“Who is from the street is not from the sidewalk”: scenes of graffiti in Porto Alegre (Brazil)

Abstract

The present article takes an ethnographic approach to understand the networks of relations established between taggers in the city of Porto Alegre. The results presented redeem the subject tracking for five years, where through interviews, observations and walk through the city itself was shaped up a framework for a better understanding the phenomenon in question. Starting from a conception of the communicational act as graffiti glimpsed the relationship between these social actors in the city, passersby, to establish among themselves and with graffiti. The "twilight" identity that permeates these experiences indicate nowadays for crossings of belonging / not belonging to their society, the search for ingroup and outgroup recognition and generated tensions over the disputed areas in the city.