A enchente de 2024 e o governo neoliberal de Eduardo Leite: uma análise discursiva de charges brasileiras

Abstract

Supported by the materialist perspective of discourse at the interface with sociological studies on neoliberalism, this research consisted of understanding the discursive representations of the floods in Rio Grande do Sul, in 2024, which appeared and circulated in cartoons by Brazilian cartoonists. As specific objectives, we seek: i) Research and analyze the Production Conditions (PCs) of the speech, the floods in Rio Grande do Sul in 2024, which includes coverage of the event by the media on the internet and the functioning of neoliberalism in the economy; ii) Analyze the visual and/or verbal-visual formulation of the cartoons, referring their meanings to the CPs; iii) Discuss the relationship between the cartoons and the Brazilian bourgeois media’s hegemonic interpretation of the event; iv) Analyze how governor Eduardo Leite is represented and, finally, v) Identify the discursive and historical processes with which the cartoons are related, showing how this relationship occurs. Our analytical corpus consisted of three cartoons by each of the cartoonists, namely: Carlos Latuff, Jota Camelo and Nando Motta. We work with the hypothesis that the cartoons that make up the corpus are the materialization of political ideological positions to which the cartoonists are ideologically affiliated, contradicting the hegemonic interpretation that circulated in the Brazilian bourgeois media in the period in question, namely: what it was about of a mere climatic accident, disregarding the political and economic issues. In this interpretation, the responsibilities of public managers who have adopted an inconsequential neoliberal agenda are erased. The analysis of the cartoons showed that, while Jota Camelo focuses on the causes of the problem that generated the flood, that is, on criticizing the neoliberal political economy that produced the disaster and its effects, Carlos Latuff, in turn, focuses on the consequences of the event. On the other hand, except for one, the two other cartoons by Nando Motta are based on a discourse that takes places in the movement of meanings between denunciation and lament, resulting in the erasure of the political and economic issue that is the basis of the 'flood' event.