Poetics, Politics, and Pedagogies: Knowledge Cultivation from and Through Slam Poetry in Brazil

Abstract It is known that literature, art, and politics are intimately connected. In this article, we address slam as a particular genre of contemporary marginal poetry. What does slam poetry have to do with global and international politics? How do the messages articulated in verses and the dynamics behind how poems are recited such that the words become performances right in front of the audience's eyes relate to the challenges of researching, learning, and teaching about the international? We focus on slam poetry produced and performed by slammers from Brazilian peripheries and on how they critically address violence in its multiple and complex forms—such as racism, exclusion, poverty etc. We argue that slam poetry is a type of worldly, insurrectional textuality imbued with a “poetics of relation” and diversity that can be a powerful source of knowledge and pedagogical tool for understanding and critically addressing IR. With this in mind, we narrate our experience of resorting to Emmanuel 7Linhas’ slam “Pátria armada” in the classroom as well as the reflections emerging from our encounters with slam and from conversations with the poet. The following pages result from these interactions and the meditations they encouraged in us regarding academic research, writing and thinking and the possibilities and pitfalls of pursuing a non-extractivist research methodology in IR.