Generational Change and the Military Dictatorship in Brazil: The Debate on the “AI-5 Generation”

Silvana Seabra Hooper

doi:10.4236/ce.2016.715226

Abstract

This article analyzes the issue of generational change, reviews its conceptual and historical origin in Mannheim and demonstrates the relationship between generational cohorts and traumatic historical moments. The paper focuses on a new generation in Brazil, the “AI-5 generation” (1970), which was identified by Luciano Martins (social scientist), and subsequently reconsidered by Jurandir Freire Costa (social psychanalyst). It discusses one possible reinterpretation of the concept within the context of the internationalization and modernization of that period in Brazil.

Highlights

With the so called “years of lead”1 behind us, we have the necessary distance to properly access the period, and this allows us to better distinguish passing phenomena from those of more lasting influence
The paper focuses on a new generation in Brazil, the “AI-5 generation” (1970), which was identified by Luciano Martins, and subsequently reconsidered by Jurandir Freire Costa
One category of these questions relates to generation— a topic that was first raised in relation to the historical moment of the Brazilian military regime, in sociologist Luciano Martins’ 1979 paper entitled “The AI-5 Generation”

Summary

Introduction

With the so called “years of lead” behind us, we have the necessary distance to properly access the period, and this allows us to better distinguish passing phenomena from those of more lasting influence One category of these questions relates to generation— a topic that was first raised in relation to the historical moment of the Brazilian military regime, in sociologist Luciano Martins’ 1979 paper entitled “The AI-5 Generation”. In 1986, psychoanalyst Jurandir Freire Costa provided a response to Martins, accepting his description but attributing the changes in the youth culture to broader factors than local politics. After this critical confrontation, the debate cooled off; the very terms of the discussion were redefined. Our aim is to examine each author’s assumptions and analytical limitations in order to identify important points for current discussion and research on the nature of “generation”, both reassessing the past and seeking to understand the present time

Generations

From the 1960s to the 1970s in Brazil

Conclusions