Paper short abstract:

This research aims to understand how trash pickers, female workers in solidarity economy, and Hip Hop youths use photography in the characterization of their everyday lives. Thus, we have been considering the image production as an ethnographic tool and a social educative process.

Paper long abstract:

This research presents some analyses related to the production and use of photographic images and highlights some of their contributions to the ethnographic approach and educational practices in poor communities. Emerging from long dialogues with trash pickers, female workers in solidarity economy, and Hip Hop youngsters, this paper aims to evince how the subjects use photographic images in the characterization of their everyday lives and as identity reflexive narratives. Looking at the trajectories and the sociability/solidarity networks, which make up the act of narrating, we invited different people from poor neighborhoods in Porto Alegre, Southern Brazil, to make some photographic sessions. Then, conversations about the photographs taken by them were established. The discussion about the photographical authorships, in collective and individual meetings, has shown us that the images evoke distinct information from the traditional interviews, when we discuss what "should" be registered and censured, what is beautiful and important in their daily activities, or rather, the relation between the image verisimilitude and the reality construction. Also, this reflexive process has been contributing for the subjects that reorganize their social memories and rethink their community relations. A formation practice which considers the relationship among social education, research and production of images is glimpsed by the subjects' recognition of the cultural specificities of their photographs. In public exhibitions, we have been trying to value this people's experiences and their discourse regarding different issues: work, music, urban life, etc.