The subaltern voice of Joaquim Bentinho

Abstract

In modernity, hillbilly groups were represented from a normative standard articulated to “educated” and “urban” references by writers whose analysis sought to expunge otherness and ended up giving them that which constitutes their subaltern condition: silence. Considering these aspects, this paper investigates how the subaltern voice of Joaquim Bentinho is manifested in the works ‘As estrambóticas aventuras de Joaquim Bentinho’ (1924), and ‘A Continuação das estrambóticas aventuras de Joaquim Bentinho’ (1929), written by Cornélio Pires. With a dilettante literary and scientific approach aimed towards the appreciation of hillbilly culture, the author had to deal with his own subalternity in these social fields. Positioning himself as a legitimate hillbilly spokesman, his work is ahead of its time in comparison to those who conceived the caboclo only as a negative entity, whereas the limits present in his thinking indicate the perpetuation of the harmonic character of our literary and scientific epistemologies.