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The right to shine: Poverty, consumption and (de) politicization in neoliberal Brazil
Date Issued
May 2023
Date Available
05T09:32:56Z August 2022
Abstract
This article discusses the political impacts on the poor’s subjectivity provoked by neoliberal policies such as inclusion through consumption in 21st century Brazil. From 2009 to 2014, we carried out ethnographic research with new consumers in a low-income neighbourhood – Morro da Cruz – in the city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. We argue that consumption does not necessarily depoliticize human experience, as it is broadly assumed to have done in the scholarly literature on neoliberalism. In a society in which the poor has obtained goods through hierarchical and servile relationships, the possibility of buying things provides a micro sphere for recognition, though not in terms of classic collective action or even hidden subversion. Coupled with the momentum towards a national ‘economic emergence’, status goods became vehicles of an emergent subjectivity, which we conceptualize as ‘the right to shine’. The right to shine are subtle forms of class and racial self-worth, and individual and interpersonal empowerment that revealed interclass defiance.
Type of Material
Journal Article
Publisher
SAGE
Journal
Journal of Consumer Culture
Volume
23
Issue
2
Start Page
312
End Page
330
Copyright (Published Version)
2022 The Authors
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1469-5405
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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Owning collection
Scopus© citations
4
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Dec 11, 2023
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