Pagodão and abjection in Salvador da Bahia: media, race and dissident sexualities
Bahian Pagode, media, race, sexualities and abjection
The musical genre "Pagodão" or "Bahian Pagode", derived from the traditional “samba de roda” of the "Bahian Recôncavo”, addresses different themes that permeate the playful and the erotic, as well as songs that resignify the favela and the popular neighborhoods of Salvador. Pagodão's biggest audience is among the black youth, who live in the poor suburbs of the city, without state services. One of the reasons for this lack of assistance is the equation constantly presented and debated between the Pagode and danger, bad taste and sexual depravity. I argue that “Pagodão” is treated as abject by the political and economic elites of Salvador, with direct impacts on the living conditions of the populations that celebrate this musical genre. In this thesis, I articulate factors such as race, sexuality and gender in an ethnographic analysis of abjection in several peripheric dimensions of life in Salvador da Bahia.