The discourse for the f(r)esta: foucaultian reflections about bumba-meu-boi

Abstract

The Bumba-meu-boi, a typical event of São Luís city, emerges from a combination of cultural practices originating from different peoples - indigenous, African and European. In this article, we start from the question: what conditions made it possible for the Bumba-meu-boi festival to emerge as a symbol of Maranhão culture? In order to answer this question, we present some events that contributed to the construction of the discourse of the festival as a mark of local identity. We propose a discursive analysis, with a Foucauldian bias, of this trajectory of (in)visibility of the Bumba-meu-boi festival, following the following objectives: i) to discuss the emergence of the festival in Brazil; ii) to present some movements of meanings about the festival in the capital of Maranhão; iii) to analyze an official advertisement of the Maranhão government, highlighting the power-knowledge relations. The analysis indicates that the tourism industry erases contradictions in history to transform the festival into a product for consumption.