Carnival as a political agency in Brazilian protests: sonic turn in performance studies
Carnival; Performance; Sound Studies; Protest.
In Brazil's history, Carnival is imprinted as a sharpener of tensions (SIMAS, 2019), producing a festive environment of disputes that has been the stage for protests since its origin. For this reason, a study in the field of Communication is necessary for recognising the conceptual potential of Carnival (BAKHTIN, 1987) as a political agent in the city beyond the parties, resulting in a spiraling phenomenon (MARTINS, 2020). Most of the investigations that articulate Carnival and protest are based on archival knowledge, such as videos, photos, reports; in order to privilege a discursive analysis of the visual registers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to promote a performative sonic turn in the communicational studies of Brazilian political manifestations. In order to do so, we bet on a transversal methodology of carnivalized protests in Brazil, having as its center sound studies (BIELETTO-BUENO, 2019; LABELLE, 2020), performance and media, but also going through cartographic processes (LATOUR, 2012) and sonic- musical territorialities (FERNANDES; HERSCHMANN, 2011). This methodological displacement is structured by the recovery of the concepts such as scenarios (TAYLOR, 2013) and oralitura (MARTINS, 2020), emphasizing that it is in the body, sound and voice that embodied memory and knowledge of different natures is inscribed and transmitted. Following, we investigate the sound role in protests, based on concepts such as sonic agency, the overheard (LABELLE, 2020), politicization of listening and aural regime (BIELETTO-BUENO, 2021). The performances of protest rummaged in this work are based on audiovisual narratives mediated by social networks and the researcher's own experiences, in order to stress the problematic of presence.