“Analitizar” e ressignificar a “di-visão” de Mato Grosso uno: perspectivas historiográficas a partir dos jornais, O Estado de Mato Grosso e Correio do Estado, publicados em 1977

Abstract

This historiographic work aims to examine the media representations surrounding the division of the State of Mato Grosso, specifically focusing on identity performativities of the southern and northern regions. The objective is to analyze the discursive positions of politicians and individuals related to them, discussing these positions intersectionally in the context in which they were published and the historical aspects that underpinned them. The temporal scope focuses on the year 1977, prior to the official establishment of Mato Grosso do Sul, which occurred only in 1979. The primary documents include the printed newspapers Correio do Estado (CE), from Campo Grande, and O Estado de Mato Grosso (OEMT), from Cuiabá, along with their respective business records. Additionally, part of the historiography produced later on the subject was included as supplementary sources. The research is grounded in epistemologies and paradigms of the New Cultural History and New Political History and incorporates interdisciplinarity with Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, Bourdieusian sociology, Pennycookian language studies, social communication theories by Patrick Charaudeau, Clóvis de Barros Filho, and others, as well as Stuart Hall’s cultural studies. This theoretical framework supported the use of critical and psychoanalytic discourse analyses, advocated by Pennycookian and Lacanian approaches, respectively, as investigative methods. It was observed that the agents operating in social, economic, intellectual, political, and journalistic spheres—representing the two most prominent municipalities at the time, Cuiabá and Campo Grande—were prominently featured in the local media. Their interests in either splitting or maintaining the territorial unity, as well as their resulting political and administrative decisions, were justified based on presumed regional conflicts. These conflicts were used to construct antagonistic typifications anchored in birthplace or residence. Additionally, economic and geographical characteristics, deemed unique to the southern or northern regions of Mato Grosso, were presented as decisive for the territorial division. Such dichotomous typifications were similarly addressed by some historians in later writings. Hence, these narratives echoed the dual perspective—the “di-vision”—that created antagonistic identifications and differentiations as promoted by statesmen and the press of that period. However, both those involved in separatist debates and subsequent studies revealed explicit contradictions that undermined this polarization. Therefore, this research examined the supposedly hegemonic semantics in circulation, the networks of sociability, economic and geographical aspects, intertwined activities, and identity nuances evoked in the periodicals. Moreover, it sought out the fragments of historicity within the discourses, which helped shape social bonds and affective circuits, uncovering destabilizing elements that challenged fixed and dual representations previously used to justify an opposition between northern and southern populations during the dissemination of separatist news. From this perspective, this thesis proposes a “deep” historiography, as suggested by the French political history tradition. Consequently, it became possible to trace the remnants of connections that facilitated the movements and actions of individuals in economic, intellectual, political, and journalistic realms, as well as features that demonstrated geographic and ethnic multidiversity. As a result, a distinct interpretation was constructed, one that did not predefine the South and North of Mato Grosso as inherently divided. Finally, it was concluded that economic-political power benefited certain individuals in assuming dominant and capitalist positions regarding the constitution and dissolution of boundaries, of any kind (social, intellectual, cultural, affective, territorial, etc.). It was also inferred that identity performativities existed in 1977, the year when the separation of Mato Grosso was legally sanctioned, countering the idea of a "pre-formation" of a regional southern identity.