Resistance, empowerment and youth at a cultural center in Rio de janeiro

Abstract

In this paper, I address a few aspects related to my research on the empowerment of women and LGBTQIA+ people at the former Motim cultural center in Rio de Janeiro, based on data collected over eight months of fieldwork, from September 2023 to April 2024. Rooted in punk and riot grrrl subcultures, the space was designed to be a safe environment where these groups could hold artistic exhibitions, workshops, and musical performances, given their difficulty accessing predominantly male and heterosexual venues. Drawing from the subcultural theory developed at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, at the University of Birmingham, and Monique Wittig’s work "One Is Not Born a Woman”, I explore the possibility of the focal groups within the space being classes in a process of resistance against the dominant sexist and LGBTQIA+-phobic culture in our society. The second issue examines, through Sara Mosedale’s perspectives on empowerment, Dick Hebdige’s theories on the construction of style, and Clifford Geertz’s views on culture as semiotic and the anthropological work as interpretative, the symbolic process of empowerment occurring within the cultural center, the reasons for designating it as such and outlines how I plan to conduct my analysis.