What do get when they buy records? Ethnography in fairs of vinyl records in the city of São Paulo

• Grant number: 13/19288-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2013
• End date: October 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Urban Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: José Guilherme Cantor Magnani
• Grantee: Michel de Paula Soares
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The vinyl record replaced the 78rpm format, achieving hegemony as the primary product of the Brazilian phonographic market during the 60s and 70s of last century. Yet another change began in the 90s with the arrival of the CD format (acronym for Compact Disc), designing the replacement of the LP (acronym for Long Play, being widely used in Portuguese to describe vinyl records). After about fifteen years of the near extinction of this, as evidenced by the closing of manufacturing plants worldwide and the withdrawal of LP's in almost all the major retailers, the circulation of vinyl records gains momentum again in recent years, encouraging some retailers and collectors to organize regular Fairs in Sao Paulo for the purchase, sale and exchange of records. This research will be conducted through the ethnographic method - participant observation, conversations and interviews - allowing processes to examine actual consumption and aims to identify, apart from a market of symbolic goods, how important for social relations and the formation of an identity cultural consumption LP's, during the Fairs of vinyl records, has for the actors involved (regulars of these Fairs, consumers, vendors, collectors, curious, etc.) to verify that these relations allow the construction of a network of sociability that will establish its own circuit through the city of São Paulo, perpetuating itself beyond Fairs.