Grammars of contestation and pluralism: Paulo Freire’s action in Brazil’s periphery and the rise of right-wing discourse on YouTube

Abstract

This article examines YouTube videos that feature right-wing discourses from Brazil’s periphery based on perspectives extracted from Paulo Freire’s ideas of action for liberation. The findings from a survey conducted from one year before the 2018 elections until one year later combined with a multimodal discourse analysis have pointed to the formation of a new grammar of contestation that discusses socioeconomic, racial, and gender issues in a discourse identified with the right. The Freirean notion of action helps to enlighten aspects that indicate the rise in critical action and pluralism from the periphery, despite the politics of the right that a few media producers have entertained.