Samba schools, national identity and right to the city

Abstract

Samba schools emerged in the late 1920s, invented and organized by the poorest groups in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which came out of their slums, ghettos and neighborhoods to conquer the great feast of the nation's capital and become, at the end World War II, the most original and well-known symbol of Brazilian national representation. The more traditional interpretations disqualify these great achievements, accusing nationalist movements, political and the populist dictatorship of Getulio Vargas (1937-1945) of ideologically manipulating and controlling samba schools, imposing the development of plots in favor of an official, nationalistic and patriotic discourse suited to domination. In this article we radically oppose these interpretations, showing that this domination was relative, that the problem of development of national issues are a more complex issue, and, finally, that the transformation of samba and samba schools in mean of national representation was a strategy to conquer and to impose carnival to the city and society. Here we narrate a rare and beautiful victory of the vanquished.