A sua pesquisa

A visibilidade da poesia de cordel esteve, tradicionalmente, associada às imagens masculinas, dotadas de discursos conservadores. O que não significa que as mulheres estavam ausentes deste universo literário, mas seus trabalhos não alcançavam a mesma projeção daqueles produzidos pelos homens. Apesar de, atualmente, termos proposto reflexões acerca da representatividade das mulheres em eventos, feiras, publicações e o reconhecimento da importância das poesias feitas por mulheres, ainda há constantes referências às mulheres de forma estigmatizada nos folhetos – nos versos, nas capas, nas palestras…

The long and labyrinthine process that Latin America has undergone in its way towards democracy has been marked by the same confrontations and quarrels present throughout the Western intellectual history, which have sometimes been expressed as a fight between "ideas and emotions." In Latin America, this intellectual quarrel may be described in Julio Cortazar’s terms, as a struggle between "Baroque cronopios" versus "Gothic fames," or as a war between two cultures: "that of blood and that of ink," echoing the erosion of the great theories and traditional ideologies. Thus, in the wake of the political and cultural developments resulting from globalization, the Latin American democratic transitions, and the fall of the socialist bloc, we know that we are witnessing the end of an era, but we cannot yet define the new age. This article ponders, thus, what the revival of romantic views and emotions may mean at the beginning of the 21st century. Mexico, in particular, faces a major political and cultural challenge, resulting from the fact that the Mexican society is still immersed in the culture of the Revolution’s nationalism. The perennial struggle between ideas and emotions has become manifest again in the form of a dilemma between attaching to an identity in crisis and trying to reconstruct it, or rather looking ahead with the aim of creating a new democratic civic culture. [P1] Tras los desarrollos políticos y culturales derivados de la globalización, las transiciones democráticas en América Latina y la desaparición del bloque socialista, sabemos que estamos ante el fin de una época, pero aún no podemos definir los nuevos tiempos. A partir de ello, este artículo reflexiona sobre lo que puede significar el retorno de algunas visiones y emociones románticas a comienzos del siglo XXI. En particular, México tiene frente a sí un gran reto político y cultural, que parte del hecho de que su sociedad sigue inmersa en la cultura del nacionalismo revolucionario. Se presenta, así, como nueva expresión de esa perenne lucha entre ideas y emociones, la disyuntiva de dirigir los sentimientos a una identidad en crisis e intentar reconstruirla, o bien mirar hacia adelante para darle vida a una nueva cultura cívica democrática.

En fechas recientes descubrí términos útiles para la investigación que realizo: la literatura transatlántica, utilizada en los estudios iberoamericanos, y la ecología de la literatura, usada en estudios de literatura comparada. El primer término se refiere a las afinidades y choques continuos que tienen autores capaces de navegar en varias lenguas y culturas, tal es el caso de Jorge Eduardo Eielson. De origen peruano, Eielson vivió gran parte de su vida en Europa, concretamente en Francia e Italia, aunque visitaba Perú más o menos regularmente y viajó brevemente a Estados Unidos. Todo lo anterior resulta útil si se piensa que los poemas y las instalaciones emblemáticas de Eielson encierran la fusión de culturas marginales: los quipus (nudos en quechua) rinden homenaje a las culturas precolombinas oriundas del Perú, pero también son consecuencia de una marcada influencia oriental, particularmente de las lecciones taoístas y algunas referencias anticonceptuales del budismo zen. Sorprende aún más saber que las lecciones de Oriente parecen haber llegado vía Estados Unidos, gracias a la New York School.

