“SARAVÁ KEHINDE!”: Rio de Janeiro's carnival as political manifesto

Abstract

This article discusses the emotion in the universe of samba schools in Rio de Janeiro. Taken as a central element and a universal feeling during the process of building the carnival parade, emotion can boost the samba schools in the of the carnival contest. Faced with the frequent mobilization of multiple feelings by the various actors of the associations, this article aims to investigate the impacts, effects, and consequences of emotion in the carnival of samba schools. To do so, the central object of the study is the parade Um defeito de cor, based on a book of the same name (Gonçalves, 2006), from the Portela samba school, elected in the categories best plot and best parade of carnival 2024 in an award of great relevance at the carnival of Rio de Janeiro. The analysis of the work is located in the field of the anthropology of emotions and on concepts developed by Lila Abu-Lughod and Catherine Lutz (1990). In addition to presenting the systematization of this theoretical field by the authors in the 1980s, the article exposes elements present in the universe of samba schools and the parade of 2024 of Portela. As a result, it was observed that emotion is the factor responsible for producing a micropolitical dimension in the carnival of the samba schools of Rio de Janeiro that seeks changes in the social reality of the participants and of the public.