Memes, texts and problematizations: sociability and politics from a university LGBT community on Facebook

Author(s)

Thiago Henrique de Oliveira Falcão

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2017-02-21

Examining board members

Regina Facchini; Guita Grin Debert; Júlio Assis Simões

• Advisor: Regina Facchini

Abstract

The popularization of the Internet and the Information and Communication Technology as well as the way these influences the political participation and engagment composes a recent preocupation in the Brazilian social sciences, potencialized by the 2013 "June¿s Journey" and the worldwilde similar mobilizations. This dissertation aims to contribute for the reflection of questions in the Brazilian contemporary context. The study will be focused on the political engagement and processes existing in a Facebook community composed by LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, travesties and transgenders) university students. Created in 2011 the on-line community, named GDU, had the goal to "draw nearer the gay public from Unicamp". It is classified as a hidden community and it had 3.479 members by the end of 2016, mostly formed by students from universities located around Barão Geraldo, a district belonged to Campinas. The community has suffered many members¿ formation processes throughout its existence: members with diverse sexual and gender identities have been added; political mobilizations regarding university matters have influenced discussions; internal group splits have happened. Besides that, GDU¿s members demonstrated many engagement levels as political actors inside the group or outside it, combined with known university social movements that usually work only offline. The research is consisted by ethnological observation of the community, made in the years of 2014 and 2015. It took into consideration the on-line context, as well as the offline and the interaction between on-line/off-line, in this case including other digital platforms as Whatsapp, Facebook¿s Messenger and Twitter. Old posts were analyzed, as well as informal interviews with key-members were done. Futhermore, the research also resorts to a literature available about cyberspace and the social relations constructed in and through cyberspace; social and political movements in the internet era; anthropology of emotions; LGBT¿s and feminist¿s movements starred by young people in the contemporary world (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 13/26212-4 - Disputing meanings in the network: conventions and practices about politics and homosexuality in a university community on Facebook
• Grantee: Thiago Henrique de Oliveira Falcão
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master