La performance poética que Batato Barea realizó en la presentación de la galería del Rojas, en 1989, para inaugurar la muestra de Liliana Maresca Lo que el viento se llevó colocó en primer plano aquello que Mladen Dolar (2007) denominó como “política de la voz”. El uso paródico que hizo el clown-travesti-literario respecto de la historia de la declamación de poesía estableció diferentes modos de fuga de aquella corporalidad rígida, proveniente de los procesos de homogeneización de la lengua de comienzos del siglo XX y reiterada como emblema del disciplinamiento de los cuerpos durante el período dictatorial. El poema recitado, -“Sombra de conchas” de Alejandro Urdapilleta- y la performance de Batato Barea hacían entrar, a través del repertorio gestual histórico de la declamación de poesía, nuevos posicionamientos sobre la subjetividad, teniendo como horizonte la puesta en primer plano de la teatralidad en distintas artes durante la posdictadura argentina. Paralelamente, junto a la escucha de esta voz paródica, puede rastrearse, en las performances del clown y del grupo Las coperas, un registro ambivalente, que absorbía los tonos imaginarios que la literatura ya había volcado sobre sí para ese entonces.

This study presents an analysis of the appropriation of public space by cultural producers in Cuba, with a focus on art collectives, in particular, OMNI Zona Franca from Alamar, east of Havana. Based on primary research conducted with the artists, cultural producers, and scholars, I discuss OMNI’s work in the context of the history and formation of a nascent movement for civil society in Cuba, locating the collective’s work within the matrix of alternative and African diasporic cultural production. The latter is framed as part of a historical continuum and in the context of the discussion of race that emerged in Cuba’s public sphere during the 1990s with a concurrent movement among black Cuban artists to address issues of race. Situating OMNI’s work in a longer history of Afro-Cuban cultural production in Cuba as well as within the history of art collectives this study demonstrates how OMNI’s participation in the public sphere relates to social practice, appropriation of space, alternativity, and the forging of a wide coalition of civil and artistic alternatives among diverse communities. I draw on discourses on the production of space, particularly those of Henri Lefebvre and Raymond Williams, and argue that the unique and specific history of Alamar provided a fertile ground for alternative culture where multiple and countercultural expressions could be incubated and take root. The struggle over public space and the attempts by artists to create an autonomous public sphere in Cuba have led to continual conflict with the state. Using Gramsci’s theorization of civil society as incorporating both the hegemonic and contestatory realms, I contend that the level of contestation in OMNI Zona Franca’s work should be seen as counter-hegemonic expression aimed at altering the status quo. Producing new social relations, the collective’s practice is offered as an example of how art and cultural production is inaugurating alternative counter-spaces in the context of a demand for a more inclusive and representative Revolutionary public sphere.

"Tyler Hoffman brings a fresh perspective to the subject of performance poetry, and this comes at an excellent time, when there is such a vast interest across the country and around the world in the performance of poetry. He makes important connections, explaining things in a manner that remains provocative, interesting, and accessible." ---Jay Parini, Middlebury College American Poetry in Performance: From Walt Whitman to Hip Hop is the first book to trace a comprehensive history of performance poetry in America, covering 150 years of literary history from Walt Whitman through the rap-meets-poetry scene. It reveals how the performance of poetry is bound up with the performance of identity and nationality in the modern period and carries its own shifting cultural politics. This book stands at the crossroads of the humanities and the social sciences; it is a book of literary and cultural criticism that deals squarely with issues of "performance," a concept that has attained great importance in the disciplines of anthropology and sociology and has generated its own distinct field of performance studies. American Poetry in Performance will be a meaningful contribution both to the field of American poetry studies and to the fields of cultural and performance studies, as it focuses on poetry that refuses the status of fixed aesthetic object and, in its variability, performs versions of race, class, gender, and sexuality both on and off the page. Relating the performance of poetry to shifting political and cultural ideologies in the United States, Hoffman argues that the vocal aspect of public poetry possesses (or has been imagined to possess) the ability to help construct both national and subaltern communities. American Poetry in Performance explores public poets' confrontations with emergent sound recording and communications technologies as those confrontations shape their mythologies of the spoken word and their corresponding notions about America and Americanness.

