I set out to understand the modes of sociability of the Red Eyes Gang The majority of them are children of African immigrants from countries that were formerly Portuguese colonies and live in socioeconomic conditions well below those of the Portuguese All were born in Portugal or arrived very young never knowing their parents’ countries of origin they appropriate some of their ethnic and cultural heritages because of the stigmatization and racism to which they are subjected reworking their condition of being poor and black They do not mechanically reproduce the way of life and ethnic influences of their families thus producing positive statements about themselves It is in this sense that they adhere to the musical style of rap and create informal collectives both of which are spaces of self-affirmation that allow them to make up for the nonidentification of young people with Portuguese institutions (schools It allows devalued characteristics (being poor black and living in a neighborhood with a bad reputation) to be viewed with pride and dignity producing a positive impact on their self-esteem as well as alternatives of social inclusion in a context marked by the weakness of state institutions The Red Eyes Gang corresponds to a group of friends who live in the same neighborhood and take possession of its streets to socialize and share the problems this collective has no connection to crime nor does it have any type of internal organization and lacking any rituals of admission or obvious signs of membership which contrasts with the meaning of gang used by many investigations on the subject3 and its creation is associated with media influences received from North American youth cultures linked to hip hop4 The crews are groups of young people who see themselves involved in common practices living in the same neighborhood and sharing the same lifestyle the creation of the Red Eyes Gang crew is the result of organizational affirmation of friendship within the group and the feeling of belonging to the neighborhood of Arrentela It also allows a greater projection of the members’ music acting as a badge of locally constructed identity the Red Eyes Gang was a very small group (no more than the 30 individuals) created following the formation of Arrentela’s first two rap groups of:187 Squad and Kombanation. However etc.) in a period when this style of music was heavily circulated by the media The relative prominence that some of these neighborhood rap groups have won in the panorama of Portuguese hip hop meant that more young people listened to rap music and At the time we conducted field work (2005-2007) the number of youths belonging to the crew exceeded one hundred individuals All the young people who comprise the Red Eyes Gang are poor and mostly black (African immigrant parents) with a significant presence of Portuguese whites within the group The diversity of origins among the young blacks who are part of the crew is notorious (Angola etc.) and reflects the broad ethnic and cultural diversity of the neighborhood residents the companionship established by the youths within the group is largely mixed lacking any separation in sociability as to skin color or parental origins We can find youths of various countries of African origin on the same street corners alongside young Portuguese whites wearing the same type of clothing and accessories (earrings rings and caps) and adhering to similar attitudes and lifestyles (slang ethnicity is not an impermeable boundary in building networks of friends in the neighborhood nor is it a determinant in adherence to the Red Eyes Gang Although the practice of rap is the structuring activity of the Red Eyes Gang it is not necessary to be a rapper in order to be part of the group The set of shared experiences on the neighborhood streets determines the membership of this crew as much as adherence to a rap lifestyle This is a major identifying component of the Red Eyes Gang making up the formulation of a collective identification Rap supplies the youth with information and performative material which guides them in their daily lives to outline management strategies in order to meet the challenges they face options for leisure or focal and ritual activities (Feixa 1999) are some of the many elements that unify the lifestyle of these young people creating a “narrative of self-identity”(Guiddens, 1995:75) The influence of rap can easily be seen in various African-inspired hairstyles (braids etc.) and in their sportswear and street wear: shirts with symbols and letters associated with youth culture in the U.S. brand-name tennis shoes (Nike and Adidas are the most common) head scarves and hats and various accessories (earrings necklaces and gold or African seed bracelets) The slang and use of Creole as a common language among them as much as certain attitudes and behaviors not only expresses sociability in the style of alternative rap but promotes membership in and integration to an affective community The identification with the “adult world” (school political institutions) and lack of space to express themselves incites the youth to join youth styles in which they themselves are the protagonists adherence to rap and the Red Eyes Gang legitimizes their claim on their own ways of being young making the streets of Arrentela the stage of their sociability laughing and talking loud at night on the streets of the neighborhood driving cars at high speeds through the neighborhood or smoking hashish are rituals of disobedience to adult rules They are symbolic manifestations of the usufruct of the right to youth and they attempt to thwart a subordinate status which hinders their leisure practices they orchestrate a “choreography of friendship” that celebrates the bond between them (Alvito the Red Eyes Gang’s rap style cannot be reduced to a mere aesthetic appeal as it influences the behaviors and attitudes of its members It produces symbolic and ideological content that attempts to provide answers to the anxieties and difficulties of their daily lives it