In the wake of the results of the Brazilian elections, international and national observers have been puzzled about the embracing of nationalistic and authoritarian discourses in the country, one of the largest democracies in the world. Many explanations have emerged, but Bolsonaro’s election cannot be explained by one single cause, rather it is the result of multiple and converging processes of various scales and temporalities. It must be seen as a combination of trends, not only globally but also those closer to home, with recent events in the Brazilian political and economic landscape relating deeply to embedded structural issues in the country and Latin America.
This event brings together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds to open a dialogue on the multiple causes that have led to this far-right turn in Brazil. It will look at the relationship between different aspects of Brazilian society – the economy, state-society relations, the rule of law – and the paradoxical democratic choice for an authoritarian rhetoric. What are some of the most relevant trends that have converged to allow the rupture that Bolsonaro represents? How can we make sense of what happened in order to envisage alternative paths for the future?
The event will be followed by a short presentation and drinks reception with the Brazilian Student Association BRASA. BRASA is the biggest association of Brazilian students overseas, present in 72 universities across 50 countries. It aims to create a community for the development of future Brazilian leaders.
Speakers :
Edesio Fernandes is a Legal Scholar and International Consultant, Member of DPU Associates and of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Dr. Jeff Garmany (@KingsBrazil)is a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography and the King’s Brazil Institute at King’s College London. His work lies at the intersection of four fields of academic study: Urban Studies, Political Geography, Critical Development, and Latin American/Brazilian Studies. In the most basic sense, his research considers the links between everyday informality and state governance in Brazil and Latin America, and how power and inequality are produced and contested through these relationships.
Pedro Mendes Loureiro (@Cambridge_Uni) is a University Lecturer in Latin American Studies at the Centre of Latin American Studies at Cambridge. He has written on the political economy of Latin America, dealing with inequality, structural change and development strategies. He has published articles on topics ranging from Marxism to the Pink Tide in Latin America and complexity economics.
Mara Nogueira (@mcnteixeira) is currently a Fellow in Human Geography at the LSE. She is an urban geographer whose research focuses on socio-spatial inequality and the urban politics of urban space production in Brazil. She is interested in state-society relationships, focusing on how those encounters shape urban space, policy making and social class.
Chair:
Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch (@PsychologyLSE) is Professor of Social Psychology where she directs the MSc in Social and Cultural Psychology. Her publications include ‘Underground Sociabilities: identity, culture and resistance in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro’ (Unesco, 2013) and ‘Social representations and the Public Sphere: the symbolic construction of public spaces in Brazil’, (Vozes, 2000).
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