‘If you’re against the PT, you’re my party’: analysis of mobilizations by rural patronage in Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

This article analyzes the construction of identities and social representations of rural patronage in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul in situations of conflict, considering such mobilizations from the 1980s onward, mainly by ensuring monopoly land ownership. We investigate the meaning attributed to categories such as combat, movement, class mobilization, unity, and confrontation of adversaries, and attempt to interpret the organization of street actions such as cavalcades, marches, camps, horse marches, and caravans. These practices are complex and heterogeneous, and result in disputes for legitimacy in the group leadership. Mobilization composes their identities and representation over time, differentiating this group from other dominant factions in the country. The way combatants in the field of agrarian conflicts announce themselves, affirming an ethos of violence as a political practice, confirms the senhores da terra [landholders] of Rio Grande do Sul to actually be senhores de guerra [warlords]. Our analysis is qualitative, utilizing 17 in-depth interviews with representatives of this patronage as sources.