La guaracha, como otras manifestaciones de la cultura oral americana, no ha recibido una justa atención crítica, a pesar de ser un género destacadísimo en la producción popular de Cuba y el Caribe, carencia que este trabajo pretende paliar. Enraizada en el cruce de las tradiciones culturales indígena, hispana y africana, y ligada al proverbial choteo cubano, la guaracha ha recorrido un largo trayecto desde sus inicios en el teatro bufo hasta hoy, fundiéndose con otras modalidades lírico-musicales como muestra de su versatilidad y capacidad de adaptación a los tiempos. Se ilustran las características poéticas de este género a través del análisis de algunas letras de Faustino Oramas "El guayabero", quien alcanzó una notable popularidad en toda Cuba a finales del siglo XX. Similar to other manifestations of oral tradition in American culture, the guaracha has not received its deserved attention from critics, despite being an incredibly prominent genre of popular production in Cuba and the Caribbean. It is this lack of attention that this article intends to remedy. Rooted in the intersection of Indigenous, Hispanic, and African cultures and bound to the proverbial Cuban banter, the guaracha has journeyed from its beginnings in the bufo theatre to its current merging with other lyrical-musical forms, demonstrating its versatility and ability to adapt with the times. Through analyses of lyrics by Faustino Oramas – also known as "The guayabero" – who reached noteworthy popularity throughout Cuba at the end of the 20th century, the poetic characteristics of the genre shine through.

Una biblioteca con libros de historia, ilustraciones, colecciones de VHS, cartucheras de DVDs, compilaciones periodísticas, testimonios, revistas literarias, fotografías, grabaciones sonoras, filmes. Un exhibidor de objetos, disfraces, instrumentos musicales, muñecos. Solicitadas en diarios, invitaciones a eventos, reconstrucciones de espacios, mapas de ciudades, circuitos virtuales en 3D. La imaginación es capciosa, ya que aun cuando efectivamente la reproductibilidad técnica hubiera podido hacer una copia y un registro absoluto, la performance tampoco estaría allí. Su ausencia se distingue de la ruina; el acontecimiento no regresa, no simplemente porque haya pasado el tiempo, sino porque no estaba hech para perdurar.

El cambio de siglo trajo consigo nuevas posibilidades de acercamiento a la escritura. Desde el traslado de la frontera entre plagio y creación, y la reapropiación y reescritura de textos ya existentes, hasta el amplio abanico de posibilidades desatado por el estallido de las tecnologías comunicativas, la escritura ha dejado de ser el espacio de introspección autoral privilegiado por el romanticismo para convertirse en una experiencia de la comunalidad contemporanea. Los ensayos que componen este volumen se sumergen en el panorama actual de las letras para trazar una geografía siempre móvil y cambiante de sus posibilidades estéticas, éticas y políticas; pues, a fin de cuentas, la escritura no es un monumento arcaico sino la suma de todas sus manifestaciones, viejas y nuevas, y de cada acercamiento, cada lectura y cada interpretación. Índice Gratulabundus. Introducción Necropolítica y escritura. Una conversación. El estado de las cosas y el estado de los lenguajes: una crítica. Cadáveres textuales. El trabajo inmaterial y la resistencia de las vidas asombradas. #escriturascontraelpoder Fichas anamnésicas. I. La desmuerte del autor: David Markson (1927. 2010). II. De las estéticas citacionistas a las prácticas de la desapropiación: escrituras atravesadas en el español de hoy. III. Los usos del archivo: de la novela histórica a la ficción documental. IV. Mi paso por transcrito: planetarios, esporádicos, exofónicos. V. Breves mensajes desde Pompeya: la producción del presente en 140 caracteres. VI. ¿Sueñan las máquinas con el lenguaje del nosotros?: una curaduría. VII. Prácticas de comunalidad contra la violencia VIII. Desapropiadamente: escribir entre/para los muertos. Notas Acerca de la autora Créditos.

