The Discursive Trajectory of Street Demonstrations in Brazil (2013-2015)

Street demonstrations in Brazil between 2013 and 2015 have taken a peculiar trajectory.

  Four different discursive moments can be identified in this trajectory:

1. A left-wing struggle for free urban transport;

 2. a dispersive discourse where each person on the street represents one demand;

3. an articulated discourse supporting the central right-wing presidential candidate Aécio Neves; and 

4. an articulated discourse against the reelected president of the Republic, Dilma Rousseff. Demonstration discourse has shifted from the left to the right within two years.

This paper intends to answer the following questions: How was the right wing discourse constructed in the street demonstrations over these two years? What was articulated in the discourse? What meanings were constructed? Was there any place for left-wing discourse?

This paper is not an empirical analysis of the demonstrations but an analysis of discourse based on three key notions of the theoretical approach of Ernesto Laclau: logic of equivalence, antagonism, and people. It intends to reach two results: to explain the trajectory of the discourse of the Brazilian demonstrations and to apply a methodology to overcome analyses of content type.