Between the execrable and the admirable: the cangaço phenomenon from the perspective of the São Paulo press (1930 - 1939)

• Grant number: 24/10780-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: August 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Edilene Teresinha Toledo
• Grantee: Kauan Pereira de Vasconcelos
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research work aims to understand the interpretations developed by the São Paulo press regarding the cangaço phenomenon through the analysis of three important periodicals in circulation during the 1930s, namely: Correio Paulistano, Correio de S. Paulo and Gazeta Popular. The investigation will be structured in a way that contributes to the understanding of different distinctly regional views, whether positive or not, regarding banditry in the northeast of the country. These newspapers will be approached not only as sources of information, but as spaces for debate and opinion formation, capable of presenting us with interesting perspectives regarding São Paulo society - marked by constant political upheavals in the 1930s - and its vision of itself, as well as the construction of an image of the northeast region based on an ideal of accentuated "civilization" that, supposedly, according to the periodicals that allow us to glimpse, São Paulo had already achieved. It is intended, through a sensitive examination of the sources and with the support of the selected bibliography, to elucidate that cangaço, despite being a regional phenomenon, went beyond inland borders and mobilized public opinion in "civilized" São Paulo, arousing curiosity and contempt, hate and passion.