“The favelas are emerging as “symbolic capital”, as “wealth”, and as “commodities” in cities like Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They are no longer the place of “excluded” non-subjects, as in some imaginaries and discourses, but rather a cyber-periphery, a place of “wealth in poverty” fought over by Nike, Globo Network Television, and the State, as well as laboratories for subjective production. The black bodies of the favelas, the possibilities for co-operation without hierarchy, the invention of other times and spaces (on the streets, in dancehalls, LAN centers, and rooftops) are all subjected to forms of appropriation, just like anything else in capitalism. However, the favelas are no longer seen simply as “poverty factories”, but rather a form of capital in the market of symbolic national and local values, having been able to convert the most hostile forces (poverty, violence, states of emergency) into a process of creation and cultural invention.”
A must read essay by Ivana Bentes on the p2p economy in the favellas of Brazil:
* Article: Ivana Bentes (2013) Collaborative Networks and the Productive Precariat, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies: Travesia, 22:1, 27-40, DOI: 10.1080/13569325.2013.779234
We are republishing it in two parts!
Ivana Bentes:
The favelas are emerging as “symbolic capital”, as “wealth”, and as “commodities” in cities like Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They are no longer the place of “excluded” non-subjects, as in some imaginaries and discourses, but rather a cyber-periphery, a place of “wealth in poverty” fought over by Nike, Globo Network Television, and the State, as well as laboratories for subjective production. The black bodies of the favelas, the possibilities for co-operation without hierarchy, the invention of other times and spaces (on the streets, in dancehalls, LAN centers, and rooftops) are all subjected to forms of appropriation, just like anything else in capitalism. However, the favelas are no longer seen simply as “poverty factories”, but rather a form of capital in the market of symbolic national and local values, having been able to convert the most hostile forces (poverty, violence, states of emergency) into a process of creation and cultural invention. We are living in a unique moment, experiencing a change in the axis of contemporary cultural production with the rise and visibility of the cultural production that originates in the outskirts, suburbs and favelas – a cultural production that is laterally displaced, is capable of generating potential public policy initiatives, has the possibility of redistributing wealth and power, and constitutes a place of living labour rather than merely reproductive or repetitive work.
This culture of the favelas and peripheries (music, theatre, dance, literature, cinema) appears as a ‘displaced’ political discourse (one that does not originate in the universities, the State, the media or in political parties) and brings to the scene new mediators and producers of culture: rappers, funk musicians, B-boys, young actors, performers, favelados, the unemployed and the under-employed, and producers in the so-called ‘unofficial economy’. These groups and discourses are revitalising poverty- stricken areas and reconfiguring the urban cultural scene. They move around the city and often appear ambiguously in the media, giving voice to an urgent political discourse of change in the context of informational capitalism. This decisive change stems from our current context, where the means of cultural production have become widespread and the means of communication and information are easily accessed by the masses: the internet, digital cameras, mobile phones and printers serve anyone who wants to become a producer of culture. This context of informational and cognitive capitalism, where knowledge is the product, reaches all social classes, including those in the favelas, albeit in an uneven and asymmetrical form.
Through TV (free or subscription), music and new forms of sociability, young people in the favelas or in peripheral urban areas receive information and a general education and constitute a rapidly developing mass collective intelligence. These socio-cultural movements gain a political dimension when they become bearers of cultural expressions and lifestyles that emerge from poverty and are forged in the transition from a literate culture to an audiovisual and mediatic one.
The culture that originates in the favelas and peripheral urban areas also forms a counterpoint to the stereotypical view of favelas as simply factories of death and violence – a recurring theme in the media and cinema, which only present an image of the favela as hell, a pulsating territory of death, disregarding its culture of resistance and vitality and its relation to new forms of work and occupation.
