Project Overview
This data project is part of a history dissertation which examines social movements in 1970s and 1980s Brazil. It investigates the experiences of people who attended or worked at Colégio São Vicente de Paulo (CSVP) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the period. CSVP, a Vincentian/Lazarist school, was locally known for its openness to political discussions despite the restrictions imposed by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985). Government documentation produced by the Brazilian regime corroborate the school’s progressive nature, which can also be inferred from newspaper sources and other primary documents. The project analyzes oral testimonies alongside such documentary sources, to provide a more detailed understanding of this case. It contributes to scholarly discussions on Brazilian society’s experiences under the dictatorship and a community’s engagement with its past. Focusing on the 1970s and 1980s allows for a detailed examination of a period of intense transformation in Brazil, marked by economic challenges, social movements, and a growing push for re-democratization, which encompassed several steps in the 1980s. The research methodology involved conducting online interviews with former students, staff, and teachers of CSVP. Participants reviewed and revised their transcribed testimonials, as part of a horizontal, collaborative, research process. This project contributes to a larger body of literature on Brazil’s dictatorship and on Latin American twentieth-century dictatorial regimes. It underscores the experiences and aspirations of a community and the pedagogical methods employed in this educational institution.
Data and Data Collection Overview
While CSVP was founded in 1959, the project does not include the 1960s for practical and historical reasons, focusing instead on the 1970s and 1980s. From a historical perspective, events reshaped the dictatorship in the 1970s. Brazil’s regime faced challenges following the 1973 Oil Crisis, following a period of prosperity and increase in consumption. In parallel to this, military officials contradicted themselves by remaining in power and not holding elections after the 1964 coup d’etat. The expansion of social organizing by the mid-1970s, partially tied to economic issues but also surging as a response to the regime’s duration and human rights violations – and to its general lack of credibility – provided grounds for greater anti-dictatorship sentiment in the 1970s.
Greater civil opposition opened space for re-democratization in the 1980s; a process that encompassed several measures. These included the re-establishment of political parties in 1980, to the first gubernatorial elections in 1982, and mass demonstrations demanding direct presidential elections in 1984. A transitional civilian government took office in 1985, a new constitution came about in 1988, and Brazil held democratic elections for president in 1989. By focusing on a specific school during these two decades of intense transformation, this research aims at understanding the experiences and aspirations of a community, as well as the pedagogical methods of an educational institution locally known as an “oasis” of progressive discussions.
Historical interviews involve a consent process in which participants are clearly informed about the nature of the research and use of full names, since the fact that participants are considered historical witnesses and actors. Given the specific nature of the research, which considers a school as a site of resistance and contestation during a Latin American dictatorship, the first step for recruitment was to locate online fora where alumni, former teachers, and former staff members congregated. After focusing on the two online groups with active discussions, I publicly invited members to voluntarily participate in the research, stating my affiliation with Georgetown University, and the financial support from the Georgetown Americas Institute (GAI). Some participants referred me to their contacts who were not necessarily part of the two online groups, in a snowballing process.
The goal was to interview between 20 and 30 participants in open-ended interviews with a duration of 25 to 30 minutes, via Zoom. The option for an online platform for video conferencing had two goals: (1) allow for greater flexibility for both interviewer and interviewee; (2) allow for the provisional recording of the interview, with participants’ consent. Regarding the second goal, my intent was to produce a literal transcription of the interview, for which a recording is necessary. As agreed between parties, after producing each transcription, I deleted their corresponding audio file and submitted the transcribed text for the participant’s review. The justification for this practice was twofold: (1) to allow participants to review their testimonials and make exclusions, if necessary, given the fact that some participants may share personal data or information concerning their childhood or teenage years that they may wish to suppress; and (2) to allow for a horizontal connection between participant and researcher, much like participative ethnography proposes. The final process involved the signing of a release form with the final transcription (revised by the participant) attached to it. The participants also confirmed agreement to have their stories shared more broadly via the release form.
Selection and Organization of Shared Data
All interviews have been transcribed and are presented as individual files. All named interview transcripts are data files (ex. “Sodre_Interview_with_Adriana_Moretta”), while “Sodre_Sample_Release_Form_CSV” is a documentation file. |
