Chapada Diamantina as a Space of Conflict

Representations and Discourses in “Cordel” (regional literature) Horácio de Matos, Hero of Chapada Diamantina, by Antonio Alves da Silva

Abstract

This article, developed from bibliographic research, presents an overview of the historical and cultural bases of Cordel (regional literature), as well as its arrival and establishment in Brazilian lands, from the Northeast region. It argues the Cordel Horácio de Matos, hero of Chapada Diamantina, by Antonio Alves da Silva (2005), relating the work to theoretical assumptions of the representation of the region and the northeastern people, present in the works of Professor Durval Muniz de Albuquerque Júnior, from the perspective of Foucauldian analysis to think about power, its relations, representations, and regional discourses, as constitutive of essentialized identities, established by hegemonic social groups. And, finally, it compares the construction of the image of Colonel Horácio de Matos with the one that forged an identity of the Northeast of Brazil as a place of backwardness, in opposition to the developed South.