Cultivating Citizenship through Cultural Terrains: A Study of the NEOJIBA Project’s Complementary Registers of Emancipation in Bahia, Brazil

This study investigates NEOJIBA, a socio-pedagogical music initiative in Bahia, Brazil, analyzing its impact on urban development and the emancipation of socially vulnerable youth. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, the research examines how NEOJIBA’s blend of cultural and material practices promotes emancipation through orchestral music, critical pedagogy, and community engagement, exploring themes of marginality, territory, culture, and socialization in citizenship development. Central to the analysis is NEOJIBA's operational structure and its diverse activities, which are focused on promoting autonomy, collaboration, and critical engagement with one’s territory, assessing their influence on participants' trajectories. Conclusively, the thesis illustrates how socially and culturally engaged practices, finely attuned to specific territorial contexts, facilitate the attainment of a more substantive citizenship that transcends its legal framework. It thus contributes to scholarly debates on the spatial and cultural construction of citizenship, advocating for a conceptualization based on everyday practices and ideas of urban agency, in line with perspectives from southern urban theorists like Holston and Caldeira. Furthermore, it informs discussions on urban policies and infrastructures aimed at mitigating youth marginalization, emphasizing how different material, social, and cultural supports act in complementarity to foster emancipation.