The Politics of Naming: Affirmative Action in Brazilian Higher Education

Abstract

Ces images étaient fausses pour une autre raison encore; c'est qu'elles étaient forcément très simplifi ées; sans doute ce à quoi aspirait mon imagination et que mes sens ne percevaient qu'incomplètement et sans plaisir dans le présent, je l'avais enfermé dans le refuge des noms; sans doute, parce que j'y avais accu-mulé du rêve, ils aimantaient maintenant mes désirs; Marcel Proust: Du côté de chez Swann , Paris, Gallimard Folio, 1954, p. 460. One purpose of this book has been to draw together two themes which social scientists tend to treat separately, though of course they are not unaware of the connections between them—namely, multiculturalism and social justice. Multiculturalism is a politics of recognition which takes the form of public policy, notably in the spheres of education and law, and also of a more intangible set of initiatives designed to redress the bal-ance between hegemonic cultures and the lifeworlds, languages, belief sys-tems and cultural heritage of subordinate populations, in Latin America notably indigenous people. Its substance was admirably set out for Latin America in Rachel Sieder's 2002 volume (Sieder 2002) and the normative