De roupas de defunto a artigos de moda Imbricações entre comunicação, consumo e sociabilidade numa feira de brechós em Madureira

Abstract

Communication goes beyond the exchange of messages and is present in consumption, sociability and commercial and symbolic exchanges. This is the starting point of this thesis, which is mainly focused on consumption and sociability that take place at a thrift store fair in Madureira, in the northern area of Rio de Janeiro, but was suspended between March 21 and July 24, 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The corpus of this work consists of the Feira das Brecholeiras, held weekly, under the Negrão de Lima viaduct. This is an event that sells all types of merchandise. From jewelry to designer clothes. Almost everything is a second-hand item. The methodologies employed in this study combine: ethnography, through participant observation; virtual ethnography developed on the social networks of thrift stores, covering part of the period in which the fair was suspended; bibliographic research; in-depth interviews, through a semi-structured script, carried out between January 2018 and December 2020 and informal interviews.It seeks to show, through an event that reconfigures the public space on the street, the imbrications between communication, consumption and sociability. The fair, which has been operating in the Rio de Janeiro suburb since 2016 and gathers mainly salespeople, is able to attract all kinds of visitors: from the girl interested in a vintage piece to women who just seek to talk to the salespeople and usually do not buy anything, in a space bargain. The analyzes will be anchored in a very diversified theoretical framework, grouped based on the key concepts explored in this thesis: consumption, sociability and communication. The research is mainly based on the authors Lívia Barbosa and Colin Campbell (2017); Ricardo Freitas (2005); Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood (2013); Grant McCracken (2003); Heitor Frúgoli Jr. (2007); Georg Simmel (2006); Michel Maffesoli (2000; 2004a); Yann Moulier Boutang (2012); Muniz Sodré (1996). The methodologies employed made it possible to show that sociability, commercial and symbolic exchanges are elements interconnected by communication, reinforcing the perception that the fair is a space where people seek to be together for the pleasure of meeting, revealing itself as a space endowed with sociability. It was also observed that communication is indispensable for exchanges; consumption, something that goes beyond the satisfaction of individual needs, presenting itself as a cultural phenomenon and mediator of social relations and, therefore, imbricated to sociability, a central element in the relations between brecholeiras and marketgoers.