INTRODUÇÃO / 01 1° Capítulo: Percursos Urbanos na Arte de Rua / 06 1.1 O Berço da Arte de Rua / 07 1.2 Filhos dos Guetos / 12 1.3 Passos para a Fama / 16 1.4 Guerra de Estilos / 18 1.5 A Expansão nas Mídias / 24 1.6 O Mercado do Graffiti / 27 2° Capítulo: 2 Ato Transgressor: O Artista na Rua / 32 2.1 O Risco Vale a Pena / 33 2.2 “Declare o Seu Amor à Cidade, São Paulo 450 anos” / 34 2.3 Caminhos na Contramão / 38 2.4 XARPI, Profissão Perigo / 42 2.5 A Pixação pela Porta da Frente / 50 2.6 Escrita Urbana / 57 3° Capítulo: 3 Circuitos Locais / 60 3.1 Graffiti Made in Brasil / 61 3.1.1 Artistas do Graffiti / 64 3.2. O Graffiti com Sotaque Carioca / 70 3.2.1. Graffiti de Periferia / 75 3.3. Antídoto Contra a Pixação / 77 CONSIDERAÇÕES FINAIS / 84 APÊNDICES / 90 Circuitos Locais - Galeria de Fotos / 91 REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS / 102 *** Resumo Este estudo tem como objetivo contribuir para a compreensão da origem das intervençõesurbanas através do grafite contemporâneo, sua expansão no Brasil e de que forma aporta aocircuito das instituições oficiais da arte. Orientamos o escopo de nossa pesquisa no sentido deacompanhar a expansão do fenômeno do grafite como arte de rua no Brasil desde anos 1970 até o presente momento; o processo de crescimento dos dois vieses do grafite (pichação egrafite) nas cidades de São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro; de que forma o grafite se consagra comoum novo gênero artístico junto ao circuito institucional; e como o ensino do grafite vem sendovinculado a projetos sociais. Partindo desse recorte recorremos à análise da origem desse movimento nos Estados Unidos; a expansão da pichação nas grandes cidades brasileiras apartir de um contexto urbano, e o grafite como uma expressão juvenil que se impõe nessecenário; assim como aspectos e características da pichação em São Paulo e os processos demidiatização e hibridação cultural. Partindo de uma pesquisa documental, bibliográfica e decampo, buscou-se verificar as diferenças e contrastes entre a pichação e o grafite; quais osmétodos de intervenção, técnicas, materiais e estilos; a análise histórica dos artistas pioneiros no grafite na década de 1970 em São Paulo; assim como, o início do grafite no Rio de Janeironos anos 1980. Por fim, procurou-se entender o propósito de iniciativas que visam a oferta decursos e oficinas de grafite em projetos destinados aos jovens de comunidades de baixa rendano Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Abstract This study aims at contributing to an understanding of the origin of the urbaninterventions through the contemporary graffiti, its development in Brazil, and how itcontributes to the circuit of the official institutions of Art. We have decided to carry out ourresearch in order to monitor the expansion of the graffiti phenomenon as a street art in Brazilfrom the 1970s up to the present time, the process of the growth of the two types of graffiti(writings and picture graffiti) in São Paulo and in Rio de Janeiro; how graffiti has establisheditself as a new artistic genre within the institutional circuit; and how the teaching of graffitihas been connected to social projects. Considering the information collected, we have done ananalysis of the origin of this movement in the United States; the expansion of the graffiti inbig Brazilian cities from an urban context, and the graffiti as a youth expression which hasimposed itself in this scenario; as well as aspects of the writings ( pichação)in São Paulo, andthe processes of mediatization and cultural hybridization. From a documental, bibliographicaland field research, we have attempted to point out the differences and contrasts betweenwritings and picture graffiti; which were the intervention methods, the techniques, thematerials, the styles; the historical analysis of the pioneer artists in the 1970s in São Paulo; aswell as the beginning of graffiti in Rio de Janeiro in the 1980s. Finally, we have tried tounderstand the purpose of the initiatives which aim at offering courses and workshops aboutgraffiti in projects for young people from low-income communities in the state of Rio deJaneiro.

