HELOISA PAIT UNESP - Brazil
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology Faculty of Philosophy and Sciences
Abstract
The city of São Paulo is seen by many as a global city, given the sheer size of its population and economy and most importantly its role in the various world networks of commerce and culture.
In recent years, the diffusion of communication technologies among its population, and especially among the young, has opened up participation in global networks of information for individual citizens. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with young students, conducted in centrally located public cultural centers in São Paulo, this paper explores the ways in which this participation takes place, the cultural and social forms serving as a venue for it and the meaning attached to it by its participants.
Our research shows that these young Brazilians are actively engaging in a global dialogue, even if this dialogue does not take yet traditional political forms. The challenges they identify to increase their presence in the new global arena do not seem insurmountable to them: they would like to have more opportunities to study abroad, learn foreign languages and host foreigners in their work and study environments. As one of them put it, “What else do we need? Tele-transport?”
Young Paulistanos are using the new opportunities of global communication to learn languages collaboratively, show their artistic endeavors and forge dialogues with artists around the world, and create local public debates even when not encouraged institutionally, among other activities.
There is no doubt that life online is dependent on face-to-face interactions, and the availability of safe and culturally rich meeting places such as those where the interviews were conducted magnifies or even initiates global interactions. Moreover, the kinds of institutions to which these students belong seem to have a deep influence on their attitudes online. We found in our interviews that students from prestigious public universities tend to be less active and less optimistic than other students about their global participation. It seemed, from the interviews but also from our personal experience teaching in one of those institutions, that the Brazilian academic strong anti- globalization discourse tends to undermine students’ autonomous use of new media forms.
1 Introduction: a transitional moment
The goal of this paper is to understand how young São Paulo residents relate to global issues.
Living in a global city, they are obviously connected to global net-works through their work and their consumption and cultural habits. But do they reflect upon such connections? Do they actively pursue a better understanding of global affairs, through the various media to which they have
access? Do they use these media to participate in global debates as autonomous agents? Which political and cultural forms they elect that allow them to relate to the world at large? These are some of the questions we will explore in the paper, through a series of semi-structured interviews with young São Paulo residents conducted in two important cultural centers in the city.
The young in São Paulo might be living today a very special moment. For the first time in our history young people in large numbers can postpone their entrance in the labor market, plan their lives and dream of goals that their parents, busy with obtaining the basic goods for a comfortable life, were not able to achieve. The city population remained relatively stable in the past decades, for the first time in generations. Many São Paulo residents, or Paulistanos, come from Latin American and Asian countries or from other Brazilian regions, but São Paulo is not anymore a city made substantively of struggling migrants and immigrants. Economic growth came in the form of better housing, middle class suburban expansion and an impressive growth in the number of cars, which makes traffic hellish but also shows the affluence of its citizens.
National conditions naturally played a role in this process. With inflation under control and political stability since the early 1990s, businesses and local governments could make long term plans. A free media could play its role as a critical voice on national problems, keeping government actions under public scrutiny. A recent credit boom made mass consumption available for the emerging middle class and safety net programs provided basic living conditions for the poor. In education, continuous investments over decades by all spheres of government and a lower fertility rate are finally showing results. Education in not a luxury good in Brazil, although quality education might still be.
Of course, any analyst of Brazilian social life knows that these developments are not free of problems. As I write, the traditional newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo is under censorship for its investigative reporting, which is not the first time in its history and might not be the last either. Drugs and crime, pervasive in certain areas of São Paulo and other major Brazilian cities, often receive brutal responses from the police, endangering the law-abiding population. Social inequality appears not only in purely economic arenas but also in access to health care, education and even justice, seen by many as offensively discriminatory against the poor. In spite of these problems, however, we can safely say that Brazil has opted for a democratic regime and a market-oriented economy, and it is in this context of stability and growth that I met the young Paulistanos for this research.
