Exploring territories by documentary: The appropriation of public spaces by collective listening

• Main Authors: Roça Luciana, Martins Maria J.S., Tramontano Marcelo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2019-01-01
• Series: SHS Web of Conferences
• Online Access: https://www.shs-conferences.org/articles/shsconf/pdf/2019/05/shsconf_eaea142019_01010.pdf

Sound has a relational interplay with space, influencing the arrangement of ephemeral and symbolic territories in public spaces. Within this perspective, this article aims to discuss the influence of collective listening in the appropriation of public spaces, discussing the events conducted spontaneously by the youth in the Coronel Salles Square, Sao Carlos, Brazil. Weekly on Fridays, this marginalised community builds an ephemeral territory in the square, which is also influenced by collective listening by powerful speakers in cars. As methods, we use documentary procedures to take a closer look at these events. Being an assertion of the historical world, a perspective is taken by a non-neutral part, a documentary performed as practice-as-research offers a useful set of methods to researchers to explore urban issues and matters and, it is a reflexive method which questions the researcher’s posture.