Creativity behind bars

PCC in action

Abstract

This article discusses, based on theoretical concept of political creativity, how individuals disempowered by formal institutions are capable of promoting institutional change through creative actions. To this end, it considers how the creative action of prisoners who organize themselves in criminal organizations is able to promote structural changes beyond the perimeters of these establishments. This article analyzes the case of a specific group, well established and known in Brazil, named: Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). The central point of the argumentation is that creative actions occurs through the production of shared meanings by recombining and reinterpreting the available institutional rules.