The complexity and ambiguity of the Brazilian ‘fold’ in global capitalism show that these ‘factories of poverty and violence’ are also territories and networks of creation. These voices from the periphery, young artists and agitators, black people from the favelas and other sites of violence and aggression, take the place of the traditional cultural mediators, no longer objects of discourse, but its subjects. They contribute to a political renewal by creating a provocative discourse about racism, police violence and poverty that competes with the discourses of the universities and the media. The favelas and outskirts produce new neighbourhood relations and community volunteer work (‘mutiro ?es’), as well as rhizomatic help networks – the culture of parties, religious rituals, samba, funk and hip-hop, an entire cultural and affective capital born in an environment of brutality shared by different social groups. From these territories arise cultural practices, aesthetics and networks of sociability and politics forged in the ghettos but connected to global flows (it was not just drug trafficking that has been globalised). Even the media have already recognised this new context. Local groups point to possible solutions that break with the old national, populist and paternalistic mould cemented in an idea of ‘national identity’. What emerge are expressions of a global ghetto, or a world-ghetto, just we speak today of global cities with common issues and problems. The new producers of culture from the favelas and outskirts are part of a precariat with no salary or employment. They are workers of the immaterial.
We are also witnessing the rise of new alliances between favelas and previously isolated groups, constituting networks (even electronic ones) which are potentially the next stage in local and global cultural movements – cities of co-operation that rival the nation-state and work parallel to it. Eschewing its welfarist and paternalistic impulses and recognising the political and aesthetic ‘quality’ achieved by cultural movements, an intelligent governmental policy must necessarily include these cultural experiences that have been constituted in a rhizomatic form and are revitalising urban peripheries and centres. These movements arise from the crisis of the State-as- provider model, which is based on a society of formal employment that effects income transfer but does not end inequality.
How can public policies foster these socio-cultural networks?
We are living through the restructuring of production and the cultural sphere is nowadays the place of informal jobs, with the primacy of immaterial work, consisting of groups, networks and movements that deal with information, communication, art and knowledge and are not to be found in big corporations. It is necessary to think of new strategic agendas independent of immediate market forces and free from the excessively centralised decisions of the State – a radicalisation of democracy that stimulates social productivity. This new cultural experience born of socio-cultural movements brings the possibility of a radical shift in public policy. It is not just a change from politics to culture, but rather a change of cultural politics itself. There are many initiatives with such potential and Brazil emerges as a laboratory for such cultural projects.
Among other phenomena, we might highlight the economy and culture of the Brazilian funk and hip hop movements, which are able to produce new identities and a sense of belonging to a community that goes beyond just music, creating a world of productive activities: DJs, sound equipment companies, van and transportation companies, party organisers, security workers, rappers and funk artists that may perform in up to 10 shows per night, all in different venues. This constitutes an entire economic cycle around hip hop and funk culture that points to a primacy of culture in the constitution of the cognitive economy of contemporary capitalism.
These local cultural networks contrast with the centrally organised, extremely hierarchical public policies that failed to resolve social inequalities or reduce them to a desirable level. We now have a historical opportunity to experiment with other, still embryonic models of public policy regarding socio-cultural networks that operate in a horizontal, de-centralised and rhizomatic form, organising their own production. These cultural movements work with the idea of non-formal education as a gateway to formal education and living labour. A movement such as the MST (The Landless Peasant Workers Movement) was able to construct schools and to offer educational programs with a greater speed than many municipal programs in the country’s interior.
The cultural production of peripheral urban areas is also not formal. It is precarious, informal, fast, and takes place in collaborative networks, promoting the transference of both symbolic and real capital while empowering socio-cultural movements without the aid of the traditional cultural mediators. These social movements have become able to manage the culture they produce and can become significant partners of those who own the means of production, distribution, etc. Socio-cultural movements can act in many areas, producing, managing and benefiting from the results of their own production. If cultural and social actors have the intellectual and material resources to become such protagonists, what is the role of public policy? To support, promote and form leaderships, agents and managers of culture and cultural events, offering the basic conditions for this development.
* Collaborative networks and the P2P model
Never before in history have there been so many possibilities to decentralise the means of production with the emergence of digital equipment, video cameras and equipment for musicians, DJs and audio-visual producers, personal computers, open-source software, an enormous capacity for copying CDs, books and music. It challenges and disables traditional copyright laws and points to a capitalism of surplus with the possibility of the free circulation of knowledge. What is the ‘technological’ basis of these changes?
