A BR 163 na cidade de Sorriso : apartheid do corpo social urbano

Abstract

This study aims at investigating discourses produced in relation to the division of the urban social body of Sorriso-MT by the BR 163 into two very distinct regions: the “here” side (the side of the Southerners) and the “there” side (the side of the nonSoutherners). In the imaginary of Sorriso population, this geographic division corresponds to the socioeconomic, ethnic and cultural differences which have generated interpretations about the “there” side as an undesirable place where much of the local problems originate, especially those related to the security of the citizens from the “here” side. Therefore, the BR 163 is of interest to this research as a discursive referent rather than a physical one. Interposed between “there” and “here”, the highway serves as a metaphor for the internal division of the urban social body of Sorriso, as a symbol of the silent apartheid which prevails between Southerners and non-Southerners. The study aims at capturing the senses that cover the geographic division of the city by the BR 163. To achieve this overall objective, it will be sought to identify and interpret, at the level of linguistic materiality, the words which necessarily show the relationship of the current enunciations (formulation) with the interdiscourse or discursive memory (the constitution), regarding the segregation and discrimination of non-Southerners by Southerners. It is intended, through this démarche, to understand how the senses of division, hierarchy, discrimination and segregation (re)produce themselves, and not the senses of complementarity and equality between Southerners and non-Southerners in the society of Sorriso. It is also intended to outline the discursive formation which works as a site of this sense of division, as well as the corresponding ideological formation. The methodological and theoretical procedures utilized by the research fall into the Discourse Analysis, based on ideas of Michel Pêcheux (1938-1983). The constitution of the discursive corpus is done through the combination of two lines of research: the archivist and the experimental. Through archival research, four journalistic texts from the local and state media were selected in which prejudiced, excluding and segregating discourses “are heard” about the others who live in the “there” side of Sorriso. Through the experimental line, five interviews were conducted to bring to light the senses that, although not textualized yet, worked already in the imaginary and in the discursive memory of the population from the city. The analysis shows that, while the enunciations of media materials seek to mitigate the effects of the senses of the division/segregation between Southerners and non-Southerners in the urban social body of Sorriso, the enunciations of the interviews admit them bluntly.