Let me expand a little on education and technological changes, giving some background for the research. In education, we are witnessing a revolution, at least in quantitative terms. Since last decade we saw a dramatic increase in the enrollment in private colleges, now followed by an increase in enrollment in public universities, mostly federal (INEP 2009). Qualitatively, however, higher education does not seem to be changing much; curricula is decided by federal regulation and tends to be rigid (Davidovich 2004). In basic education there has been increases in enrollment, due to many factors: increase in demand, new aspirations from the lower middle classes and the new affluence, that makes possible for families to keep the young at school for longer periods.
In the State of São Paulo there has been more or less successful attempts to reform secondary schools, with increase in the number of technical schools and attempts to introduce extended days in regular schools. Another important recent development we should mention is the introduction of affirmative action programs in Brazil (Paula and Heringer 2009).
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In the past years we have seen a dramatic increase in the use of computers and new technologies in Brazil. In São Paulo buses, used mainly by the working and lower-middle class, it is common to see people chatting on their cellphones or watching video clips. On subway trains, tiny earphones link young people to another place or time, making them kindly oblivious to what surrounds them immediately. The fashionable iPods are still rare in São Paulo streets due to prohibitive import tariffs, while other electronic products, made or assembled in Brazil, are every day a bit cheaper.
Cafés in São Paulo are not Apple white like in American cities, but it is not uncommon anymore to see people carrying their laptops around. Schools and universities have invested in computer centers and digital inclusion entered the lexicon of social inclusion, an always present theme in the struggle for a better society in Brazil. In the case of São Paulo, the State has offered public internet access through the program Acessa São Paulo. Paulistanos also benefit from the Telecentros, managed by the municipality. Together, however, all public internet access serve a tiny minority of users; most of them use the internet at home, at work or at friends’ homes, much like happened in the 70s with television. An impressive number of people, particularly in the working and lower middle classes, use the Internet in Lan Houses or Internet Cafés spread all over the city.
Technology, education and inclusion go hand in hand. Today a grocery story cashier must be able to manage a simple computer, which creates a significant incentive to finish high school. Once he or she has this basic knowledge, why not continue his or her studies to apply for better jobs, and then why not acquire his or her own machine? It is through this virtuous circle that São Paulo is being covered by a tapestry of wireless connections, computers, smart phones and etcetera.
Even fast food chains, such as McDonald’s and Habib’s, offer free internet access to their users.
Coverage is not complete; less than half of the population in urban areas in the Brazilian Southeast use the internet, and only half of those at home (Barbosa 2009). Among young Brazilians, however, two thirds make use of the medium. I believe that creates an interesting phenomena, where virtual and face-to-face interactions strongly overlap; where learning about the new medium happens in pre-existing social circles. Gregariousness is part of Brazilian culture, as many have noted (Holanda 2003), and it will be interesting to examine how the particular Brazilian sociability is translated into the Web. My interest in the social and public appropriation of communication technologies influenced my research design. I decided to meet my interviewees in very public places, cultural centers where dialogue and interaction are part of its regular sociability.
To wrap up, São Paulo is certainly an important nod in the process of globalization, but it is not clear if its residents pursue an active role in this process in its cultural or political dimensions. It seems that young Paulistanos, already growing up in a city that is financially and socially open to the world at large, tend to incorporate global issues as part of their own identity. If this is true, in which ways are these global issues incorporated in their lives?
2 Networks and the public sphere
The theoretical concern that inspires this paper can be found in the literature about the public sphere and its democratic challenges. Hannah Arendt (Arendt 1958) discusses the modern challenges encountered by public spaces in maintaining their liveliness and significance. Jürgen Habermas (Habermas 1995) grapples with the possibilities and the dilemmas of a public sphere based on the media and on mediated communication. Miriam Hansen (Hansen 1994) stresses the experiential aspect of public participation in mediated societies and its mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. Contemporary writers, such as Saskia Sassen (Sassen 2007) and Jeffrey Alexander
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(Alexander 2006), tackle the communicative challenges of an emergent global society in ways that resemble the classical thinkers in their inquiry about the modern public sphere. This should not surprise us: it is rather a consequence of the fact that problems of the same nature are
posited now, but in a global scale: the encounter of diverse and often fragmented publics through mediated communication, debating common problems and learning about communicative challenges “on the job”, with little guidance from older generations.
