Creative entextualizations of discourses about race in multi-sited discursive practices in the Brazilian ‘periphery’

Abstract

This paper focuses on Luan’s race performances both on the web and in classroom interaction. Luan is a black young man, who identifies himself as gay. The study is part of a multi-sited ethnographic piece of research on a group of high-school students in the state sector, in the ‘periphery’ of a town on the Rio de Janeiro State north coast, Brazil. The paper is guided by performance and entextualization theorizing. The analysis draws attention to the circulation of racial identity signs, intersected with gender/sexuality meanings, bringing to light what we call creative entextualizations, i.e. the gaps Luan finds to re-organize the meanings in the discursive practices in which he is engaged. The analyses point to positionings and innovative identity performances which come up in conjunction with essentialized views, always perceptible amidst struggles and disputes. Because it draws attention to mobile lives in the ‘periphery’, this study may be said to explode the traditional boundaries between ‘center’ and ‘periphery’.