Narrativas identitárias : a construção da identidade do gaúcho em Passo Fundo - Rio Grande do Sul.

Abstract

The present study has as a goal to analyze the identity narrative structure which forged the image of the gaucho in Passo Fundo-RS, highlighting the strategies used concerning the cultural identity of the region and its social agents implied in this process. The analysis of the regional identity, such as the gauchismo in Rio Grande do Sul state, especially in the county of Passo Fundo, implied a theoretical revision about the cultural identity concept, trying to point out the limits of an essentialist conception, common in the structure of the nation-state, and the analytical contemporary possibilities. This way, it was possible to show this analysis in a constructivist perspective of the Cultural Identity, a strategy which made possible to show the elements which were implied in the identity naturalization process, as well as to locate the critics according to this theoretical point of view. The case of the gauchismo in Passo Fundo, whose identity structure process started in the 1950s and it has still happening, served as a base to the critics concerning the identity essentialism, because it showed the way the narratives are historically created and what kinds of elements are used in the social legitimacy of these narratives. For that, in methodological terms, this study uses the historical method, and it uses instrumentalized techniques since the speech analysis. For this reason, to comprehend the image elaboration process of the gaucho in Passo Fundo, some historiographic works, newsletters, local press newspapers and the projects called “Culture and Folklore of the City Schools of Passo Fundo” and “Passo Fundo Tchê the most Gaucha city of the Rio Grande do Sul”. This path allowed us to identify that the agents who are responsible for the creation of the gaucho in Passo Fundo created a narrative which not just forged the myth as well as naturalized it.