A hierarquização simbólica do Brasil na Copa do Mundo

Abstract

The pertinence of hosting the Football World Cup in Brazil has been a warm issue between 2013 and 2014. The debates were centered on two issues: the economic and the social impacts of the event. A third issue was also important, however, much less discussed: for its defenders hosting the games was justified by to opportunity to promote the country image abroad. Image promotion become a central issue in a moment in which countries of the whole world dispute the attraction of a flexible and denationalized capital. In this sense, identities are articulated as brand in order to produce symbolically the space as more attractive to the capital, something to be clearly noticed in the touristic promotion. This paper aims to understand the relationship between place branding and the promotion of country image in the World Cup context. It will be shown that, in the case of Brazil, there are several agents with interests on representing Brazil, what leads to a hierarchy of representation. This hierarchy is not given, however, by the nation-state, but by the global companies involved with the mega-event.