Climbing the pyramid

Report
- Climbing the pyramid
- 10/05/2011
- Luciana Stein


Marginal literature's made the masses highbrow literaturaperiferica.blogger.com.br (2011) ©

Scope
The announcement of a TEDx event Rio's Cidade de Deus (City of God) slum is being celebrated by Brazilians as a significant cultural milestone. The second TED conference hosted by a low-income community – the first was in Kenya in 2009 – runs along the theme of “Our voice, empowered.” It's a symptom of a powerful cultural movement underway in the country in which disenfranchised, lower income groups are gradually shifting from the periphery to the centre, both culturally and economically.

The booming TED events in the country could also be interpreted as a symptom of the pressing middle and upper class hunger for more innovative information. While on one side we find the emergence of a hitherto invisible class – the poor and the new middle class in Brazil (the C Class) - who want the attention, expression and education they deserve, more privileged classes are also scrambling to retain elite status, attentive to the culture of innovation that could boost their social currency as it's boosting that of Brazil on the global stage.

What this has created, argues Luciana Stein, is a peculiar situation in which both ends of the social spectrum are simultaneously expressing various elements of Maslow's classic hierarchy of needs. It's a further example of how, in many emerging markets, the flat social structure created by the internet is gradually replacing traditional social hierarchies.

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Industry	Art & design Demographics Media & entertainment Social & charity
Location	Brazil
Keywords	TED Maslow Brand Me Being+ Middle Class Slum Education Innovation Social Capital Accelerated Learning

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