Passages through the streets of São Paulo in (auto)biographical narratives

Author(s)

Hugo Ciavatta

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2013-08-29

Examining board members

Maria Suely Kofes; Taniele Rui; Marco Antonio Teixeira Gonçalves

• Advisor: Maria Suely Kofes

Abstract

This work is an ethnography with a clear biographical intent focused on the homeless people living in the city of São Paulo. Drawing, on one side, from visits to the office of OCAS (Civil Organization for Social Action), which publishes the magazine 'OCAS" - leaving the streets', copies sold by homeless; and, on the other side, from regular meetings with Esmeralda do Carmo Ortiz, who published "Esmeralda - por que não dancei", in 2000, a narrative of his life, most of which she had lived the streets of the city center, I reflect about these (auto)biographical narratives with a regard closed to the urban anthropology. First, I search for a biographical approach in anthropology to look to the narratives of life that I bring along the dissertation. Second, in the first chapter, I combine an urban anthropology approach to the world of the homeless pointing out the uses of the term "biographic" made in this area. In the following chapters, I present the ethnography of these (auto)biographical narratives. By doing that, I bring the stories that I found on the OCAS, as well as the narratives of the magazine, in the section "Cabeção Sem Teto", dedicated to the stories of people who lived or had lived on the streets. Finally, I retrieve the story of Esmeralda Ortiz, combining her autobiographical narrative recorded in the book with the meetings I had with her, reflecting about her life story (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/14306-6 - Esmeralda - why I did dance: an autobiography as an ethnographic exercise
• Grantee: Hugo Ciavatta
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master