Not Allowed to sell and buy: the case of fair´s removal at Praça da Liberdade, Belo Horizonte

Abstract

This paper analyzes how fairs held in Liberdade Square between 1969 and 1991 became a public issue, which demanded state action for the reallocation of these events by the municipal administration of Belo Horizonte. I analyze how narratives were built by the agents involved: media, academia, public authorities, vendors, and attendees. Journalistic materials and academic and literary works about the square were used as data sources. The analysis of the speeches about the fairs reveals that they were denounced as an appropriation that damaged natural and architectural heritage. The media played a major role in publicizing the problem. In their argumentative constructions, the media, public authorities, and intellectuals acted as moral entrepreneurs, framing the fairs and their consumers as an irreconcilable appropriation with spaces of symbolic value and power such as Liberdade Square.