Seletividade da esfera pública e esferas públicas subalternas: disputas e possibilidades na modernização brasileira

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the process of construction of the public sphere in Brazil. It advances the hypothesis that, since the nineteenth century, a selective public sphere and subaltern public spheres have been in place in Brazil. To support this argument, the article begins with a discussion of the international literature devoted to the reflection on the concept of public sphere – especially with the formulations made by and from Jürgen Habermas – with the aim of exploring the transformations that this category has undergone over the years, with special emphasis on the concept of “subaltern counterpublics” proposed by Nancy Fraser. Furthermore, based on historiographical studies that have been carried out in the last decades focusing on Brazilian society of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the article advances a theoretical formulation of the process of construction of the public sphere in Brazil. Besides questioning the theories that support the nonexistence of a public sphere in the country, or that it only came into existence in the late twentieth century, we intend, in this article, to highlight not only to the need for a more accurate historical analysis for understanding the “selective public sphere” and the “subaltern public spheres” but an analytic movement towards realizing other forms of legitimate associativism that do not reproduce the organizational paradigm of the European or North American world. We hope that this paper can contribute both to a better comprehension of the historical process of construction of the public sphere in Brazil, as well as to a better understanding of the dynamics of organization and mobilization of “subaltern public spheres”, drawing attention to its potential for the further democratization of the country