is used by the young crew as a way to change a status of inferiority by deconstructing the discourses that associate them with violence rap can be understood as the main language for interpreting the reality around them rebelling against a society that devalues them these youths exercise the “power of the word” and assert themselves as active creators who can express themselves to their peers and society as a whole breaking barriers in an “autistic” way The word fills and provides hope to a life that no longer makes sense recuperating cultural and ethnic references that are important to them and at the same time denouncing a life of oppression a rapper who plays a strong leadership role within the crew: You in a classroom don’t have the right to express yourself; in court you don’t have the right to express yourself; at a job interview you don’t have the right to express your way of speaking They’re going to say that this isn’t according to rules of EU communication you don’t have space to express yourself And rap music created a space that brought all of this Rap informed the people in the neighborhood and at the same time entertained the people get them to mobilize themselves for certain causes.” And at the same time other people’s rap was making me do that too I was learning from the rap of others and was transmitting information with my rap a space that wasn’t found anywhere else in Portugal It was the opportunity to make your own CNN and this was spread to other neighborhoods [Chullage in the film NU BAI - Lisbon’s black rap, 2006] In the absence of adequate institutional frameworks to support them in managing their processes of identity and life projects the importance of being part of the Red Eyes Gang is enormous it increases its members’ self-esteem promoting a positive image of themselves beyond the discourses that represent them negatively it reworks the meaning of being young (poor and black) in Portugal allowing them to be seen from the perspective of the qualities they possess belonging to the Red Eyes Gang allows them to be successful as members of a respected crew that operates in the public arena through rap music claiming rights and demanding better living conditions the group operates as a creative and valuable resource for social integration for its followers giving the feeling of being part of an “imagined community.” (Anderson, 1983) The creation of the Red Eyes Gang not only enables these young people to collectively express a rap lifestyle but promotes a “team spirit” that harmonizes internal conflicts It fosters friendship and provides emotional support to its members the feeling of belonging to the crew acts as a “virtual shelter” that helps them overcome the obstacles they face (Agier you don’t leave your job and go right home in every neighborhood there’s companionship but there you have a group that stops and has companionship (…) I can leave here and have whatever problem… I know if I go outside I can have “three fingers of conversation” with another member have a conversation with him and tell someone what happened tell him my problems or he’s telling them to me it leaves a guy cool.(…) Everyone wants to confess We can interpret the adoption of rap and membership in the Red Eyes Gang as part of a “culture of avoidance” This encourages Arrentela’s youth of to reflect on their “place in the world” and recast the definitions of their identities as poor black and residents of a neighborhood with a bad reputation They topple myths and negative representations in order to produce favorable identities of their social condition It is a creative and maturative process that calls the dominant representations of race class and nation into question and expresses a set of conflicting and dynamic experiences that are based on the youth culture of society’s less affluent sectors “Heart there and in body here in Pretugal.” In between mestizagem and affirmation of blackness The creative way in which the youths of African descent of the Red Eyes Gang crew socialize among themselves is indicative of the profound differences in values and lifestyles that divide them from their parents dress without any distinctive connection to “hip hop culture” and do not speak slang or the kind of Creole adopted by their children Such contrasts have a generational and ethnic character and can only be understood if we consider that these young people Their cultural references are not governed by intergenerational overrides Being socialized in an urban Portuguese context values and expectations are not rooted in a culture of origin however much it exercises a strong influence in their lives not to accompany his parents when they returned to Cape Verde after 15 years in Portugal I decided to stay because I am not fit for anywhere else I’m used to this reality of buildings The notion I had in my head is that if I went to Cape Verde I was going to die and I’m a person who has to be as current as possible (…) Because the reality there is totally different Jingal’s decision not only expresses the sense of belonging and loyalty to the group of friends from the Red Eyes Gang crew but also the awareness that he would have to adapt to a different lifestyle than the one he was used to in Arrentela As he adopts a standard of social and leisure time rooted in the social environment in which he lives as all young descendants of Africans in Portugal do the notion of “second-generation immigrants” doesn’t make any sense That does not mean that this youth has no African influence most of these youths have strong references in their parents’ countries of origin creating significant emotional ties and representations that will influence them throughout their life including in their own identity construction this culture of origin is not sufficient to determine and understand their daily practices nor how they build their ethnic references or a feeling of blackness expectations and values of the Red Eyes Gang and their parents can be seen in the revolt and insubordination to their subaltern