Protesting Democracy in Brazil

Photo by Semilla Luz, licensed under CC BY.

What exactly happened in Brazil during June and July, 2013? What started as a protest over an increase in bus fares grew into something much larger, with rallies and protests occurring in major cities all over the country. The question of how to understand these events is of interest to scholars, onlookers, comedians, journalists, participants, and voters in Brazil and around the world, and it resides at the well-established intersection of anthropology and history. The pieces we include in this Hot Spot series, written by anthropologists, activists, and writers across several generations, aim to answer this question. As they attempt to do so, the authors are aware that they are opening up new questions not only in the anthropology of Brazil and/or Brazilian anthropology, but also in the understanding of social movements, mediation, and policing writ large.

The series editors, Alex S. Dent and Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, provide an introductory editorial. The first six essays—by Ruben George Oliven, Otávio Velho, Aaron Ansell, James Holston, Carmen Rial, and John Collins—discuss Brazilian society and the protests in June. The next two—by Pablo Ortellado and Claudio Lomitz—reflect on transportation and democracy. Following essays—by Luiz Eduardo Soares, Susana Durão, and Roberto Kant de Lima and Lenin Pires—discuss violence, the police, and the state in Brazil. An interview between Lenin Pieres and Lieutenant Colonel Nádia Rodrigues Silveira Gerhard of the Military Police Brigade of Rio Grande do Sul follows. Four essays—by Juliano Spyer, Marcelo Casteñeda, Anelise dos Santos Gutterres, and Elizete Ignácio—provide reports from the streets and social networks. Finally, the last five pieces—an interview with Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, and essays by Reijane Pinheiro and Wilmar Xerente, Cristian Jobi Salaini and Ubirajara Toledo, Luisa Geisler, and Rosana Pinheiro-Machado and Alex S. Dent—explore Brazilian the demands made by Brazilian civil society.

Posts in This Series

The Protests in Brazil

The Protests in Brazil

What exactly happened in Brazil during June and July, 2013? What started as a protest over an increase in bus fares grew into something much larger, with rallie... More

Taking to the Streets of Brazil

Taking to the Streets of Brazil

In recent years, some have said that Brazil was booming. The GDP was rising and Lula’s government instituted a series of measures that closed the tremendous inc... More

Protests in Brazil

Protests in Brazil

It is important to stress from the start that no one predicted the protests that occurred in Brazil in June 2013 and that are still with us in modified forms. A... More

The Vinegar Revolts and the Diverse Faces of Democracy in Brazil

The Vinegar Revolts and the Diverse Faces of Democracy in Brazil

Since June of 2013, over one million Brazilians have taken to the streets in cities throughout the country. They’re calling for change across a range of issues ... More

“Come to the street”: Urban Protest, Brazil 2013

“Come to the street”: Urban Protest, Brazil 2013

A remarkable aspect of the street demonstrations that overtook Brazilian cities in June was that protestors of all classes came together around many common issu... More

“Taking to the streets”: Brazilian Demonstrations in the Twenty-First Century

“Taking to the streets”: Brazilian Demonstrations in the Twenty-First Century

A joke is currently circulating in Brazil that encapsulates the current unexpectedly politicized environment. A passenger sneezes on a bus. Another passenger re... More

Of Protests and Potato Chips

Of Protests and Potato Chips

It is common to argue that subject formation, and thus citizenship and its denial, are enacted upon or through the body. Whether biopolitics, thanatopolitics, o... More

On Processes and Outcomes: Remarks on the Brazilian Protests of June, 2013, and Other Experiences of “New Movements”

On Processes and Outcomes: Remarks on the Brazilian Protests of June, 2013, and Other Experiences of “New Movements”

(This text is based on ideas originally presented in Portuguese in the book I co-authored, 20 centavos: A luta contra o aumento [São Paulo: Veneta, 2013].)On Ju... More

Long Live the Free Pass Movement

Long Live the Free Pass Movement

(This was originally published in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada. Translated by Paul M. Ross.) There has been no lack of persons who have received the social ... More

Zero Hour on the Popular Clock

Zero Hour on the Popular Clock

(A longer version of this essay was published originally in Portuguese on Zero Hora, July 29, 2013.) Brazilian society took to the streets and took as its own t... More

Is Nonviolent Policing Possible in Brazil?

Is Nonviolent Policing Possible in Brazil?

I had followed news coverage of the protests in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília since June 6, but it was not until personally taking part in one of them ... More

The "Vandal" and the Warrior Policeman: The Difficult Relation between Directed Social Changes and Conflicts Management Strategies

The "Vandal" and the Warrior Policeman: The Difficult Relation between Directed Social Changes and Conflicts Management Strategies

During the last decade, Brazil has joined a selective group of developing countries known as the emergent countries. It has been internationally perceived as a ... More

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Nadia Rodrigues Silveira Gerhard

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Nadia Rodrigues Silveira Gerhard

We are pleased to publish an interview with Lieutenant Colonel Nadia Rodrigues Silveira Gerhard, the first women to occupy a leadership position in the military... More

An Ethnographic Account of the Riots in Brazil Seen From the Periphery

An Ethnographic Account of the Riots in Brazil Seen From the Periphery

In early June, 2013, while my friends in São Paulo were discussing politics through the night with their peers on Facebook, my informants in Baldoíno—a village ... More

Protests in Rio de Janeiro: Socio-Technical Overlap between “Networks” and the Streets

Protests in Rio de Janeiro: Socio-Technical Overlap between “Networks” and the Streets

I attended four demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro that took place on June 10, 14, 17, and 20. I will be concentrating on two points: first, that these demonstrat... More

An Intimate Account of the Political Protests in Rio de Janeiro

An Intimate Account of the Political Protests in Rio de Janeiro

It's not easy, I ask for public mobility and the government sends Skull against me.—Popular refrain during the demonstrations. “Skull” is the nickname for one o... More

How a Protestor, Interviewer, Anthropologist, and Businesswoman Perceived the Demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro

How a Protestor, Interviewer, Anthropologist, and Businesswoman Perceived the Demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro

At the end of 2012, I withdrew from my doctorate studies to open a research company called Clave de Fá (Bass Clef). I recount my experience at the protests as a... More

Indigenous Rights and Brazilian democracy: An Interview Manuela Carneiro da Cunha

Indigenous Rights and Brazilian democracy: An Interview Manuela Carneiro da Cunha

In the midst of the protests that defined the months of June and July, Manuela Carneiro da Cunha gave an interview to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, conducte... More

The Indians Who Never Slept: The Indigenous from Tocantins (North Of Brazil) and the Protests of June

The Indians Who Never Slept: The Indigenous from Tocantins (North Of Brazil) and the Protests of June

The phrase “the Giant’s waked up,” broadly used in the social networks to define the protests in Brazil in last June, is not appropriate, we believe, to the Bra... More

Demonstrations and the Quilombola Cause: New Protests for Old Claims

Demonstrations and the Quilombola Cause: New Protests for Old Claims

Upon first analysis, the demonstrations taking place in Brazil find support in a wide range of social movements. These produce diverse interpretations of the ev... More

The End of Silence: Slut Walk and the June Movements

The End of Silence: Slut Walk and the June Movements

In May, a friend of mine invited me to the Facebook event Marcha das Vadias 2013—Porto Alegre (“SlutWalk 2013—Porto Alegre”). The SlutWalk protest marches start... More

Paradoxes of Development: Why Now?

Paradoxes of Development: Why Now?

In 2009, the cover of The Economist magazine featured the headline, “Brazil takes off.” After the protests, four years later, the magazine asked: “Has Brazil bl... More