This article analyzes the relationship between processes of State construction and proposals for the organization of professional groups in Brazil, taking the case of journalism and its professionalization as our empirical reference. We consider the relationship between a series of phenomena - the emergence of formal criteria for exercise of the profession, the creation of representative entities and the establishment of institutions for professional training - and the social uses of this process with the trajectories of the agents who participate. One of the major goals of our text is to supply elements, based on particular theoretical and methodological conceptions, to reflect on the process of organization and institutionalization of the professions in Brazil and their broader relation to the political sphere. Within the Brazilian context, we have seen that the dynamics for construction of political and professional spheres occur simultaneously and with heavy mutual interference. Thus, through the experience of journalism, we are able to demonstrate that professional recognition becomes a resource of action in Brazilian politics.
State; professions; journalism; political sphere