UNESCO Office in Brasilia, in partnership with London School of Economics (LSE), Itaú Social and Cultural Foundations, AfroReggae and CUFA, is conducting a survey to study forms of sociability that remain invisible and underground, within conventional societies.

The main objective of the survey is to explore alternative means of integration and socialization that are developed by communities that live in extreme poverty and social exclusion, as well as to study and disseminate the methodology of working with youths developed by groups such as AfroReggae and CUFA.

Through artistic activities, these organizations work in communities under risky situation in an environment of drugs, gangs and guns. Their aim is to redefine sociabilities and identities. They take advantage of present artistic and cultural traditions in the communities and local knowledge, behaviours and social goods in order to work with their self esteem and to restore their lost feelings of self value, where killing and dying are trivial. Due to the richness and uniqueness of these experiences, it is important to map them and to understand how they can serve as information to other contexts and situations of similar risky exposition.

This Project is part of a vast partnership network with London School of Economics, universities, the studied communities, local police, Afro Reggae, CUFA, UNESCO, Itaú Cultural and Social Foundations. Each phase of the project is discussed among all partners through a participative methodology. Various seminars and meetings have already taken place during these four years of partnership. The present phase of the project is to present final results of the study, which ends in December 2012.

There will be two Seminars for presentation, promotion and dissemination of the study: one in Rio de Janeiro, on 13 September 2012, and another at London School of Economics, on 2 November, 2012.

Related links:

• Underground Sociabilities Study official website
• Life and death in the favelas of Brazil (pdf)
• Interview with the Chief-researcher and Director of the Social and Cultural Psychology Masters Degree of LSE, Professor Professora Sandra Jovchelovitch (video on YouTube, 2012).
• Interview with Sandra Jovchelovitch (December, 2014)
• Seminar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - agenda (pdf)
• Executive summary - plain document
• Executive summary - illustrated brochure (pdf) (pdf)
• Complete publication 
<//a>Press releasePress release fro the London School of Economics (LSE) (pdf)

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