Political Upcycling

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 4 explores the cultural tools employed by favela activists to situate their activism within the dominant frames of the favela. Through a strategy of embedded resistance, activists “upcycle” the cultural values of the neighborhood by deploying them for more political objectives. This strategy allows them to remain within the normative discourses of the neighborhood—surveilled by the local drug trade—while also calling for more concrete social and political changes. The chapter describes how activists capitalize on local values around education, cultural production, and opposition to racial violence as a way of maneuvering within cultural opportunities to make more explicitly political claims.