XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

A Geração 77: Vera Paiva, Refazendo e a Reorganização no Movimento Estudantil na USP

• In Event: 1964 in Perspective, 60 Years After the Coup Part I: Social Movements and Resistance

Abstract

Much has been written about the Generation of 1968, which mobilized Brazilian youth against the dictatorship in Brazil, and was part of a global phenomenon. However, few scholars have analyzed the generation that succeeded 1968 and emerged in the midst of process of General-President Geisel’s “lenta, gradual e controlada” distenção. Taking to the streets in 1977 after 10 years of absence from public protests in motion to protest the arrest and torture of students pamphleting in the ABC region of São Paulo, the mobilizations marked an intensification from below of the process of transition to democracy. During this period, the debates about how to defeat the dictatorship and construct a post-authoritarian regime at times pitted the traditional lefts with new ways that youth conceived of organizing the student movement, among many issues. The paper examines the story of Vera Paiva, a Veroca, a founding member the leftwing political current Refazendo, which developed strategies to organize and lead the student movement during this complex period of repression and openings, as it rebuild the outlawed Directório Central Estudantil- Livre Alexandre Vannuchi Leme da USP and led the street mobilization. This paper is part of book project with the tentative title, Generation 77: : juventude, política e a derrota da ditadura

Author

• James Green, Brown University