“Searching for better days”: culture and politics as institutional practices at the Baixada Fluminense

Abstract

Our proposal in this paper is to analyze how the relationship between culture and politics presents itself in two specific contexts of institutional action found at the Baixada Fluminense (Fluminense Lowlands in Rio de Janeiro): the actions of the Cultural Houses emerged in the 80’s and 90’s and the actions of the NGO’s that currently (2000/2010) have developed cultural practices around the place. Considering the premise of there being a significant change in how the idea of culture is understood at the same time its central role is not left aside, we try to map how the interconnections between culture and politics are built within a context highly crossed by a mediatized culture as contemporaneity is.