Representations and remembrances of political violence: a case study of violent events during the 2018 elections

Author(s)

Pedro Callari Trivino Moisés

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2024-07-29

Examining board members

Sergio França Adorno de Abreu; Pedro Rolo Benetti; Maria Gorete Marques de Jesus; Michel Misse

• Advisor: Sergio França Adorno de Abreu

Abstract

This Master\'s thesis analyzes the different ways in which political violence is represented in contemporary times, based on the case study of the murder of capoeira master Romualdo Rosário da Costa, known as Moa do Katendê. Moa was murdered on the night of October 7, 2018, the date of the first round of that year\'s presidential elections, due to political disagreements in a bar in the city of Salvador. The 2018 elections were marked by the rise of far-right ideas and actors who challenged a series of democratic values, such as the peacefulness of politics and feelings of solidarity despite ideological antipathies. Given this context and the political motivation behind the murder, the case received considerable attention in the public debate, but in different ways. For the progressive/democratic camp, the murder was seen as a case of political violence that demonstrated the aggressiveness and hatred of Bolsonaro\'s speeches; for the far-right, the murder was seen as politically unrelated and evidence of the opportunism of his opponents in narrating the case as a symbol of denunciation. The result was a conflict between representations that disputed how the case should be interpreted. This conflict boosted the repercussions of the murder, making it the most mentioned case of political violence between the first and second rounds of the elections. However, after the end of the electoral process and Bolsonaro\'s victory, the case was summarily forgotten, only being recalled at particular moments. Theoretically inspired by the \"strong program\" in cultural sociology developed by Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith and thematically inspired by the Brazilian sociological debates on the antinomic relationship between violence and democracy, this research aims: 1) to analyze contemporary discourses on violence in democratic environments based on the study of the forms of representation of political violence, the acceptance, relativization, or condemnation of the violent event; 2) to propose a new framework for thinking about the problem of representations of political violence in the light of cultural sociology; and 3) to use the case study as a way of improving the theoretical models of cultural sociology in general, especially with regard to its use for investigations about the issues of political violence (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 21/06778-0 - Beyond crime: the process of representing hate crimes in contexts of political effervescence (2016-2018)
• Grantee: Pedro Callari Trivino Moisés
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master