Memories of development: nostalgia and inclusion in Guia afetivo da periferia, by Marcus Vinícius Faustini
Start Date
8-11-2017 8:30 AM
End Date
8-11-2017 5:30 PM
Abstract
In Guia afetivo da periferia, by Brazilian writer and activist Marcus Vinícius Faustini, the narrator uses his memories to inscribe his subjectivity in the urban landscape that surrounds him. In this process the narrator claims his right to occupy the space by re-signifying it. The paper discusses how he strategically employs tokens of distinction (i.e. specific brands of clothing but also cultural references and memory itself as a ‘technology of the self’) in order to gain access to spaces of the city from which he was previously excluded. This intervention redefines the relationship between the narrator and the city in the tradition of Benjamin´s flâneur. Nostalgia as a trope is transformed and strategically used to claim the narrator´s right to inhabit the urban space. This transformation may be characterized as a technology of the self that mediates the subjectivity of the narrator in a neoliberal landscape.
Memories of development: nostalgia and inclusion in Guia afetivo da periferia, by Marcus Vinícius Faustini
In Guia afetivo da periferia, by Brazilian writer and activist Marcus Vinícius Faustini, the narrator uses his memories to inscribe his subjectivity in the urban landscape that surrounds him. In this process the narrator claims his right to occupy the space by re-signifying it. The paper discusses how he strategically employs tokens of distinction (i.e. specific brands of clothing but also cultural references and memory itself as a ‘technology of the self’) in order to gain access to spaces of the city from which he was previously excluded. This intervention redefines the relationship between the narrator and the city in the tradition of Benjamin´s flâneur. Nostalgia as a trope is transformed and strategically used to claim the narrator´s right to inhabit the urban space. This transformation may be characterized as a technology of the self that mediates the subjectivity of the narrator in a neoliberal landscape.
