Nas fronteiras da nação: relações entre identidade nacional e discursos sobre a história do Brasil construídos por jovens da cidade de Ponta Grossa – PR

Abstract

This dissertation investigates elements related to national identity from discourses that build the history of Brazil. The general objective was to investigate the relationship between national identity and discourses about the history of Brazil constructed by young people aged 12-24 in the city of Ponta Grossa, Paraná, taking into account the variables of gender and ethnic-racial belonging. The specific objectives were: 1. To understand how certain elements such as concepts, characters and events interact and are organized within different discursive sets, organized through the variables of gender and ethnic-racial belonging; 2. Identify elements that are related to national identity, taking into account the references of community life, in addition to the categories of identification, belonging and agency; 3. Understand if there are and what are the relationships established with the canonical discourse on the history of Brazil, and if there are specific directions within groups organized around the variables of sex and ethnic racial belonging. Taking into account the objectives, a total of 277 discourses collected in 2018 in three formal public institutions of elementary, middle and higher education in the city of Ponta Grossa, Paraná were analyzed. Young people aged between 12 and 24 years responded to a printed instrument that contained, among other information such as their gender and ethnic racial belonging, the issue “please tell the story of your country”. The answers were systematized using free software for the creation of graphs for network analysis. The analysis of a first graph, composed of words, allowed the raising of preliminary hypotheses and the creation of categories to mark the texts in order to create a second graph, composed of analysis categories. The field of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) guided, together with the research objectives, the creation of analysis categories and, later, the marking and analysis of discourses and graphs. The categories are organized based on three key elements that make up national identity: identification, belonging and agency. At first, attention was devoted to the analysis of the general set, consisting of 277 discourses. After that, the discourses were separated into subsets, one organized through data on sex (male and female), and the other through the ethnic racial belonging declared by young people, the latter revolving only around whites and blacks, in due to the little quantitative expression of the other answers. The results of the analysis are divided into multiple levels, revolving around three central topics: the national collective, the nation and history. With regard to content, it was possible to verify that the speeches focus on the past, especially on the founding event in the country's history, which young people call “discovery”. The differences between the subsets are manifold. Between young blacks and whites there is a quantitative difference: both build a similar story, but the latter bring more nuances. There is a qualitative difference between young women and men: young men emphasize political history, and young women focus on social and economic aspects, giving more attention to groups linked to diversity and issues related to exploitation. While young men establish a more intense relationship with the distant past, full of characters, young women, in the absence of female characters in their history, establish relationships with the national collective, giving more space in their discourse to the present and prospecting for the future. These differences stress the relationship of national identity in terms of identification, belonging and individual agency of young people, which vary along with the temporal sphere that plots the discourses.