Construção identitária de escolas de sambas-exaltação: uma perspectiva dialógica

Abstract

For more than a century, samba schools parades keep surprising the audience, resisting to certain requirements, to culture commercialization, and also facing the endless changes in their organizational structure. Like any other cultural institution, they are in constant change to adequate themselves to the new reality and needs of the audience who always want to be surprised by a huge spectacle. Due to the high proportion that the carnival party has taken and to all these changes inside and outside of the samba universe, samba schools are impelled to reaffirm or even change their cultural identities. In this context, this study aims to analyze how samba schools in Rio de Janeiro have their identities built upon representations contained in their sambas-exaltação – also known as anthems of exaltation. We start out with the premise that these songs are ideological propagators of ways of thinking and constitutive of the identities of the institution and of the community itself. Sambas-exaltação are constitutive of the construction and of the affirmation of the identities of these cultural institutions. They are discursive genres that act upon building up the community’s self-esteem and they develop a feeling of belonging. This study is situated within the area of Applied Linguistics, a theoretical field that understands language as a social practice, and it is based on a social and historical model of language, with language construed as a discourse practice (Circle of Bakhtin). It also presents an interface with cultural studies (Hall, Canclini, Bauman, Woodward), taking into account the fact that culture builds up values and brings forth differences in respect of the conditions under which such values and differences are produced. Three top samba schools were analyzed according to their number of titles up to the year of 2018: Estação Primeira de Mangueira, Grêmio Recreativo de Nilópolis e Beija-Flor de Nilópolis. Analyses indicate that the process of identity construction of samba schools is similar to the one found in national anthems. Samba schools reaffirm their identities through symbolic values: an authentic past of glories; flags and school colors; traditions and values; the environment or the school neighborhood; words of love and devotion for the ‘beloved land’ that the community must develop for the school; happiness; female identity; religious identity; and the place of samba.