This doctoral dissertation is an experimental ethnographic investigation of the political consciousness and radical modes of livelihoods of marginalized "street" populations in a postconial Latin-American city, and of their connections with the transnational flows of capital, goods, peoples, and symbols of Global Capitalism. / Beginning in the streets of Salvador da Bahia in this place I call "Global Brazil", this inquiry presents a focal lens through which to examine how the structural and cultural forces of Late-Capitalism (Jameson, 1994) in a globalized world and the legacy of colonialism play out at the level of local and transnational actors' lived experiences (that is, for example, how these forces define, 'value', shape, hurt, confine, and displace bodies; but also how bodies dodge these forces, use these forces, reinvent themselves, or strategically perform their colonizer/colonized identities in a search for agency) and focuses, among other salient aspects, on the connections, dependencies, exploitation, violence, and desire between "street children", subaltern women, transnational prostitutes, (sex)tourists, sexpatriates (Seabrook, 1996) and other foreign men and women constructed as "gringo/as" in the context of Global Brazil. / Written as a collage between contemporary social, cultural, and political theory and an experimental ethnographic novel (Hecht, 2006), this project explores, or at best poses certain questions about contemporary forms of domination, survival, and resistance while hoping to shed light on undertheorized aspects of our globalized late-capitalist era by investigating the perspectives of local social actors on the structural, cultural and transnational forces in which their radical livelihoods are embedded. / Finally, as a work of political pedagogy, this investigation is also fundamentally preoccupied with the role of grassroots politics, research, ethnography, and global social actors---such as the author and other 'academics'--- who occupy positions of social, economic, political, and symbolic power, in collaborating with other segments of civil societies to work toward equitable alternatives to contemporary social suffering. / Intertwined with the many faces, voices and stories of this ethnography, thus, readers will encounter the voice, eyes, body, experience, reflections, interrogations, doubts, pains, fears, desire, violence, hopes, defeats, desperations, and resistance of the author, who, as an individual 'articulated' (Nelson, 1999) as white, male, gringo, intellectual, transcultural, geopolitically mobile, ethnographer, and flaneur in the context of this story, constitutes a character deeply implicated in the global flows and forces that are the object of this study.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed April 9, 2009). Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 489-534).

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The legacy of colonialism has left an impression on Brazil that is still strongly present today, particularly in the city of Salvador, Bahia, and the connection between race and class remains quite conspicuous throughout Brazil in politics, business, and social settings. The 20th century saw the rise blocos afro as part of an Afro-Brazilian diaspora seeking pride in black identity and positive social change through concrete community-driven projects. This paper focuses on a newer community group, Bagunçaço, that follows in the footsteps of the blocos afro with an increased emphasis on the role of media in the social development process, using music paired with various digital technologies to educate, empower, and connect participants. The report is an ethnographic study based on first person interviews and observation by the author in Salvador, as well on as a biography on Bagunçaço’s founder, Joselito Crispim. The primary findings of the paper are 1) Bagunçaço serves to mitigate crime and violence among youth, providing kids with skill-building music, art, and technology activities to engage in during free time. 2) The group also serves a spiritual need of Afro-Brazilians by empowering kids with the context of their situation as part of a diasporic community that can resist oppression and gain upward social traction in a society permeated by historic racial hierarchy. 3) Bagunçaço transcends national lines with its international partnerships and engages in a digital exchange that is not only technology skill building, but an expansion of kids’ perspectives of the world beyond the poor communities that many of them would otherwise only ever know. / text