Preface
Katerina Hatzikidi and Eduardo Dullo
The idea for this book arose during the seminar ‘A horizon of (im)possibilities: Reflecting on the social implications of recent political upheaval in Brazil’, which took place on 22 February 2019. The seminar was organised by Katerina Hatzikidi and co-hosted by the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS), University of London, and the King’s Brazil Institute, King’s College London, with the kind support of the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS). Organised in the aftermath of the 2018 presidential election, the seminar was a response to the need of many social scientists working on Brazil to come together and discuss the electoral coda to a highly polarised political period in the country. The seminar was well attended and sparked lively and thought-provoking discussions, both among the discussants and between them and members of the audience. We wish to thank all those who attended and/or participated. Unfortunately, due to space restrictions, we were unable to include here longer versions of all the papers presented, their merit notwithstanding. We are grateful to the authors who contributed to this volume and we thank them for their patience throughout this process. We would like to extend our acknowledgements to the director of ILAS, Professor Linda Newson, and the former director of the King’s Brazil Institute, Professor Anthony Pereira, for their invaluable support in its organisation.
Tapping into the notion of possibility and acknowledging that the October 2018 election was but the outcome, or culmination, of a series of transformations that had been taking place over several years, this interdisciplinary seminar invited researchers to consider and critically reflect on current political events and their social implications. Due to the high quality of the papers presented and the great interest the ensuing discussions generated, organisers and participants agreed that an edited collection would be an effective way for the papers to reach a wider audience. In order to better grapple with the urgency and magnitude of some of the issues in question, the editors decided to organise two main published outcomes of the seminar. The first and more immediate outcome is the publication of a special issue with the Bulletin of Latin American Studies (BLAR), organised by Katerina Hatzikidi. The second and more extensive publication is the present collective volume.
Drawing on the main questions that animated a productive debate in the seminar, the present edited collection wishes to continue and deepen some of the conversations that started there. More specifically, the chapters that comprise this book explore the temporal and spatial dimensions of recent social and political developments in Brazil, focusing especially on the period starting in 2013, but also considering earlier developments that might have contributed to the 2018 election result. While many of the chapters are dedicated to the years preceding the last presidential election, the post-election period is also considered. Situating their analyses in distinct geographical and thematic loci, the contributors set out to unravel and understand the political, social, economic and religious conditions in place, as well as their dynamic development over recent years, which eventually led to a major political shift.
Although it does not aim for an exhaustive analysis of the recent Brazilian authoritarian turn, the volume offers a unique interdisciplinary synthesis of a wide range of issues that eventually determined the result of the 2018 presidential elections. With its publication, we hope to contribute to ongoing debates and scientific analyses of the multiple crises in recent years, while reaching anyone who wishes to better understand contemporary Brazil.