O cerimonial como poder simbólico na esfera legislativa: análise das sessões solenes da Câmara de Vereadores de Santa Maria - RS

Abstract

This paper has as the main topic the ceremonial and its connection with the concepts of symbolic power (BOURDIEU, 2011) and visibility (THOMPSON, 2011), specifically the ceremonial as a platform of visibility chasing (symbolic) power by the politic agents in events of Santa Maria City Council, at Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Our main goal was analyze how the municipal legislative ceremonial can be permeated by the chase and by the practice of visibility and symbolic power at the Solemn Sessions of Santa Maria City Council and, by then, being a communicational strategy that goes beyond operations and organization of precedence at a solemn moment. To this research we have as fundamental theorist conjecture the ceremonial as something that can be able of communicate and construct senses, especially due to the visibility and the highlight that are over certain elements and people. This visibility is used as a form of symbolic power because enable the people to build their own immediate sense of the world (BOURDIEU, 2011). That way, we are contributing to a reflection about the ceremonial past the technique, understanding it based on the wrapped subjectivities, controversies and senses. To this research we use the data triangulation method (GOLDENBERG, 2007), that is the combination of three different techniques to analyze the same object or phenomenon. By way of the theoretical and empirical analysis of our research corpus – five Solemn Sessions of the Santa Maria City Council – we could realize that the ceremonial is pervaded by a series of subjective elements which, joined, attribute it to a strategic potential and possible power of legitimation. For that reason, we consider that when the ceremonial is thought from concepts of visibility and symbolic power it could be understand beyond operational points.