Democracy Is a Blessing: Phatic Ritual and the Public Sphere in Northeast Brazil

This paper analyzes the political importance of a rural Brazilian blessing ritual performed by transgenerational kin in order to question the assumption that a democratic public sphere presupposes the exclusion of familial obligations from civil talk and impartial governance. By analyzing several folk models of blessing behavior that inhabitants of the rural northeastern backlands (sertao) use to interpret blessings, I argue that hierarchical genres of family communication can serve as models for civility and impartiality among non-kin. This analysis illuminates the discursive processes by which sertanejos dismantle illiberal features of their political culture, including clientelist forms of resource distribution.