status and the racist situations they confront who often have a passive and resigned attitude these youths are more likely to stand up against a structure of opportunity that discriminates against them Many of the young blacks do not have Portuguese nationality and those who have a Portuguese passport are not considered nationals by Portuguese society given that the color white is an integral part of the imaginary about what it means to be Portuguese both the media and political institutions establish a direct relationship between crime and social housing estates and suburbs whose protagonists are marked by the particularities of being young blacks and/or immigrants This rhetoric racializes crime and the sense of threat in the figure of young blacks and immigrants Carrying on the color of one’s skin an outward sign of one’s inescapable African descent these young people feel the effects of segregation and stigmatization in Portugal There was not one young man with whom I spoke in Arrentela who said they had not experienced situations of racial discrimination an experience yet more common when one is poor and lives in a neighborhood with a bad reputation or protecting their belongings with fear in their presence being chased and beaten by police or security guards in shopping malls and in public because they are considered “suspect” and listening to the usual insults like “go back to where you came from!” were some of the more common stories This backdrop makes racism one of the main themes addressed in the lyrics of Arrentela’s rappers aside from the dissatisfaction of living in a country that relegates them to the “last step” on the opportunity structure Heart there and Body here in Pretugal / Mentally impppprisoned here in Pretugal / Without bread but with poison and weapons for us to die in Pretugal/ Segregated so we are not anyone in Pretugal [Extract from the song “Pretugal” from Chullage’s album Rapensar: passado This song demonstrates that we cannot visualize the complex processes of identity construction of young blacks of African descent without contextualizing the racism they face and the subordinate status they are forced to accept It highlights the imagination of the Red Eyes Gang members in building tools and reflective statements about their lives Rap is a great example for us to distinguish the particularities and intergenerational changes in the way they reflect their status as blacks The youth identify strongly with the history of rap and hip hop’s emergence seeing similarities and continuities between their lifestyle and that of their American forerunners whether in Portugal or elsewhere in the world produce new moral codes from the perspective of those who suffer racial and economic discrimination the rap lifestyle values blackness and the African cultural references of one’s relatives - elements constantly overlooked by the educational system and stigmatized by the media - giving new meaning to the experience of being a poor Reinventing their ethnic and cultural references Essentialist theories about ethnic and cultural identities of Portugal’s black youth analyze them with a high proportion of homogenization as if they were done and concluded from the beginning ignoring the diversity of these youths’ biographical histories as we approached the daily lives of these young people we found that the predominant factor is the unstable and syncretic nature of their cultural manifestations their cosmopolitan socialization and the intense intercultural diversity of their neighborhood makes it so that they are not concerned with maintaining an ethnic and cultural uniformity as their references are focused on interaction with other populations and communities There are not many divisions among those who have their origins in Guinea-Bissau as all share very similar social and economic conditions and are part of the same story: “the African diaspora.” Even the Portuguese whites who tend to live in the neighborhood are well accepted in the crew making national and ethnic distinctions unimportant factors in the internal dynamics of the group This view is best explained by a neighborhood youth: Sometimes you don’t even realize that the guy speaking Creole is Angolan (…) There are a lot of Angolans who can speak Creole and there are a lot of Portuguese who speak Creole And a lot of younger Portuguese that don’t live on this street but there aren’t a lot of Portuguese who live with us among those who don’t live here is a strong division There young whites belonging to the Red Eyes Gang identify strongly with the children of Africans since most of them grew up together and experienced the same feelings of economic deprivation sharing a similar set of problems and difficulties The influence of friends’ cultural references is demonstrated in the clothes of African origin they sometimes wear or the use of Creole6 to communicate with their peer group Many of them use straps or cords made of round seeds (black with white balls) from Cape Verde They serve as protection against the evil eye it means that someone is trying to do its owner harm these accessories are suitable as symbols of belonging to a common origin (Africa); for young whites they serve to affirm their admiration for African references Regardless of the motivations that lead young people to use these “magic stones,” the importance of these accessories for the Red Eyes Gang serves to highlight the components of the hybrid style adopted by members of the crew who nurture a deep respect for African traditions and one of the few girls who rap in Arrentela she has been influenced by her friends’ African cultural references and it’s not hard to hear her speaking Creole in the streets of the neighborhood as she confesses to prefer this language to Portuguese The attraction to African cultural references is so strong that it has reached the point where she identifies more closely with Cape Verdeans than with the Portuguese themselves The Portuguese are seen as unsupportive people while Africans would be much more