The public sphere seems to have today a relationship to other spheres of life, such as the domestic life or work, that is of overlapping more than of separation. Arendt, for instance, had the Greek agora as a model for public activity, stressing the need for stable walls dividing the various spheres of life. Habermas presented the 18th century café as the model for the same public sphere, linked to the private sphere of newspaper readership and to the State through the very content of these newspapers, but nevertheless spatially delimited. But if the public sphere today is found in a expansive mediated environment more than in an enclosed defined place, what is the shape of it? Can it better be understood as a network, or as a series of overlapping ones? Most certainly.
Peter Taylor (Taylor 2009, Taylor 2006) gives a detailed account of the ways in which not only countries, but cities and their particular fields of activities construct global networks of services and exchanges. Not the city as a solid entity, but the city in its multiple activities takes part in various networks, pulling its citizens – and its country – towards a global society.
The ties, however, that link us to this global society are a product not only of ad-equate material conditions; they are often actively pursued by citizens who en-counter – or create – conditions for these new ties that might enable public partic-ipation. Connections made by the young to global environments, in particular, pose interesting questions to the researcher. Not yet in command of governments and corporations, they might still help to create denser global networks through their social and individual activities as students, consumers, activists or artists. There has been some interest in the role of young people in the active construction of a global culture, by authors such as Livingstone (Livingstone and Bovill 2001) and Olsson (Olsson 2005). In Brazil, researchers who studied the role of television in the construction of national public spaces, such as Bucci (Bucci 2006), are now looking at the challenges brought by the Internet. Researchers who write about the young and the Internet in Brazil, such as Buzato (Buzato 2008) and Lima & Furtado (Lima and Furtado 2008), tend to focus on social inclusion issues. An interesting study was conducted by public television TV Cultura to better understand internet use in Lan Houses (Data 2009). Few, such as Freire (Freire 2006), have included the relationship between the global and the local in their investigations, but they do not seem to focus on the young in particular. Although there is theoretical reflection on the possible impacts of globalization on national and local cultures in Brazil, I was not able to find empirical research that examined the active connections young Brazilians are making to the global mediated society. In my previous research (Pait 2008), on the reception of international news in São Paulo, I tackled the issue, noticing that young Paulistanos tended to experience global events more intensely as part of their world than the general
population. The finding inspired me to do an in-depth research with the young population, which seems to have a different relationship to the global sphere.
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3 Virtual worlds and real challenges
In late September and early October of 2009, I conducted a series of interviews with young students in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. I spoke to 34 people, most of them between 18 and 24 years old. The interviews were held at two important cultural centers in the city: Centro Cultural Vergueiro and SESC-Serviço Social do Comércio. They are centrally located in the city, offer various free services and attract a wide variety of people. Both have free access to the Internet, with computers and Internet courses, and Vergueiro has recently started to offer wireless Internet connection as well.
Centro Cultural Vergueiro is close to downtown, to the busy Avenida Paulista and, most importantly in a city the size of São Paulo, to a subway station. Centro Cultural São Paulo, as it is officially called, is run by the Cultural Department of the City of São Paulo. For many years maintenance of the flat spacious building that follows Rua Vergueiro downhill was precarious, but in recent years the glass and concrete frames have been able to protect from the elements the open, continuous spaces that host a library, theaters, cafés and reading rooms. Centro Cultural Vergueiro’s guests are initially surprised by the free movement of young people using the spaces for their various activities. A group of teenagers greeted me in my first minutes there with an offer of a “free hug”, which I gladly accepted. In the main lobby people read their books and look around while waiting for friends. Taking your right you pass the theaters and ticket offices, and reach an open space with tables and chairs where small groups study for the college entrance exams or for college courses. Before leaving the building, one can find a map of the Center for the visually impaired. If you go back towards the main lobby you can find sculptures, chess tables by the café, and going inside – although you are never sure where is inside or outside at Vergueiro – the library, exhibitions, and the administration.
