Modernidades, modernização urbana e experiências do tempo em Cascavel - PR (1968 - 1978)

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the role of the press during the urban modernization process that took place in Cascavel, located in the western region of the state of Paraná, between 1968 and 1978. Within this time frame, two Master Plans were approved in a context of rapid transformations in the city's appearance and in the relationship between rural and urban areas, which ultimately materialized specific conceptions of modernization. The thesis investigates and problematizes a set of symbolic representations of "modernity," "modernization," and urbanization crafted by the local press. In other words, it draws attention to the dynamics of urban configuration and everyday cultural practices that reflected certain notions of the "modern." In fact, the proliferation of images, discourses, and references to "modernity" were produced and disseminated by the local press as constitutive elements of "progress" and modernization. Time—in its dimensions of past, present, and future—was frequently manipulated by newspapers, playing a significant role in the production of meanings and significances related to temporal experiences. The material and symbolic power to assert specific narratives about the past, along with projections of the future and interpretations of the present, were at play, enabling the strengthening of dominant social groups in the city and region. Moreover, the temporal scope of our investigation is limited to a fraction of the Brazilian Civil-Military Dictatorship, during which significant power struggles, political alliances, and connections between the city of Cascavel and national models of "development" and urbanization were woven together. Therefore, the resonance of urban planning principles, formulated during the dictatorial government, found pathways for local implementation.