generous on the other hand I like to have this in me and I like to be Portuguese and I admire my parents and some Portuguese families I know The Portuguese are very… I usually say that the Portuguese are the cream of the rubble they have this obsession that they’re refined and are good shit They just have an obsession that they’re refined they’re obsessed with disdain. (Guida The way the Red Eyes Gang appropriate Creole is an example of the dynamic reinvention of their parents’ cultural heritage Besides giving it their own characteristics7 they withdrew it from the almost exclusive domain of the family and one that symbolizes belonging to a group of peers It is the internal and daily language of the Red Eyes Gang establishing itself as an instrument of transgression of the fundamental principles of the formal language of adults and school besides serving as performative material to their cultural practices It is no accident that many of them prefer to rap their lyrics in Creole because they say this is the language which with they most identify The Red Eyes Gang members of African descent do not have a strong sense of belonging to Portugal and those who claim to be Portuguese are in the minority others prefer to adopt the nationality of their parents as a form of self-identification (Cape Verdean etc.) and there are those who see themselves in intermediate categories Much more than the effective links with any African country their resistance to considering themselves Portuguese is to be understood in the context of the experiences of segregation to which these young people were subjected poverty and society’s rejection of considering them fully Portuguese - many of them do not have access to this nationality - are the decisive factors that cause many not to see themselves as nationals of this country Jingal never had the right to Portuguese nationality and a situation that prevents him from continuing his studies and entering the formal labor market This limitation on the rights of citizenship eventually has negative consequences but in their own ways of representing themselves and Portuguese society but it’s fucked up because I feel Cape Verdean but I don’t feel the smell of Cape Verde I can’t feel Portuguese because the Portuguese The construction of identity is an eminently relational process and cannot be thought of as a crystallizing Although the individual lives identity as something stable and unified it is characterized by being incomplete and constantly under construction (Hall identification with Portugal is heterogeneous and varies according to their class status education level and series of life experiences related to the experience of blackness and a given history in Portuguese society (Machado as for most young black people of African descent his history is full of stigmatizing episodes which cause him to be positioned to Portuguese society in a critical and detached way that this young man could change this position something that will depend on the biographical path he takes The reproduction of ethnicization processes therefore depend on the persistence of the stigmatization and discrimination phenomena that were at their origin and the actualization of anti-stigmatizing responses we proposed to call attention to the creative mestizo way in which the Red Eyes Gang members of African descent affirm their blackness and reconstruct their ethnic and cultural references The Red Eyes Gang only makes sense when it is thought of as a syncretic and working class youth culture whose African and black references are valued and reinvented in an intercultural space More than mere adjustments to their parents’ cultural heritage their day-to-day life and lifestyle show a profound contrast between generations a result of cosmopolitan socialization where various cultural references intersect The strong adherence to rap and the creation of the Red Eyes Gang crew are significant examples of breaking with the sociocultural elements of their parents’ origins these practical and symbolic expressions also make use of cultural markers that reinforce a certain degree of continuity with their parents’ ethnic influences This apparent contradiction “falls apart” when we come to see the cultural practices of these young people with a look “up close and inside,” framed in their daily lives (Magnani an urban musical style that is not based in the “roots” of their African parents when they sing in Creole and construct positive identities for themselves by reformulating the meaning of being black and African in Portugal this style questions the relationships of domination and subordination present in their day-to-day life resituating them in a context of fighting for a place in the society in which they live they affirm a black and African identity that promotes some of the inherited ethnic references The same logic applies to the use of Creole on the streets of Arrentela (as in other neighborhoods on the outskirts of Lisbon) whose elements of continuity and change coexist harmoniously These examples demonstrate how creative young people reinterpret the cultural and ethnic heritage of their parents establishing it as a strategic resource to be used for influencing the dominant definitions of ethnicity and better participate in discussions generated by the new contours of the society in which they live Carla Coelho Andrade and Maria das Graças Rua violência e cidadania nas cidades da periferia de Brasília Distúrbios Identitários em Tempos de Globalização” in MANA–Estudos de Antropologia Social, 7(2):7-33; Imagined communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of nationalisms O rap e o funk na socialização da juventude Belo Horizonte Anthony 1995: Modernity and Identity del yo El yo y la sociedad en la era contemporary Stuart 2002 Cultural identity in post-modernity Parâmetros sociais da identidade nacional dos jovens descendentes de imigrantes africanos” in Joana Miranda e Maria Isabel João (org.) “De perto e de dentro: notas para uma Etnografia Urbana” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 17(49):11-29; Actas do Colóquio Internacional sobre Emigração e Imigração em Portugal 2002 “Mudanças na Imigração: uma análise das estatísticas sobre a população estrangeira em Portugal” Representa Red Eyes Gang: das redes de amizade ao hip hop Research conducted as part of a master’s degree in Urban Anthropology at ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon (Raposo, 2007).  