Populism, inequality, and the construction of the “other”: An anthropological approach to the far right in brazil

Abstract

Starting from the discussion about the contributions of anthropological perspectives to the study of the extreme right, the article proposes to present some initial analysis about this political ideology in Brazil. It focuses on the construction of the sociocultural and ideological profile of the Bolsonaro government. Specifically, the goal is analysing the form in which the Brazilian government redefines and considers ethnic-racial identities and how it builds its own identity by opposing them. In this sense, this article addresses indigenous alterity, seeking to observe how it is re-signified in Bolsonaro’s project. Observing this encounter between the far-right and otherness in the Brazilian context allows to verify values and meanings it gives to cultural plurality, the imaginaries and social representations it builds, and from this to understand how it presents itself and which project of society it defends.