The Memory and the Institutional Progressive Speech “Versus” the Right to Remember the Dispossessed of the Lands of Itaipu

Abstract

The discourses of power about historical facts widespread in a hegemonic way bring in themselves, although not manifested, an individual or group’s restlessness that evokes the right to memory. Analyzing these speeches raises several provocations and discoveries. Is there a memory gap between the progressive discourse on the institutional website and the right to remember those expropriated from the lands of the Itaipu hydroelectric plant? Therefore, this research aims to analyze and reflect on the right to the memory of the expropriated during the construction of Itaipu-Binacional (1975-1982) using the theoretical-methodological perspective of the French Discourse Analysis (ADF), the interpretative, qualitative and of the bibliographic research. The study demonstrated that discourses are entreched in ideologies and express the contexts in which collective memories are produced and constructed. The “framed memory” accentuated the silence and invisibility of the subjects in opposition to the institutional objective of the plant, which became a counterexample in memory conservation. Therefore, memory has the power to include, but also to exclude. Given the panorama, the contribution of the study, whose theme still incipient, hopes that Discourse Analysis will broaden the debate and the horizon of knowledge, insofar as it is an efficient instrument for understanding the law. Recovering the memory of the expropriated of Itaipu, provides reflections on the hegemonic-institutional discourse and the (un)need of the voice of the expropriated of the megamonument called Itaipu, not only the stone that sings, but also the stone that cries.