Introduction The experiences of democratization in Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and early 1990s brought attention to the forces of civil society as key actors in the demise of authoritarian rule (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986; Cohen and Arato 1992; Bernhard 1993; Linz and Stepan 1996). More recent literature questions the inherently pro-democratic character of civil society activism (Warren 2000; Armony 2004; Jamal 2007). In both lines of argument, societal associations or social movements are at the core of the inquiry. However, Hirschman’s category of “voice,” which encompasses as much articulation of discontent as it does actions of protest (Hirschman 1970), reminds us that for civil society activism to evolve, something fundamental is necessary: an arena in which voices can be raised and heard and in which government and society interact. The question of civil society, thus, is intrinsically linked to the conditions, contours, limitations and possibilities of communication, media and the public sphere. Ever since the term “Facebook revolution” (Smith 2011) was coined for the social mobilizations that led to the downfall of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, this link between communication, civil society activism and democratization has received great media attention. However, most of this attention focused on the mobilizing potential of the digital media at the moment of rupture. This chapter takes a contemporary perspective as it seeks to contribute to our understanding of the Internet’s impact on civil society dynamics in a non-pluralist context through a diachronic comparison. Based on an empirical study of the Cuban case, the argument is as follows. Prior to the entry of the Internet, the civil society debate centered around the quest for higher degrees of autonomy for associations and institutions within the framework of the state-socialist regime. In contrast, the new media enabled the emergence of a new, less state-dependent type of public sphere; as a consequence, the civil society debate has become increasingly centered on the assertion of individual citizenship rights within andvis-à-vis the state. The reformist civil society quest of the pre-Internet period failed in part because of its character as behind-the-scenes-struggle, shielded from public view, which impeded a broader mobilization of protest when the state decided to rein in the incipient push for civil society. In contrast, the current drive for civil society indeed finds strong public repercussion; for its democratizing potential to come to fruition, the crucial fault-line is to connect web-based voice to public debate and social action in the country’s physical off-line environment. By taking Cuba as object of empirical analysis, this study selects a case with a particularly thorough form of authoritarian hold over the public sphere: a formal monopoly of the Cuban state on mass media, established in the historic experience of twentieth-century state-socialism and upheld even two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the same time, Cuba is strongly exposed to transnational influences and a transnational articulation of voice, due to a large number of emigrant and diaspora communities that remain highly attached to their country of origin (Fernández 2005). The approach chosen to analyze the impact of the Internet on state-society relations is through a diachronic comparison of the Cuban development in two distinct periods: the pre-Internet period, i.e., Cuba in the early to mid 1990s, when the Cold War alignment had already become history but web-based technologies did not yet have a major presence on the island; and more than a decade later, since the mid to late 2000s, when web-based media had made their entry on the island. Formal data on Internet access and use are scarce and unreliable. For 2009, the Cuban Ministry of Informatics and Communications gives the figure of 1,450,000 Cubans, or 12.7 percent, as “Internet users” (ONE 2009)1 without specifying the precise uses this number includes. The figure certainly should not be mistaken for access to the World Wide Web, which remains severely restricted. Instead, the figure most probably includes all Cubans with some kind of (even if only sporadic) access to closed domestic networks or with access to e-mail services. At the same time accounts are shared and, as for other goods and services, also Internet access has a black market side that escapes official statistics. Moreover, Internet content “travels” by USB stick also to many who do not have access themselves. For both these periods, the study relies on the analysis of numerous primary documents, as well as newspapers and secondary literature. In the case of the post-Internet phase, in addition to the above, documents published on the web have been a primary source of analysis. While some authors link issues of civil society and Internet voice merely to the political opposition, this chapter does not limit its focus to this divide but analyzes as much societal actors working within the established institutions of the socialist state as well as those outside of it. In both periods under scrutiny field trips to the island were undertaken in which actors from a broad range of positions were interviewed. While these interviews are not cited directly due to political sensitivities, they provide an invaluable background for the trends described.

