Beyond Civil Society: Activism, Participation, and Protest in Latin America
Sonia E. Alvarez is Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Latin American Politics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Jeffrey W. Rubin is Associate Professor of History at Boston University.
Millie Thayer is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Gianpaolo Baiocchi is Associate Professor of Individualized Studies and Sociology at New York University.
Agustín Laó-Montes is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Arturo Escobar is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Sonia E. Alvarez is Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Latin American Politics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Jeffrey W. Rubin is Associate Professor of History at Boston University.
Millie Thayer is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Gianpaolo Baiocchi is Associate Professor of Individualized Studies and Sociology at New York University.
Agustín Laó-Montes is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Arturo Escobar is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Sonia E. Alvarez is Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Latin American Politics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Jeffrey W. Rubin is Associate Professor of History at Boston University.
Millie Thayer is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Gianpaolo Baiocchi is Associate Professor of Individualized Studies and Sociology at New York University.
Agustín Laó-Montes is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Arturo Escobar is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Sonia E. Alvarez is Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Latin American Politics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Jeffrey W. Rubin is Associate Professor of History at Boston University.
Millie Thayer is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Gianpaolo Baiocchi is Associate Professor of Individualized Studies and Sociology at New York University.
Agustín Laó-Montes is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Arturo Escobar is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Sonia E. Alvarez is Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Latin American Politics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Jeffrey W. Rubin is Associate Professor of History at Boston University.
Millie Thayer is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Gianpaolo Baiocchi is Associate Professor of Individualized Studies and Sociology at New York University.
Agustín Laó-Montes is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Arturo Escobar is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Ana Claudia Teixeira, 2017. "Brazil: Back to the Streets?", Beyond Civil Society: Activism, Participation, and Protest in Latin America, Sonia E. Alvarez, Jeffrey W. Rubin, Millie Thayer, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Agustín Laó-Montes
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This chapter explores the protests of June 2013 and their aftermath. It argues that while the Brazilian protests indeed borrowed the practices and formats of Occupy, 15M, and the Arab Spring, they are difficult to reduce to a single logic, set of motivations, or even a symbolic target. Brazil’s protests were driven by varied causes and their ostensible spark, bus fares, multiplied into scores of causes and demands that characterized the mobilizations. The chapter explores the relationship between this movement—a very visible manifestation of the “contentious face of cultural-political struggles”—and the country’s very robust system of participatory democracy and its organized civil society. The street protests expressed something uncontained and quite outside formal democratic and participatory institutions and serve as a poignant reminder of their limits. After the June protests the country has lived a contradictory, but intense political period—social movements have taken up the banner of some of the demands in newly contestatory ways, while political conservatism has also been in the streets for the first time in a generation. As well, the political process has been unable to absorb this energy, with disaffection being the main result of the subsequent elections.
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