REMAKING THE NATION FROM BELOW: MEGA-SPORTING EVENTS, CROSS-CLASS MOVEMENTS AND THE EMERGENCE OF COMPETING NATIONAL IMAGINARIES IN BRAZIL

Jung, Hoyoon

REMAKING THE NATION FROM BELOW: MEGA-SPORTING EVENTS, CROSS-CLASS MOVEMENTS AND THE EMERGENCE OF COMPETING NATIONAL IMAGINARIES IN BRAZIL

Files

Jung_hawii_0085A_10547.pdf (3.32 MB)

Date

2020

Authors

Jung, Hoyoon

Advisor

Kimura, Ehito

Department

Political Science

Abstract

With the preparations for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil, the forms of illegality and exceptions to institutional order multiplied, and a growing number of Brazilian citizens therefore began to question the intentions of the authorities and the consequences of these mega-events for ordinary residents. During 2013-2016, consequently, Brazil was inundated with an immense oppositional force, the vociferous social backlash, and the flood of exasperated voices against perceived injustices. Given that hosting mega-sporting events have been conventionally recognized as a powerful tool for social unity by a number of previous studies, these vibrant protests might signal the end of their taken-for-granted role as promoters of nation-building. This dissertation explores how the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics in Brazil instead served as a catalyst for social and national dissension. By drawing on archival data, in-depth semi-structured expert interviews and unstructured interviews with 143 ordinary residents in five Brazilian state capitals during field research, I argue that networked cross-class coalitions that were propelled into a mode of constructive opposition decisively spurred the move toward the emergence of new, competing national imaginary—civic nationalism—based on increasingly shared values and norms of democracy, equality, justice and the rights to become full-fledged citizens. This dissertation maintains that the rise of such shared “civic” values among varied groups, as a counter-narrative of conventional Brazilian national identity, destabilized the long-standing narrative of “racial democracy” qua the historically deep-rooted “ethno-cultural” sense of what it means to be a Brazilian.

Keywords

Political science, Brazil, Civic Nationalism, Cross-Class Movements, Mega-Sporting Events, National Identity, National Imaginaries

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10125/69065

Extent

265 pages

Rights

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Collections

Ph.D. - Political Science

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