Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 02/2014

'We Are Gaúchos, We Are Gaúchas...' Incitements to Gendered and Regional Subjectivity in the 2002 Brazilian Election Campaigns

Benjamin Junge

December 2013

The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies

Abstract

This paper analyzes Brazil’s 2002 presidential and gubernatorial election - campaign discourse, identifying recurrent themes and modes of appeal within campaign discourses. In an introductory section, the conceptual and methodological framework is mapped out , drawing from “anthropology of politics” and media studies scholarship. In this context, a framework for analyzing campaign rhetoric’s appeals to a gendered subject and a regional (gaucho) subject is presented. Historical background is provided for the political context and stakes of the 2002 elections, followed by an overview the different types of media used in the campaign s . The analysis proper examines the rhetoric of the presidential campaigns (principally that of leftist Workers Party candidate Luiz In á cio “ Lula ” da Silva), followed by analysis of the Rio Grande do Sul gubernatorial campaigns. In the concluding section, the argument is presented that the citizen - subject implicit in the official discourses of the Lula campaign is individualist for its concern over everyday - life struggles, nationalist for its concern over the country’s well - being, and universalist for its concern with moral justice. For the gubernatorial campaigns, discursive appeal is constructed with heavy recourse to the “timeless tradition” of authentic (and symbolically masculine) gauchismo.