Power and its symbols in the interior of the country

Abstract

How is an elite constructed and how are the social roles played by its members defined? How are social relations guided by symbolic struggles and what are the essential rituals both within this elite and in the way it constructs its image to be seen from the outside? These are the questions that historian André Azevedo da Fonseca addresses in his book A metrópole imaginária (The imaginary metropolis), in which he analyzes the social and historical dynamics of Uberaba, a city in the interior of Minas Gerais, which in the 1940s was going through a period of economic and social decay - a different scenario to that reported in the local press, where the city was represented as an oasis of development in the Triângulo Mineiro, or as the "Capital of the interior of Brazil"