This research was conducted as part of a master’s degree in Urban Anthropology at ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon (Raposo, 2007) The name Red Eyes Gang (Gangue dos Olhos Vermelhos) is a reference to the effect that smoking hash has on ones eyes The Chicago School problematized the notion of gangs in the 1920s using it to designate an organization with instrumental rationality and the purpose of social mobility among its members often produced from musical beats expertly drawn from other melodies by DJ’s also known as MC’s (Master of Ceremonies) Break-dance has established itself as the characteristic dance style of hip hop in which the steps and choreography range from acrobatic to sporty and even to stylizing the movements of robots and martial arts considered by its authors as “street art,” is the graphical aspect of hip hop and express is expressed through drawings and written messages painted on walls and other public spaces of cities (including the cars of trains and metros ) unlike the previous law which was based on a balance between jus sanguinis and jus solis This amendment aims to hinder access to citizenship by birth in nacional territory or by marriage to a native citizen It is tied to the profound ideological changes in the way of representing the Portuguese nation connected to the end of the colonial era Although not all of the crew’s young white members speak Creole given its centrality in everyday sociability experienced in Arrentela The Creole spoken by these youths is full of slang words created in their own neighborhood or brought from other parts of the world (USA showing a strong mixture of different types of existing Creole: badio (spoken on the islands of eastern Cape Verde) sampadjudo (spoken on the islands of western Cape Verde (Santo Antao 1978). Otávio Raposo is an integrated researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL) University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL) and an Invited Lecturer at the same University He carries out research in the fields of urban studies He is currently addressing artistic practices and the civic engagement of young people from the outskirts of Lisbon as well as the public politics addressed to them He has made many several ethnographic films Lisbon’s Black Rap” (2007) and “At the Quinta with Kally” (2019) winner at the Póvoa de Varzim International Video Musical Festival and best ethnographic film of the Portuguese Anthropological Association in 2018/2019 Published under a Creative Commons License With an important naval and cultural heritage the municipality of Seixal is a land of fishermen and manor houses The intimate connection to the River Tagus and its typical boats mark the landscape we also like to explore the surrounding area So how about a trip to the municipality of Seixal With an intimate connection to the River Tagus, the landscape of this municipality in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area is markedly riverside so we’ve listed some of the best places for you windmills and viewpoints are just some of the points of interest on this itinerary Do you like windmills Then you have a good reason to visit this place in Seixal The Corroios Tide Mill was built in 1403 on the initiative of Nuno Álvares Pereira the property was donated to the Carmo Convent the Lisbon earthquake (1755) caused major damage to the mill and it had to be rebuilt this building began to lose its importance the municipality acquired the property and decided to turn it into an ecomuseum whose foundation dates back to the 15th century is one of the best preserved examples of agricultural and recreational farms in the Seixal region Quinta da Fidalga is said to be linked to the Gama Lobo family There is also a surprising tidal lake here which ebbs and flows according to the tide The tiles lining the interior walls are another interesting feature of Quinta da Fidalga the Seixal Urban Park is located in Alto Dona Ana which offers a privileged view of Seixal Bay and the city of Lisbon The Urban Park consists of various facilities It’s a great place to exercise outdoors or to relax for a while In Seixal you can choose to take a trip on the river on the Baía do Seixal frigate boat or the Amoroso varino These boats are used for recreational purposes located in the former Tipografia Popular do Seixal offers visitors the chance to get up close and personal with the old techniques and know-how of a traditional graphic arts workshop A visit that offers a different view of the traditional printing industry; yet another place to consider visiting in Seixal the Núcleo da Olaria Romana da Quinta do Rouxinol is another place to visit in Seixal This place offers an interesting visit from a historical point of view Remember Quinta da Fidalga? Here’s another reason to visit it. The Manuel Cargaleiro Arts Workshop is also located within the palace. It’s a building with the seal of quality of the architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, where you can find various exhibitions. There is a clear emphasis on the work of the master Manuel Cargaleiro. Where: Avenida da República 2571, Arrentela View this post on Instagram One of its main points of interest is outside where there is a belvedere with an excellent view Although it is currently closed for renovation work we decided to include this place on the list because of its importance where exhibitions and other initiatives have made the history of the municipality known View this post on Instagram known locally as Praia dos Tesos or Ponta de Mato The place has some support infrastructures