CONSTRUCTING MU OCISMO: COLONIAL POLITICS AND THE RISE OF THE PPD, 1934-1940

To grasp the rise of the PPD, this essay focuses on the exchanges between agents that informed the articulation of a populist discourse that many groups came to share, including público drivers, the unemployed, dockworkers, rural laborers, Communists, and former Socialists. Instead of presenting mu ocism as a facile hierarchy between leaders and followers, the author focuses on the haphazard process of interaction that brought together the advocates of reform as they partook in discursive practices in favor of social justice. By examining mu ocism as a collective affair and as a "decentered" site of political engagement, this essay stresses the ambiguous zone of action and the elasticity of meaning that allowed individuals to reach an agreement.