Dos encontros com cultura popular no Morro do Querosene: um estudo do movimento bairro/comunidade

Abstract

This research is built over the dialogue between the popular and academic knowledge, understanding this relationship in its dialectical process. It is based on the assumption that practices developed by conventional people in their everyday routine, make our history a fertile ground and a producer of social, psychological and concrete changes. It seeks to analyze how manifestations of popular culture can contribute to the transformation of a neighborhood in a community. Thus, as a methodology, it was used the observation in loco, recording the experiences and also conversation with the residents and the local artists, under the perspective of theme field (SPINK, 2003). The empirical field of research lies in Morro do Querosene in São Paulo, which hosts the traditional celebration of the bumba meu boi from Maranhão, the Cosme e Damião festival and the berimbau orchestra project developed by Dinho Nascimento. The theoretical framework is based on Vygotsky, who claims that psychology must involve the totality on how people live their lives, because the psychological has its genesis in society, thereby overcoming the dichotomies between reason/emotion and between subjectivity/objectivity. It covers the psychosocial positivity of the emotions, seeking guidance in Espinosa to work its ethical-political dimension, philosopher known as monistic, for advocating the inseparability between reason and emotion and between body and mind. Concepts that Vygotsky entered the marxist psychology to explain the emergence of the singular and the creation despite the social determination, thus introducing the esthetic psychology. His book, Psychology of Art, provides the coordinates to understand this process, emphasizing catharsis as a moment of transformation. His conception of catharsis opposes Aristotle, which consisted of purification and cleansing of the soul. The analysis of popular culture was based on theoretical frameworks that it as a historical product, traversed by social contradictions; and that, in turn, respond to these contradictions, sometimes succumbing, sometimes resisting the hegemonic order of the capitalist mode of production. The analysis points to the motivation of masters to work in the collective, and also to the interface between the play and the folk art. Moreover, the presence of parties and playing in the streets allows people to get to know each other, to get out from their houses, enabling the awakening of a community common sense. It also indicates that the traditional culture can be perceived as a movement that mobilizes and aggregates, signaling the relationship between popular culture and the sense of commom. This research emphasizes that the power related to popular culture is not restricted to personal, but divides the individual from the collective, awakening the common feeling and favoring meetings. It was clear that popular and collective culture are an inseparable unity, mostly due to the masters actions that promote activities in the venue. This masters motivation is a subject that needs to be deepened in the future. For now, the point of interest is the permanence of traditional cultures and the power of collective affectation, that despite arouse feelings and actions in contradictory directions, can still separate the public and private, promoting the common sense in the local political scene