The June 2013 Protests in Rio de Janeiro: “#Do not represent me?”

Abstract:

This article analyzes the perceptions of participants in the June 2013 protests. Through in-depth interviews conducted in the months following the demonstrations, we seek to examine activist narratives regarding the rituals of participation, their perceptions of the nature of and reasons for the protests, and the factors that led them to get involved. Despite the diversity of participants and the enormous number of issues that emerged during the protests, we found that the constitution and participation of political subjects differed significantly between those who had prior political and associational experience and those who did not. In this article, we found that such differences influenced forms of participation as well protester framings about the relation between parties and political representation.

Keywords:
June 2013 protests; representation; political parties