Democracy and violence in Brazil

Abstract

The essay analyzes various violations of the civil component of citizenship in the context of Brazil's current political democracy. In the final section, we develop the concept of disjunctive democracy as a means of better understanding these contemporary forms of democratic development. The empirical basis of this investigation derives from ethnographic research in the metropolitan regions of Sao Paulo and Brasilia, which we have, at various times, conducted separately and together. It derives especially from an anthropological concern with the performative dimension of social and institutional relations-that is, with the representative practices and exemplary particulars through which these relations are enacted, as well as with the scripts, like democracy, that are supposed to provide a calculus for many sets of relations, and that people must perform to gain the prescribed effects. Our intention, in this sense, is not just to criticize the strictly political definition of democracy, but also to suggest an anthropological perspective in its study. We do not insist on this intention by calling attention to it throughout the discussion. Rather, we try to demonstrate its force by focusing on the civil component of citizenship and the lived consequences of its violation, and by letting these social practices lead to a theoretical argument about the disjunctive nature of democratization.