Projecting Democracy: The Formation of Citizenship Across Youth Networks in Brazil

Abstract

In August 1992 Brazil was swept by a series of protest demonstrations to demand the impeachment on corruption charges of the country's first elected president in thirty years. The principal protagonists of the rallies were high school and college students who turned out in massive numbers for exuberant, hastily organized marches that closed down the principal avenues of Brazil's major cities. The rallies joined heterogeneous sectors of young people, many with no prior experience of political activism, who became known as the caras pintadas (painted faces) for the improvised, carnavelesque gesture of painting their faces with the colors of the Brazilian flag. In the words of Lindberg Farias, president of the National Union of Students (UNE), “Our faces were diverse. From those wearing Che Guevara T-shirts to the frequenters of shopping centers. Student researchers on scholarships, together with heavy metal fans and skateboarders”.