The LGBT fight is not this pink little world: on the contemporary black LGBTQ activism in São Paulo and New York

Abstract

This project intends to investigate the tensions, negotiations and alliances in the actions of different contemporary LGBTQ black activism. The ethnographic context that I am working on for my Master's Research regards the relationship between cultural production, aesthetics and activism in the "black LGBT scene" in the city of São Paulo. In my field, New York cultural production recurrently appears as a strong reference for my interlocutors in what concerns the production of performances and events, such as the "Afropunk Festival" or countless "ballroom-voguing" events. Therefore, it is my intent to carry out a literature review based on scholarship in "black queer studies" and "intersectionalities studies", as well as research on collectives, cultural scenes and places of LGBTQ sociability. In addition, I intend to explore in New York the political-cultural references that are important for my interlocutors in São Paulo, as well as to deepen the mapping of the transnational connections that are established by my Brazilian interlocutors in New York City.