This thesis investigates how queer blocos, street carnival groups organised by LGBTQ+
communities in Rio de Janeiro, generate temporary yet powerful experiences of joy, safety,
comfort and belonging within a context of structural violence, inequality and spatial
exclusion. Set against Brazil’s contradictory landscape of LGBTQ+ visibility and hostility,
the study explores how queer blocos reclaim public space through celebration, care and
cultural resistance. Empirically, the thesis offers an in-depth account of queer blocos through multi-method qualitative fieldwork: participant observation during the 2023 carnival, walking interviews with organisers and participants and a co-produced short documentary with LGBTQ+ artists. These methods foreground the affective, embodied and relational dimensions of queer presence in Rio’s carnival spaces. Conceptually, the thesis develops the notion of Spaces of Queer Peace (SQP) - a situated conceptual tool that draws on Afro-Brazilian intellectual traditions, particularly the work of Beatriz Nascimento and Lélia Gonzalez. SQP reframes peace not as the absence of violence, but as fleeting yet meaningful moments of survival, autonomy, care and joy in urban settings. Findings show that while queer blocos enable collective freedom, empowerment and visibility, these experiences remain uneven. Intersectional dynamics of race, class and gender shape who can inhabit these spaces safely and comfortably. Furthermore, the carnival’s liberatory effects are often time-bound, giving way to the return of everyday precarity and state repression. Despite these limits, queer blocos are shown to leave affective residues in the form of strengthened networks, artistic practices and spatial claims that can extend beyond the carnival itself. This thesis contributes to queer urban geography by centring Global South perspectives - particularly Brazilian - and decolonial methodologies. While grounded in Rio de Janeiro, it offers wider insights into how grassroots cultural practices can produce affective and political alternatives to exclusionary urban life.