According to Michael Bauwens’s ‘The Political Economy of Peer Production’ (Bauwens, 2005), as social, economic and political systems turn into distributed networks, a new productive dynamic emerges: the peer to peer model (P2P), point to point. More than a new technology of communication, it is the operational model of new social processes, creating a third mode of production, authority and property that aims to increase the generalised participation of equipotential actors.
Some of these characteristics of collaborative culture mentioned by Michael Bauwens can be found in Brazilian networks and collectives:
– production of use value through the free co-operation of producers who have access to distributed capital ( . . . ) Its product is not exchange value for a market, but use value for a community of users.
– are governed by the community of producers themselves, and not by market allocation or corporate hierarchy: this is the P2P governance mode, or ‘third mode of governance’.
– make use value freely accessible on a universal basis, through new common property regimes. This is its distribution or ‘peer property mode’: a ‘third mode of ownership’, different from private property or public (State) property. (Bauwens, 2005)
The infrastructure of P2P and social collaborative networks needs some basic conditions, proposed by Bauwens in order to facilitate the emergence of processes between peers.
They could be summarized in five key points:
* The existence of a technological infrastructure. Movements towards digital inclusion, dissemination of personal and collective computers, public access to the internet and wireless community networks, the option for an open spectrum, as well as the existence of file-serving television systems (like TiVo) and alternative infrastructures of telecommunication based on meshworks are representative of this tendency. (Bauwens, 2005)
* Alternative systems of information and communication that allow for autonomous communication among cooperating agents. The web (in particular the Writable Web or Web 2.0) allows for the production, dissemination and ‘consumption’ of written material, as well as podcasting and webcasting, creating an alternative infrastructure of multimedia information and communication without the intermediation of the classic communication media – even though new forms of mediation can appear. (ibid.)
* The existence of a software infrastructure intended for autonomous global co-operation. An increasing number of collaboration tools are being inserted into social network software (like blogs and wikis), facilitating trust and the creation of social capital, allowing for the creation of global groups that are able to create use value without the intermediation of production or distribution from profit-oriented organisations. (ibid.)
* A legal infrastructure that allows for the creation of use value and protects social production from private appropriation. The General Public License (which prohibits the appropriation of code software), the Open Source Initiative, and certain versions of Creative Commons licenses perform this function. They make it possible to protect the value of common use and employ viral methods to disseminate themselves. The GPL and other similar licenses can only be utilised in projects that, in exchange, offer their adapted code source for public domain. (ibid.)
* Finally, there is the cultural requirement. For Bauwens, as well as Antonio Negri, Maurizio Lazaratto (Bauwens, 2005; Negri and Hardt, 2001, 2005; Lazzarato, 2006) and other theorists of cognitive capitalism, this condition stimulates the diffusion of mass intellectuality or, in other words, the distribution of human intelligence with a transformation in the ways of feeling and being (ontology), the ways of knowing (epistemology), and in the values that contribute to the creation of a ‘co-operative individualism’ – one of the new bases of collaborative networks.
To Bauwens’s propositions we can add the Brazilian fold. The groups, collectives and NGOs analysed or mentioned here do not fulfill all the requirements that characterise a P2P process, but they are nevertheless important actors for the emergence and visibility of new collaborative networks and socio-cultural movements, acting as accelerators of changes and providing some of the basic prerequisites for the constitution of hybrid P2P networks.
One important issue in Brazil is the horizon of cultural and social struggles to de-criminalise producers and consumers of cultural goods. If a street vendor sells copied music CDs or movie DVDs, if he stands outside a funk show to sell people the music they have just heard on stage, is it the role of the State and corporations to criminalise this consumer, creator and propagator, this agent of viral culture? Street vendors, teenagers, video rental stores, cultural collectives, bloggers and software exchange communities have become the new agents and consumers of local and global culture. Instead of criminalising, how can we legalize this ‘popular digital culture’ that is being formed? It goes beyond the question of piracy: it is the opportunity for a hip hop or funk group to form their sound crew, play in favelas, in communities and clubs, record their music, burn and sell their CDs during the shows, creating a productive network that offers work, jobs and meaning to one’s life. Today, low-cost personal computers and internet access are essential cultural goods in cognitive capitalism, since labour became communicational and relational. The challenge is to discover how to universalise and socialise these means of communication that are also means of cultural production. If only 10% of the Brazilian population has a computer at home, then it is important to offer cultural, communicational and informational subsidies to put a working computer in every house, cultural centre, neighbourhood association and public kiosk.
