Re-Thinking Gender, Artivism and Choices. Cultures of Equality Emerging From Urban Peripheries

Abstract

Gender dimensions of violence, and especially women’s experiences in settings of urban violence have been the subject of important feminist research, including those that highlight gender as essential for comprehensive analyses of security and urban violence, and for promoting solutions and positive change. A primary contribution of feminist research indeed has been to demonstrate that there are both visible and invisible aspects of urban violence. A gap in literature on these gender dimensions is that of men’s construction of masculinities – and how these constructions are challenged during times. An important set of invisible phenomena within urban spaces and their peripheries includes the positive and decolonial responses that occur, including non-violent and feminist cultural and artistic pathways and the factors that lead men to resist to dominant, violent, or ‘hyper’ versions of masculinities. While there is a predominate focus on men’s involvement in violence, far less attention has been placed on men’s non-violent pathways. Based on examples of cultural, artistic and activist practices from the peripheries, namely those emerging in Rio de Janeiro, this article aims to discuss how artivism can challenge gender inequalities and power relations.

Eu Não Sou de Aço. Eu Sou de Bambu. Hip-hop, desigualdades de gênero e resistência

“…Deste modo, temos como princípio heurístico a demonstração dos trâmites em que as manifestações artísticas, produzidas e apresentadas por estas mulheres, podem e devem constituir matéria de intervenção social (Guerra, 2019), no sentido em que se assumem como atos de resistência (Farrugia & Hay, 2020) e, além disso, denunciam e revelam problemáticas sociais diversas, tais como a questão da sexualização e objetificação da mulher (Tavares, 2012), o empoderamento, a estigmatização e a afirmação identitária. Estas artistas podem e devem ser tidas como agentes de mudança, uma vez que promovem a demarcação de espaços próprios que revelam e que retratam parte da sociedade que, caso contrário, seriam ignoradas ou desvalorizadas (Moura & Cerdeira, 2021). Os conteúdos que as mesmas divulgam são insurgentes (Guerra, 2019) das realidades vividas e experienciadas, constituindo-se simultaneamente enquanto um elemento promotor de identidades coesas.…”

Prevalence and factors associated with suicidal behavior among trans women in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

“…Furthermore, social and racial inequalities, a major issue in Brazil, also impact the access to fundamental rights such as health, education and security. These disparities, combined to gender issues, affect the geographic territories occupied by trans people, such as the place that they live, buy, or gather together [26][27][28]. In addition, a substantial proportion of Brazilian trans women have been estimated to engage in sex work at some point in their lives [14,29].…”

Contesting Extractivism through Amazonian Indigenous Artivism: Decolonial reflections on possibilities for crafting a pluriverse from within

“…Recent research on artivism includes various creative forms of expression such as music, dance, theatre, poetry, performance, visual arts, comics, etc., and not only in physical but increasingly also in digital forms (Moreno-Almeida, 2021;Weij and Berkers, 2022). A significant share of the studies on artivism focus on gender struggles from feminist (Serra, Enríquez and Johnson, 2017;Moura and Cerdeira 2021;López, 2022) and/or queer perspectives (Ferreira, 2015;Ribeiro and de Moraes Franco, 2021). Available cases also comprise the use of artivism as a tool for challenging State authoritarianism (Wang and Liu, 2020), for claiming social rights and public spaces (Bautès, 2010;Delgado 2013), and for strengthening environmental and sustainability agendas (Rodríguez-Labajos, 2022; Stammen and Meissner, 2022).…”