Attacks on universities and the defense of education: a path of sense in different positions-subjects

Abstract

From the perspective of Discourse Analysis (AD), in line with Michel Pêcheux, we analyze the speeches present in the demonstrations of May 2019, which deal with the defense of public universities and against attacks by the government of Jair Bolsonaro. Our analytical course starts from the historical conditions of production of such discursivity, arrives at the discursive materialities in order to understand the gestures of interpretation from the statement “In defense of education”. As result, we find a discourse that opposes the Federal Government’s policy of cuts, addressing the issue through manifestations that polemicise the sayings and, above all, reveal the contradictory subject-positions and ideological interests at stake.