The imaginary in social conflicts: sacred versus profane

Abstract

This article aims at demonstrating that to know certain realities, specifically this one, the municipal districts of Rio dos Cedros, Ascurra and Rodeio in the State of Santa Catarina, it is necessary to take into consideration the subjects and the meanings attributed to the speeches of the local Catholic hierarchy. Likewise, it is necessary to take into account their representations and symbologies or even their strategies of combat against the “other one”, taken as an opponent. Furthermore, this article looks up the comprehension regarding the construction of the antithetical pair “us” versus “other” around the representations and the speeches about the bomb attack against the priests in Rio dos Cedros in the year of 1911. The analysis method uses oral sources - recorded and transcribed interviews -, researches in newspapers from that epoch and the theoretical references concerning the imaginary, according to Lucian Boia’s, Bronislaw Baczko’s and Nilda Teves’ points of view. Finally, it was concluded that linked to that imaginary, there has been an underlying process of elaboration and consecration of knowledge, which have sought the recognition of the authority power.