Political Rituals and Popular Politicization in Imperial Brazil

Abstract

This article compares the mechanisms of popular politicization in nineteenth-century France and Brazil, in light of the innovative approaches of Emmanuel Fureix, presented at Almanack's forum on 26 August 2014, and published as an article in this issue. Fureix analyzes rites of protest in France from the 1820s to the 1840s and suggests that opposition funerals, political banquets, and charivaris were part of a process of pre-democratic politicization. Although it is easy to identify similar practices in nineteenth-century Brazil, they did not lead to a more democratic or "modern" politics in the second half of the century.

Reis negros, cabanos, e a Guarda Negra: Reflexões sobre o monarquismo popular no Brasil oitocentista

“…Recent scholarship on independence and the Brazilian empire has demonstrated that the popular classes actively participated in the struggles surrounding the Brazilian state's creation and that they similarly engaged in imperial politics (Ribeiro, 2002;Basile, 2009, p.62-72;Alonso, 2015;Castilho, 2016;Kraay, 2006;2015). Such popular politics sometimes took royalist or monarchist forms that authorities judged inappropriate, for popular understandings of monarchy prompted (often radical) claims on the state or demands for significant change.…”