Work Without Workers: Commemoration as Repression in the Construction of Brasilia (1950s–1970s)

ABSTRACT: The construction of Brasilia (1956-1960) was followed by a gradual process of attempted eviction of the construction workers that had built the city from the ground up. Known as candangos , the construction workers were celebrated as modern workers and simultaneously despised as unable to become modern citizens. They wanted to inhabit the city they had built. However, the government never conceived them as Brasilia's potential inhabitants and ignored their claims to land and city rights. This article explores unexamined archival material and non-fictional literary works from the 1950s-1970s to disentangle soft-power strategies carried out to silence the candangos, while seemingly commemorating their construction feat. Combining theories of developmentalism, monument conservation and defacement, labor, and protest, the article argues that the Brazilian government and private companies ultimately conceived the construction of Brasilia as a utopia of work without workers. It also asserts that Brasilia was a paradigmatic case showing that the history of modern commemoration is inherently linked to the history of modern silencing and repression.