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The Largest Popular Culture Movement in the Western World: Intellectuals and Gaucho Traditionalism in Brazil

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The Largest Popular Culture Movement in the Western World: Intellectuals and Gaucho Traditionalism in Brazil
Author(s)Oliven, Ruben George
AbstractI examine the Gaucho Traditionalist Movement, which, with an active participation of two million people, claims to be the largest popular culture movement of the Western World. Based on the cult of the Gaucho in a specific cattle ranching area of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil’s southernmost state), the Gaucho Traditionalist Movement was created by nonacademic intellectuals, generally from the urban middle class. The movement eventually spread to more than two thousand “Centers for Gaucho Traditions” in all areas of the state, other parts of Brazil, and abroad. I analyze how and why Traditionalism made this three-stage distancing from its original point of reference, becoming a translocal and even transnational phenomenon. I discuss the role of intellectuals’ nostalgia for rural life in creating this form of popular culture. I show that traditionalist intellectuals have operated as intermediaries between knowledge produced in academia and popular culture movements, actively creating a popular culture that is frequently but mistakenly seen as being the product of the masses.
IssueNo1
Pages128-146
ArticleAccess to Article
SourceAmerican Ethnologist
VolumeNo27
PubDateFebruary 2000
ISBN_ISSN0094-0496


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