In little corners and places off the busy alleys, groups of young people develop their own activities, unrelated to the official programming of the Center. One group seemed to be rehearsing a
play, another having a radical political meeting. I do not recall seeing such a free space in São Paulo, or in other cities I have visited. My model of free public encounters were the rallies for democratization in Brazil in the mid-1980s, but these were heavily orchestrated demonstrations.
They too were diverse, lively and peaceful; to be sure. But they were run by political leaders and with very little space for individual expression besides those of the pop singers invited to make them more fun. At Vergueiro what I noticed was that, besides the diverse group of young people – and not so young citizens such as myself – there was a sense of interaction among them, which the hug conveyed well. While I was conducting an interview a group of young artists asked my for my soda can, to be used in an installation. Afterwards, I asked them for an interview. People were either making something or watching something being made. Most of my interviews were conducted there.
SESC-SP is an impressive semi-public institution with branches throughout the State of São Paulo offering sports, cultural and social activities. In the city of São Paulo there are 15 branches, some of them offering activities for the local com-munities and others being part of the large cultural circuit of the city of São Paulo, with important musical events or film festivals. All of them are unusually well taken care of by Brazilian standards, with designer furniture and modern architecture. SESC Pompéia, constructed in an old brick walled factory in the residential West Zone of São Paulo, shows the signature of Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi and has hosted memorable shows and
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exhibitions in its busy programming. Other SESCs cater to communities in the poor suburban areas of the city and offer similar activities. At SESC Itaquera, in the heart of the working class East Zone of São Paulo, for instance, a grand piano sits comfortably around elegant wooden chairs in the peaceful café. An active staff member showed me the computer facility and the various courses at the Internet Livre designed for users of all ages. “What is digital inclusion?”, he asked me. “It has unexpected sides. Here at SESC Itaquera a group of deaf young people started to socialize here at the Internet Livre. We didn’t have anything special for this group, but they found here a place where they felt welcome, enriching our experiences as well.”
SESC is pursuing an active role in the various programs of digital inclusion in the city of São Paulo, stressing a cultural and reflective approach to the medium. They will take part in the public TV Cultura initiative Conexão Cultura to bring educational content to Brazilian users. I had the opportunity follow one of these initiatives, an Internet workshop where teenagers learn how to use creatively Internet resources such as simple music composition freeware. The workshop is part of the program Tribo Urbana for low income teenagers, given at SESC Consolação, one of the two centrally located SESC branches where I conducted interviews for this research, the other being SESC Paulista. In the following paragraphs I will describe a few things I learned from these interviews, some of them responding directly to the questions I initially posed myself and others raising new questions that I hope will be explored in the future.
The interviews will try to determine how this public relates to the world at large, and through which cultural and political forms. I will be especially interested in the use they make of the media:
do these young Paulistanos remain as spectators of global events happening elsewhere or do they use the new interactive capabilities of the media to express themselves and convey to the world their own views and realities? How do they deal with language barriers in their mediated commu- nications? What kinds of material or educational needs they would like to have fulfilled in order to have a more active participation in global cultural and political life?
3.1 The end of hierarchy?
It was easy to establish a pleasant interaction with the young people I interviewed. There was a formal aspect to it, with my list of questions, my digital recorder at hand and my taking notes, but they did not form any barrier to communication. Everyone I approached accepted to be interviewed for the research, at Vergueiro and at SESC, some with visible enthusiasm. Many interviews were conducted in weekend afternoons at Vergueiro, and that might explain part of that relaxed atmosphere. But what was striking to me was the absence of any hierarchy in these interactions; I felt I was accepted as an equal. Neither my job as a university professor put my above them nor my age – I am on average 20 years older than my interviewees – below them.
Social class, educational level or international experience did not seem to play any role either in our interactions, as it did in previous research I conducted in the city of São Paulo. Was it merely the setting, inviting me to sit on the floor with them and breaking boundaries between us? I would like to propose another explanation. This generation might be the first to go beyond deference or defiance in their relation to their elders. They might live in families where subjects previously seen as taboo are talked about freely, and they certainly live in a society where freedom, democracy and equality are positive values. Moreover, they are living in an economy with astounding social mobility, although not equality, and might see social class as a more fragile division among people
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