A emergência de um campo de ativismo de direita no Brasil : uma análise a partir do caso de Belo Horizonte-MG (2013 – 2019)

Abstract

In recent years, Belo Horizonte has witnessed the formation of a very dynamic right-wing activism scene that did not exist in the city before 2013. This activism scene is formed by a series of social movements and individual activists that have helped to build large street protests in the city and who also fight for their banners on social media and in institutional spaces of political representation. This thesis aims to explain the formation and structure of this new space of right-wing activism. It is not unique to Belo Horizonte, but is part of the broader phenomenon that has been called in the literature the “new Brazilian right”. We will analyze the constitution of this space through the lens of a specific field theory: the Theory of Strategic Action Fields. A field of strategic action is cooperate based on the sharing of certain types of knowledge about the functioning of this space. Here, we investigate the social mechanisms behind the process of formation of this space of right-wing activism, as well as the role that a certain type of social actor (strategic actors) plays in this process. We also seek to understand the identities and values that guide the actions of the actors of this new right, as well as the type of logic of the field’s functioning to which the dynamics of relations between these actors gave rise. Data for this analysis came from participant observations, interviews with leaders, application of sociometric questionnaires and social media webscraping. The results of the analyzes show that, contrary to what the TCAE assumes, the field of activism of the new right in BH developed from waves of expansion, each wave bringing a different set of actors and positions to the field. In this expansion process, the influence of the three mechanisms postulated by the TCAE, the Attribution of Opportunities, Innovative Collective Action and Social Appropriation, can be perceived. But in addition to these, a fourth mechanism is also perceived, not presupposed by the theory, the Organizational Division. We identified, through Participant Observation and relational data, the main strategic actors (leadership) in the field and we showed how the role of these actors in the construction of the field varied according to the expansion phase of the field. The data also made it possible to develop a dialogue with the national literature on the development of the new right. These data do not deny the photograph posed by the literature, but add new details to it, showing how the new right is also composed of brand new elements, which do not have their origins in (or have not had contact with) old spaces of Brazilian right activism. A second point of this debate with the national literature has to do with the ideological amalgamation that would be a characteristic of the new right. Our data show (1) that this amalgamation is not homogeneous among the actors, but unequal, unstable and conflicting; (2) with a preponderance of elements of conservatism in the field.