Communication and culture have become strategic for civil society. In this sense, one of the most significant advances of President Lula’s government was the program Pontos de Cultura, implemented by the Ministry of Culture throughout the country. It is necessary to recognise the productive dimension of these movements. They should not receive governmental subsidies with the expectation of return but rather investment subsidies – given that they themselves are already the appropriate returns.
These productive agents transform local realities and function as embryos in a series of radical transformations of public policy.
They are the ones who produce local culture, living in abandoned territories that consequently become revitalised from within. We can also speak of the crisis and extinction of an intellectual and economic ‘protection’ that the movements grew distrustful of, seeing in it asymmetrical relations that pilfer a symbolic capital, a highly valued good in the contemporary context: the production of worlds. Thus, it is the university, the media and social marketing (what I call ‘social washing’) that need the peripheries to legitimise themselves socially, intellectually, and even economically.
The examples are many. The theatre company Nos do Morro turns boys from the favela into actors by means of a rigorous training that includes a professional education in various complementary fields such as theatre, cinema, video, lighting techniques and cultural production. It creates opportunities for actors coming from the peripheries to get into Globo Network Television, the movies, and possibly star in films such as City of God. Others can simply become cultural industry workers or create their own cultural jobs and activities. The dance group Companhia Etnica de Dança brought contemporary dance to the hill of Andaraí, creating a dance school that employs non-formal education and prepares not just dancers, but also cultural producers, lighting technicians, choreographers and project administrators, giving youngsters the opportunity to receive a broad cultural training.
This includes discussions about racism, violence, sexuality, and other themes brought up by the students themselves. Companhia Etnica de Dança also manages a samba school in Andaraí, a ‘school of citizenship’ that teaches activities and occupations for a cultural market which is informal and precarious while also being formal and institutionalized.
Through its aesthetic and political work, the group AfroReggae took youngsters away from drug trafficking to work as musicians, project co-ordinators, performers, circus actors and project managers. AfroReggae also works as a conflict mediator in the ‘combat zone’, the ‘Gaza strip’ that divides the favelas of Maré and Complexo do Alemão, preventing deaths and negotiating peace from a status achieved through cultural work. AfroReggae has other projects, such as the Juventude Polícia, in Minas Gerais, which offers training for officers who want to become percussionists. These appear with the AfroReggae group in percussion shows that promote an important symbolic reversal and have changed the image of the police from a violent and arbitrary institution into a collaborative and ludic group.
The work of Jailson de Sousa in the favela of Maré resulted in the creation of Escola Popular de Comunicação Crítica [ESPOCC] and the ‘Observatory of the Favelas’, which produces new images, and questions the usual discourses about these marginalised areas. In the favela of Rocinha, the successful project Coopa Roca reunites artisanal workers and fashion designers in a co-operative that is now producing clothes on a large scale. Another interesting project, never fully implemented, C ?elula Urbana, brought German Bauhaus to the favela of Jacarezinho, creating hybrid architectural solutions with the use of local labour expertise and German design.
These and many other social movements are vital in designing new models and solutions for public policy. However, they are still fragmented and disconnected, viewed by the media and the government as isolated groups that do not really constitute a strong ‘network’. Aware that its cultural output is being constantly appropriated by corporations and the media, this new productive precariat struggles to obtain the ‘copyright’ of their own production and image. These new movements depend on an arrangement between different spheres ( favelas, universities, NGOs, the third sector, the State) that could result in a wider network of productive partnerships and promote a deep transformation in urban Brazilian culture.