This article analyzes rural development discourses and their approach toward a particular understanding of the exercise of power, based on interviews with agents of the herein called technoscientific field associated with agricultural sciences in southern Brazil. The interface between a theoretical configuration associated with an analytical view of power and the regularity found in rural development discourses leads to the assumption that this common space of sense production and discourse support is closely linked to a wide economic and political strategy (inherent to capitalism) of population management (logic of inclusion). It is also linked to the application of various provisions and technologies in accordance with - and within the limits of - the biopower perspective. In order to infer this relationship, we tried to use the theoretical framework of discourse analysis by means of its simplest method: an examination of the frequency with which key terms are repeated by agents in their expositions on the current rural development debate. This framework helps us to understand an individual’s conception, assuming that the individual is coherent and aware of his/her discourse, as well as to perceive the persistence or modification of certain beliefs and myths in the formation of sociological ideals for rural Brazil.
rural development; technoscientific field; biopower