“Yo soy paraguayo, chamigo!”: breve estudo sobre a identidade no Paraguai

Abstract

The work discussed here sought to address the relationship between Paraguayans living in border regions (Pedro Juan Caballero, PY), and the Paraguayans who live in the center (Asuncion, PY). The objective was to identify contrasts identity significant among the Paraguayan population that lives on the border and the population living in Paraguay, Asunción, the capital. We tried to understand what aspects of the identity of pedrojuanino, while a resident of the border, differs from the identity of asunseno, a resident of the capital. The survey was conducted in two stages. The first consisted of literature and reading the works dealing with theoretical aspects regarding the questions of identity and boundary, beyond the reading of some historians and writers Paraguayans. In the second step, we carried out the fieldwork – in November 2011 and December 2012 and February and March – where visits were made to the city of Pedro Juan Caballero and Assumption with the intention of interviewing workers (street vendors, waiters, store clerks) the local trade of these cities, public officials, among others. The conclusion is reached in the case Assumption / Pedro Juan Caballero, is that the contrasts are between us and us-them in a conception of ethnic identity gestated within the same ethnic identity. That is, individuals external to prepare a speech about themselves to serve as tools that allow an interaction more acceptable on the other (They), and another that allows inner speech distinctions and equivalences between an us and an us-them. In the interaction with the Brazilians, the strategy is to accept the notion of a hybrid full integrationists excessively rhetorical interaction asunceno / pedrojuanino creates a rhetoric where the theme is the contrast, represented in the logic where the we is and this and that ourself is neither this nor that. That is, when the asunseno say about this is pedrojuanino offender, drug dealer, killer gunmen service, means that he asunseno, nothing like that. The same can be said in relation to the pedrojuanino to the asunseno.