last movements of the occupation of cities in Brazil and worldwide. The methodology has included field work accompanying Duelo de MCs between August and December 2012; interviews with organizers of the movement; content analysis of the verses of Battles of Knowledge - one of the modalities of Duelo de MCs suggesting an issue prior the dispute - as well as song lyrics, posters and graffiti gifts under the viaduct, flyers and fanzine distributed; structured interviews with the public and netnography of the organizers and their followers in digital social networks. It was concluded that the informational exchanges between these young people show in the city center an emerging culture, whose repertoire had been restricted to peripheral areas such as slums and clusters. Furthermore, they enable the construction of new symbolic representations and a space of belonging and collective cultural resistance of black youth in downtown Belo Horizonte. As an occupation movement, Duelo de MCs promotes critical reflection of groups historically disenfranchised from public policy, tensions the notion of public policies and reclaims issues connected to freedom of expression, cultural identity and citizenship.