Jovens no cosplay: representação e consumo cultural no SANA

Abstract

The goal of this research is to identify sociability practices and performances produced by a group of young cosplayersfrom the city of Fortaleza-Ce in the Super Amostra Nacional de Animes (SANA), through an ethnographic experience carried out in the 2018and 2019 editions of the meeting. For this purpose, is shown as a main goal of this investigation, to analyse the dimensions that involve the characterization process of cosplayers who participate in SANA in order to answer the following questions: To what extent does insertion regarding the cultural and visual universe of cosplayrelate to the social experiences shared by youth in Brazilian society? How to understand the construction of youth identity through characters and symbols of pop/japanese cultureand the sociability and cultural practices associated with it? Considering that the cosplayactivity stimulates plural manifestations, it is relevant to investigate the practices that these young people undertake in the events of pop/Japanese culture, as they can directly help in understanding the behaviors and representations currently practiced by the groups of young people, especially in the context of Ceará. In this sense, the scope chosen to carry out such an investigation was the National Super AnimeSample (SANA), meeting nationally recognized for bringing together the different artifacts ofpop/japanese culture and enabling the contact of young people in Fortaleza with cultural and consumption practices. Thus, the use of ethnography, as a methodological resource, was fundamental to access SANA's cosplay scenario and to perceive other dynamics that make the event frequented by mostly young groups. The field diary, semi-structured interviews and images attached throughout the text also brought complementary elements indispensable to the discussion of the data and results presented. From this study it was revealed that the universe of pop/japanese culture allows youths develop a look at transnational cultural flows, delocalized, and that the group learnings formulated in the cosplayscenario explore margins of possibilities between the fantasyand the reality worlds, to the extent that mobilizing affective relationships, body constructions and representations of gender and sexuality. When choosing different characters to represent, these young people have different experiences from their daily realities, thus, they subvert the logic of performance that determines the only way to cosplay and elaborate their own understanding of the meaning of the practice.