Qual é o babado? O design gráfico como tecnologia de gênero em um periódico LGBTQIA+de Campinas (1996-1998)

Abstract

“O Babado’’ was an informative journal published in Campinas (SP) from the year 1996 to 1998, edited by “Grupo Expressão – Grupo de Defesa dos Direitos Humanos dos homossexuais”, a human rights advocacy group for homosexuals. Throughout its pages, using a combination of written representations and graphic design elements to create humor and satire, gender norms are challenged and reaffirmed – sometimes in paradoxical and complex manners. The purpose of this research is to look at the use of graphic design as gender technology, producing representations that converse with possibilities and technical limitations as well as with social movements of the time, participating in wider sociotechnical networks. For that, minding the context and circumstances of the journal’s creation, we think over its place and role within discussions on cultural identity, gender and communication. Furthermore, through detailed visual analysis of its covers, we intend to identify how pictures and other graphic design elements help to create representations that, in one way reinforce normative positionings, in other, defy those positionings, contributing to the construction of notions about the body within its readers.