National and regional identities in Brazil: Rio Grande do Sul and its peculiarities

Abstract

From the 1930s, Brazil experienced a growing national centralisation and the construction of Brasilidade (Brazilianness). The military regime deepened centralisation and emphasised national identity, little space being left for regional identities. With the political opening and the redemocratisation of Brazil, starting at the end of the 1970s, the stress was on differences in a period in which Brazil had already achieved a high degree of integration. Identities were re-created, among them that of Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil, where a strong revival of gau´cho culture took place. The 1980s and 1990s were marked by a growing development of activities and disputes linked to the gau´cho tradition. In spite of the fact that Rio Grande do Sul is predominantly urban and industrialised, this process reached out to the state's rural past and the equestrian figure of the gau´cho.Centralisation and state-building in Brazil: 1822Brazil: -1985

Traditionscapes in emerging markets

“…The cultural manifestation of the Gaucho culture is the main identity source for the inhabitants of Rio Grande do Sul state. These inhabitants preserve traditions through consumption habits (e.g., food, drinks, clothes - Dalmoro et al, 2015) and popular manifestations (e.g., dance, rodeos , I n t e r n a t i o n a l J o u r n a l o f E m e r g i n g M a r k e t s music -Oliven, 2006). Gaucho tradition roots are the livestock farms and colonial history of the Pampa Region -geographic area involving the southern region of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina (Jacob and Jaksic, 2011).…”

“…In other words, local culture attachment becomes a mechanism to reintegrating a range of local meanings in the identification process that globalized times disintegrated. Local culture attachment keeps being an important resource in consumer identity formation, especially in emerging markets, as an important resource to deal with global cultural discontinuities (Oliven, 2006;Dalmoro et al, 2015).…”

“…Following Arnett (2002), local identity is a mental representation in which consumers have faith in and respect for local tradition. Local identification allows the recognition of the uniqueness of local tradition (Oliven, 2006) and stimulates consumer interests in substituting globally diffused consumer images, symbols and preferences for that which is locally based (Zhou and Belk, 2004). Local identification also orients the desire of many consumers to value local tradition and reject influences perceived as global (Ger and Belk, 1996 to specify attitudes, emotions, and behaviors among a social group (Hogg, 2003).…”

“…Even with urbanization and modernization following global expansion in Latin America, in this period the interest in gaucho traditions resurged among inhabitants of Rio Grande do Sul reincorporating the gaucho tradition. The active participation of locals in cultivating the gaucho tradition pushed a popular movement called the Gaucho Tradition Movement (GTM), involving around 2 million people and claims to be the largest traditionalist movement in the world (Oliven, 2006). Local inhabitants consider themselves to be gauchos before being Brazilian (Oliven, 1999) and reproduce a nostalgic tradition representation in organized spaces like rodeos -similar to the American rodeos as a cultural manifestation (Peñaloza, 2001), gaucho rodeos evoke the livestock farms where gauchos need to deal with their horses and cattle -consuming products -e.g., traditional clothes that represent the gaucho image or drinking yerba mate tea, considered the traditional gaucho beverage (Dalmoro et al, 2015).…”

Comparing and Exploring Frontier Myth and Reality in Latin America

“…Nonetheless, Ruben George Oliven proposes that the rural frontier experience remains a central element in the identity of riograndenses in southern Brazil. 49 Sergio Luiz Prado Bellei argues that 'peripheral cultures (Brazilian culture, for example) surviving in the frontier between the powerful and the dispossessed tend to produce cultural experts in mediation'. He suggests that this propensity to mediate rather than resist and the imbalance of power between center and periphery has had a negative impact of Brazilian identity, indeed on all peoples of Latin America.…”