Escalada urbana - faces de uma identidade cultural contemporânea

Abstract

This study has investigated the relationships established in the sporting climbing in artificial atmospheres, having as startingfor the analysis the GEEWs (Group of Sporting Climbing from Unicamp) climbing wall, located at Physical Education Faculty at Campinas State University. These artificial places appear as forms of conquest spaces, being a choice option for a type of behavior from a social class. The bonds, the friendship relations are strengthened and durable, because ofthe direct relationship established with thepractice and with the other climbers. GEEU, as well as other groups ofurban climbing that are formed, every day, ispart ofa resistance movement to the rationalization process and to the cities disorder which manifests innovation and creativity, preserving and promoting the sociability, as a reaction to the individualism. The climbing walls, spread in the several corners of the city, appear in this perspective: innovation forms and contemporary cultural expression, solidified byfriendship politics.