Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Popular Discourse on..."Polvos a $3 mil!" (Get off for 3000 pesos!)




 I noticed this article today after leaving one of the Hip-Hop for Change workshops (one of the side projects that constitutes part of the community action component of my research) with some of the 'toughest' and 'roughest' (in an endearing sense) street girls I work with in la 'L' (one of the heaviest drug zones of Bogotá and what is left of 'el Cartucho,' which once spanned more than 5 blocks north-south and 4 blocks east-west and has since been replaced by the family- and community-centered 'Parque Tercer Milenio' - a case of what I call spatial cleansing...part of an effort to eliminate deviant populations from urban space)...

The hip-hop workshop is held in IDIPRON's (a governmental program working with street youth) only day center for homeless women, including minors. (Note: there are dozens of day centers for male youth within the same program for street youth in Bogotá).  For illustrative purposes, I must add that these shelters are referred to as 'patios', which also, according to one of the girls I work with, within 'street vocabulary' refers to jail space or particular areas within a prison. 

After the workshop, I stopped to make a phone call and noticed two men glued to the cover story photographed above, which was hanging from a post on the corner's empanada and cigarette stand. One of the men dressed in overall pants (probably an employee of the car wash locale next to the 'patio') and the other in a business suit - which ironically represents the contrast of clientele in the prostitution zone of Bogotá...

At this moment there were several things going through my mind:

1) In addition to exhibiting the bodies of sex workers in a circus-like fashion, this cover story is sending more clients directly to the zone in order to get their polvo for 3 mil pesos (the equivalent of one dollar and some change depending on the 'exchange' rate...in both the sexual and international financial market sense of the word)...

2) I might as well buy the paper to get it off the corner...

3) What will others around me think/assume as they see me buying the newspaper?

After some minutes of reflection, I began to see firsthand that popular discourse surrounding street girls and sex workers in the streets of Santa Fé and other parts of the center of Bogotá matters for the manner in which they are viewed and (dis)valued within society.

If it is acceptable to photograph and (dis)play these 3 bodies (as if they are plastic, nameless figures in urban space) and then hang them for sale (again) as if El Espacio (the tabloid newspaper) were somehow involved in the 'pimping structure'...hmmm....now that I think of it.....

I'll leave you with this....when the girls left the 'patio' at 3 p.m. today (they enter at 7 a.m. to wash their clothes, have a warm meal, participate in workshops or sleep on concrete until its time to hit the streets again until dawn), I imagine at least one passed this cover story (as it is hanging half a block from the exit on Avenida Caracas where most of the girls will cross to return to la 'L')....

What crossed her mind in that moment?

"Oh great! Perhaps I'll have work today"...or perhaps, she will leave the 'patio' motivated to write more lyrics on her corner in la 'L' before it gets dark (perhaps the final paragraph of the song we are writing in the hip-hop workshop), she will pass this article, see how she has been labeled, and then think..."Nah, what for?...I will never be more than someone's polvo for 3 mil"...

One of the central points of street outreach is to undue this mindset and fight against or disarm the disempowering effects of popular discourse on street girls' everyday lives...to work with girls to recognize their self-worth, to envision a future beyond paying the night's 'pieza' (motel/brothel room) and consumption (often with alcohol or drugs prioritized over food)...Part of this process, perhaps, should involve the (re)naming of spaces in which street girls feel safe (i.e., the 'patio')?

I therefore argue that in addition to working within and against the social and spatial context reproducing and reinforcing the exclusion of many street girls, it is necessary to identify and deconstruct (vis-a-vis street outreach, sensibility/awareness training in hospitals, brothels..., etc.) the discursive context that breaks down the positive work and peer-leader inspired change occuring within the community...

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