La poesía experimental latinoamericana se posiciona frente a la tradición textual que priva a la palabra escrita de sus potencialidades escénicas, gráficas y rituales, y cuestiona los límites del lenguaje, al tiempo que exalta su libertad. La reflexión sobre la letra y la sonoridad de la poesía nos permite considerar a la escritura no como portadora de significados externos a ella, sino como un pensamiento que se despliega por la página y más allá. El aquí y ahora de la escritura se encuentra con el aquí y ahora de la escena, lo cual abre camino a una poesía performativa. Este ensayo reflexiona acerca de estas cuestiones a través del análisis de un caso particular: el trabajo poético y de arte-acción de Raúl Zurita, fundador del Colectivo Acciones de Arte (CADA), el cual tuvo gran impacto en las manifestaciones de arte político durante la dictadura militar de Augusto Pinochet, así como en la manera de concebir los límites entre la literatura y el arte del performance.

Resumo A presente dissertação se desenvolve acerca de uma das formas de arte característica da paisagem urbana contemporânea, o graffiti1. O fenômeno analisado remete tanto ao registro do cotidiano urbano na Antiguidade, como à ação subversiva de grupos marginais na década de 1970, em Nova Iorque. Além de apresentar uma breve abordagem histórica, caracterizando o graffiti como uma arte da rua, que vem ocupando espaços oficiais de exposição, este estudo, baseado em pesquisa desenvolvida na cidade de Vitória, capital do Estado brasileiro do Espírito Santo, analisa a inserção do graffiti na paisagem do lugar, como um fenômeno urbano insurgente. O estudo reconhece, então, a amplitude crescente da difusão da estética inerente ao graffiti em ambientes e mídias diversos, optando, porém, por abordá-lo em seu meio original: o espaço urbano, com destaque para seu aspecto transgressor. A pesquisa envolve identificação, classificação e análise das manifestações de graffiti estampadas no espaço urbano de Vitória a partir de percurso marcado por intensos fluxos cotidianos. O registro do graffiti por meio de levantamento cartográfico e fotográfico foi adotado como o principal suporte para analisar a inserção do fenômeno na cidade. Em caráter complementar, contribuíram para a compreensão da atividade artística em questão entrevistas realizadas com seus praticantes. O resultado do estudo reconhece no graffiti, entre outros aspectos, uma outra urbanidade que insurge a partir de um dos modos de vivenciar a cidade, deslocado das práticas oficiais urbanas, embora gradativamente cooptadas. Abstract This dissertation takes as its subject one of the most characteristic art forms on the contemporary urban landscape: graffiti. The topic in question deals as much with the depiction of daily urban life in the age of antiquity as the subversive actions of marginal groups in 1970s New York. Beyond presenting a brief historical overview, portraying graffiti as an art of the street which has come to occupy established exhibition spaces, this study, based on research carried out in Vitória, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, analyses the placement of graffiti in the landscape of its locale, as an insurgent urban phenomenon. The study thus acknowledges the growing amplitude of the dissemination of the aesthetic inherent within graffiti in diverse platforms and mediums, opting however to explore it in its original environment: the urban space, with focus on its transgressive aspect. The research involves identification, classification and analysis of the manifestations of graffiti stamped upon the urban space of Vitória via a route marked by intense daily activity. The registering of graffiti by means of cartographic and photographical study was adopted as the principal support to analyse the presence of the phenomenon in the city. Complementing this, interviews carried out with graffiti artists further contribute to the comprehension of the artistic endeavour. The outcome of the study recognises in graffiti, amid other aspects, another urbanity which comes from one of the ways to experience the city, displaced from yet gradually integrated into official urban practices.

This book explores the themes of displacement, exile and migration in the work of the most important Argentine poets since the 1950s. The book outlines the poetry of key authors in the second half of the twentieth century as well as writing by younger poets at the turn of the century. It includes generous selections of the original poems with new translations into English by the author.

