Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil (In-formation)

Insurgent citizenships have arisen in cities around the world. This book examines the insurgence of democratic citizenship in the urban peripheries of S?o Paulo, Brazil, its entanglement with entrenched systems of inequality, and its contradiction in violence. James Holston argues that for two centuries Brazilians have practiced a type of citizenship all too common among nation-states--one that is universally inclusive in national membership and massively inegalitarian in distributing rights and in its legalization of social differences. But since the 1970s, he shows, residents of Brazil's urban peripheries have formulated a new citizenship that is destabilizing the old. Their mobilizations have developed not primarily through struggles of labor but through those of the city--particularly illegal residence, house building, and land conflict. Yet precisely as Brazilians democratized urban space and achieved political democracy, violence, injustice, and impunity increased dramatically. Based on comparative, ethnographic, and historical research, Insurgent Citizenship reveals why the insurgent and the entrenched remain dangerously conjoined as new kinds of citizens expand democracy even as new forms of violence and exclusion erode it. Rather than view this paradox as evidence of democratic failure and urban chaos, Insurgent Citizenship argues that contradictory realizations of citizenship characterize all democracies--emerging and established. Focusing on processes of city- and citizen-making now prevalent globally, it develops new approaches for understanding the contemporary course of democratic citizenship in societies of vastly different cultures and histories.

through A Masterful Blending Of History And Ethnography, James Holston Offers His Readers An Innovative And Compelling Way To Think About Citizenship In Brazil And Elsewhere. insurgent Citizenship Shows How, Historically, The Category Of 'citizen' In Brazilian Society Has Been Subject To Differential Rights And Subtle Gradations That Have Forced Many People Who Enjoy Formal Citizenship To Resort To Illegal Arrangements To Survive. Perhaps Most Important, Holston Analyzes The Struggles Of Insurgent Movements In Brazil's Urban 'peripheries' Not Only To Claim Inclusion But To Reshape The Very Meaning Of Citizenship.--barbara Weinstein, New York University

james Holston Has Written A Landmark Book. In This Multilayered Study, Holston Has Written An Explosive History Of Modern Citizenship. The Implications Of His Work Provide Fresh Insights In Brazilian Democracy And Its Limitations--and Suggest Ways In Which, In Fact, Brazil May Not Be So Unique In A World Of Legalized Privileges And Legitimated Inequalities. A Monumental Achievement Of Engaged Scholarship.--jeremy Adelman, Author Of sovereignty And Revolution In The Iberian Atlantic

this Is A Major Book, And Should Provoke Significant Debate Among Brazilianists And Beyond. Holston Offers A Thoroughly Researched, Acutely Argued, And Well-written Account Of The Emergence Of A New Understanding Of Citizenship In Brazil. He Grounds His Account Of 'insurgent Citizenship' In The Study Of Neighborhood Activism In Two Working-class Neighborhoods On The Periphery Of São Paulo, Jardim Das Camélias And Lar Nacional. His Analysis Of The Former, In Particular, Is Stunning.--bryan Mccann, Georgetown University

this Magnificent, Richly Detailed Study Of The Emergence Of An Idea Of The Citizen As A Rights-bearing Subject, Out Of The Morass Of Legal And Social Inequalities That Have Characterized Brazilian Society Since Its Inception, Offers A Provocative View Of What Democracy And Rights Mean For Diminishing Such Inequalities. The Developments In Brazil Are Similar To Those Taking Place Elsewhere In Latin America, And This Book Shows Us In Vivid Detail Why They Are Happening And What Their Implications Might Be.--sally Engle Merry, New York University

one Of The Best Books I've Ever Read On Brazil Or On Citizenship.--margaret Keck, Johns Hopkins University

j.m. Rosenthal - Choice

holston's Topic In This Impressive Study On Unequal Citizenship Is The Contrast Between Brazil's Formal, Legal Equality And The Reality That It Is A Society Founded On Civic And Juridical Inequalities.

Insurgent citizenships have arisen in cities around the world. This book examines the insurgence of democratic citizenship in the urban peripheries of São Paulo, Brazil, its entanglement with entrenched systems of inequality, and its contradiction in violence. James Holston argues that for two centuries Brazilians have practiced a type of citizenship all too common among nation-states--one that is universally inclusive in national membership and massively inegalitarian in distributing rights and in its legalization of social differences. But since the 1970s, he shows, residents of Brazil's urban peripheries have formulated a new citizenship that is destabilizing the old. Their mobilizations have developed not primarily through struggles of labor but through those of the city--particularly illegal residence, house building, and land conflict. Yet precisely as Brazilians democratized urban space and achieved political democracy, violence, injustice, and impunity increased dramatically. Based on comparative, ethnographic, and historical research, Insurgent Citizenship reveals why the insurgent and the entrenched remain dangerously conjoined as new kinds of citizens expand democracy even as new forms of violence and exclusion erode it. Rather than view this paradox as evidence of democratic failure and urban chaos, Insurgent Citizenship argues that contradictory realizations of citizenship characterize all democracies--emerging and established. Focusing on processes of city- and citizen-making now prevalent globally, it develops new approaches for understanding the contemporary course of democratic citizenship in societies of vastly different cultures and histories. Disruptions Citizenship made strange Public standing and everyday citizenship Particular citizenships Treating the unequal unequally History as an argument about the present Inequalities In/divisible nations Comparative formulations French indivisibility American restriction Brazilian inclusion Limiting political citizenship The surprisingly broad colonial franchise Restrictions with independence A long step backward into oligarchy Urbanization and the equalization of rights Restricting access to landed property Property, personality, and civil standing Land, labor, and law The tangle of colonial land tenure National land reform, slavery, and immigrant free labor The land law of 1850 Land law and market become accomplices of fraud Illegality, inequality, and instability as norms Segregating the city Center and periphery Evicting workers and managing society Autoconstructing the peripheries Social rights for urban labor A differentiated citizenship Insurgencies Legalizing the illegal The illegal periphery A case of land fraud in Jardim das Caḿelias Histories of dubious origins Federal ownership claims: Sesmarias and Indians Ackel ownership claims: posse and squatter's rights The ownership claims of Adis and the state of São Paulo The misrule of law Urban citizens New civic participation The mobilization of Lar Nacional Reinventing the public sphere New foundations of rights Rights as privilege Contributor rights Text-based rights Disjunctions Dangerous spaces of citizenship Everyday incivilities In/justice Gang talk and rights talk Insurgent citizenships and disjunctive democracies "Insurgent citizenships have arisen in cities around the world. This book examines the insurgence of democratic citizenship in the urban peripheries of Sao Paulo, Brazil, its entanglement with entrenched systems of inequality, and its contradiction in violence. James Holston argues that for two centuries Brazilians have practiced a type of citizenship all too common among nation-states - one that is universally inclusive in national membership and massively inegalitarian in distributing rights and in its legalization of social differences. But since the 1970s, he shows, residents of Brazil's urban peripheries have formulated a new citizenship that is destabilizing the old. Their mobilizations have developed not primarily through struggles of labor but through those of the city--particularly illegal residence, house building, and land conflict. Yet precisely as Brazilians democratized urban space and achieved political democracy, violence, injustice, and impunity increased dramatically."--Jacket.