Emergência das instituições políticas locais : representações e biografias na construção do secretário municipal em Maringá-PR

Abstract

The present research studies the emergence and diffusion of different representations and classifications of Municipal Secretary position and its relationship with the construction of biographical repertoires. Specifically, it deals with a group of individuals who holds the Municipal Secretary position, from 1953 to 2017, in Maringá (Paraná, Brazil), and the requirements applied to legitimize the appointments. The core of this thesis rests on the conditions of historical sedimentation of different meanings given to appointments for local office in a context of high turnover and the absence of any regulation which limits the discriminatory power of elected officials. Besides, we focus on issues related to the emergence of a set of representations that defines the criteria of prestige (or social recognition), the common character of closed groups, and the hierarchies between local spaces of socialization. Firstly, we seek to understand the relationship between local meanings and the emergence of specific institutions as an element that underlies the constitution of “admirable” biographies and perpetuates the city’s positive image. Secondly, the ways from which native perspectives describe relations of either support and loyalty or treason and defection are identified through the analyses of the network of supporters of candidates for local office - the goal is to identify how the divisions between groups are expressed in the appointments for local office, which take place right after the election results. Moreover, we analyze how the press announces its criteria and expresses its expectation about appointed officers' performance. Finally, the research attempts to correlate two different dynamics: i) how a local set of representations define the hierarchies between occupations, teaching institutions, and local spaces of socialization; and ii) the strategies to adapt biographies to the claims for legitimation. The results point to a persistence of native definitions of local office as a product of a specific dynamic of socialization and the social hierarchy - through schooling career and belonging to social clubs and other organizations - expressed in works for the consecration of the local institutions history as well as in the ways of classifying and perceiving group formation in local elections.