\A maior zoeira\: youthful experiences on the urban outskirt of São Paulo

This thesis presents as content, different youth experiences as observed in a variety of ethnographical contexts from two different locations in São Paulo city outskirts: Cidade Ademar, southern district, and Brasilândia, northern district. From a multi-sited point of view, the research aimed to raise understanding on how changeable youth experiences are, and how the experiences themselves are changed by other issues, such as education, territory (where they dwell), technology, as well as issues related to gender, class and race. Thus, based on ethnographies carried out in different manners and with different degrees of intensity in five schools, two aspects have received special focus on day to day youth activities: playfulness and technology. Technology was seen as a pivotal element, given its sturdiness within youth experiences, through the use of mobile phones in the classroom, the Internet, games and the sound of loud music reverberating from automobiles, creating space for street funk parties. The interactions between the youth and their technological gadgets, presented a strong connection with playfulness, often characterized by particularities common to the modality. The multiple relations between comic, humorous, jolly and agonistic features in contemporary experiences faced by the youth, have turned playfulness into a very important element, not only in everyday experiences at school often disturbing institutional order but also in other contexts and practices such as the use of lan houses (internet cafes), and carioca funk music get togethers. (AU)