Seeking to analyze practices and perceptions that build up around the vote and choice of candidates, this paper considers ways of belonging, of recognition, and moral evaluations that emerge in a competitive setting of candidates running for the City Council of Aquiraz, Ceará, during the election campaign of 2008. This work consists of recording the existence of a symbolic economy made up of practice and perceptions which influence the support of candidates, more frequently built in the fields of gift rather than oriented by rights. The exchange of gifts and its limitations, the senses of belonging and recognition, and the paradoxical logic of interest versus disinterest provide relevant theoretical grounds to explain the pursuit of support for candidacies, the meanings of political representation and the transactions set around the vote.
belonging; electoral practices; gift; representation