A medio camino entre el centro barroco de La Habana y las playas situadas al este de la ciudad que anteceden al esplendor de Varadero, la barriada de Alamar forma parte del municipio de La Habana del Este: una ciudad dentro de la ciudad, separada de La Habana Vieja por un túnel tras el cual empieza un mundo que el yuma (término despectivo del argot callejero que designa al turista o al extranjero) tiene pocas posibilidades de contemplar como no sea por la ventanilla de uno de esos taxis que recorren sin paradas el espacio comprendido entre el centro y la costa. Cien mil habitantes divididos en veinticinco barrios construidos entre los años setenta y la mitad de la década de los ochenta. Alamar es la antítesis de esa Habana Vieja disneyficada, con sus calles coloniales y su flujo ininterrumpido de turistas: un tiempo y un espacio dilata-dos, edificios racionalistas separados por unas fluidas arterias que conectan los diferentes barrios, espacios agrícolas, un río, vastas áreas militares en desuso, una decrépita y decadente fachada litoral cubierta de hormigón desde la que se vislum-bran las diferentes áreas y etapas de la zona. Una zona que es la plasmación física del diseño y del fracaso de la Utopía, una vasta Unité d'habitation reproducida a gran escala y en la actualidad deshaciéndose poco a poco por la falta de mantenimiento, infraestructuras, servicios comunitarios, comunicaciones y transporte. Una metáfora perfecta de las paradojas y singularidades de Cuba: la instalación abstracta del modelo socialista (y de su fracaso) en una realidad caribeña hecha de lentitud, relaciones y mestizaje. La expansión urbana de la capital cubana llegó a su culmen y al máximo de su decadencia en esta zona, construida por las Microbrigadas, unos grupos de hombres traídos por el gobierno para edificar uno de los proyectos de urbanización de viviendas sociales más imponentes del país. Un periodo constructivo que quedó interrumpido por la crisis econó-mica que siguió a la caída del Muro de Berlín y a la disolución de la URSS (Periodo especial').

First of all, PICHACAO; is not graffiti. It is something distinct that only happens in Brazil. What a subversion is to sign the city with your own made-up name, especially a city that seems not to be projected for you? Lights, Ca...

During the twentieth century, two movements in Cuban art played a critical role in creating an expanded space for societal debate and cultural expression: the artistic avant-garde and the Afro-Cuban movement. Initially flourishing in the late 1920s and early 1930s, these collective efforts took on new forms in the changed environment after 1959. After the Revolution, conditions for cultural production changed with the official position that art should serve ideological functions, but both avant-garde and Afro-Cuban production continued, at the risk of conflict with the state. In the face of a restrictive state that sought to control such expressions, the Afro-Cuban movement and avant-garde art collectives developed along parallel, and sometimes intersecting, lines.

Centred around Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, this paper employs a critical globalisation theory framework to argue that the 1990s notion of ‘changing the world from below', understood as resistance to capitalist globalisation through a ‘transnational civil society', requires re-theorisation in the light of the contemporary developments in Our America. I make a methodological case for a neo-Gramscian approach to argue that ‘counter-hegemony', together with an adequate theorisation of the state and power, should be the preferred concept over the inherently apolitical and under-theorised ‘alter-globalisation'. Whilst the alter-globalisation movement's ideational and normative challenges to hegemony (captured in ex-British prime minister Thatcher's There-Is-No-Alternative-Doctrine, TINA) are undisputed, the transformation of the global geographies of power through local actors alone has remained illusory. Rather, the experience of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA-PTA) strongly suggests that counter-hegemonic globalisation theory will have to consider the roles of both the ‘state-in-revolution' and the ‘transnational organised society'. This will be shown through the analysis and theorisation of the ALBA-PTA as a multi dimensional inter and transnational counter-hegemonic regionalisation and globalisation project that operates across a range of sectors and scales.