6. From participation to silence: grassroots politics in contemporary Brazil

Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos

Nearly four in ten Brazilians live in cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants; those cities total approximately 94 per cent of the 5,568 Brazilian municipalities (IBGE, 2020a). Life in such towns does not always allow any separation between what happens in the private realm and in public interactions. Political exposure can be frightening for those who do not have the privilege of a voice as a citizen without being punished as a worker. In this article I claim that lessons from small towns, where having a public voice can impact different areas of life, are important to understand the current intimidation in contemporary Brazil. In 2017, Brazil’s labour reforms (Law 13467, passed on 13 July 2017) made work relations steadily more precarious, and self-censorship became gradually more common to keep an employment position. Guaranteed working rights (secured since the 1940s by the CLT – Consolidated Labour Laws) were replaced by flexible terms to be negotiated between employer and employee. Vacation time, parental leave and full working hours are some of the factors that became unstable. When the 2018 presidential political campaign started, mainly taking place on social media, the various voices that took to the stage across diverse internet platforms may have given the deceptive impression that everybody had an equal ability to strongly express and share political views publicly. However, having a public voice can lead to repercussions in working places, both in small towns where everyone knows everybody else, and in larger cities, because social media can make individuals traceable, and their views could be confronted in insecure working spaces. In what follows, I discuss how we can understand silences in a country previously marked by protests and participatory politics, and more recently by a cacophony on social media. The question I bring to the fore here is: when are the instruments of politics of the governed (such as grassroots activism) used? Which conditions are needed for mobilisation? And when may activism disintegrate? In addressing these questions looking at small municipalities in Brazil, I offer an opportunity to shift the prism of urban literature on Brazil, which has so far focused mainly on large metropolises.

Introduction

In the early 2000s, Brazil experienced a period of economic prosperity that was largely financed by the exports of commodities. What is not always clear when looking at numbers from those years (2000–12) is that the economic rise was followed by a growth in grassroots politics. This increase, followed by ‘silence’, is the focus of this chapter. When focusing on grassroots politics, the prism I take is that of residents’ associations, as I detail below.

The combination of economic growth and the empowerment of non-state actors is not always easy to come by in the social sciences literature. In Brazil, urban social movements are largely connected to the growth of urban peripheries. The lack of public service provision in these areas, for example garbage collection, public transportation and street lighting, led residents to mobilise to claim for such deliveries. Being deprived of services and the fear of forced relocation gave traction to significant forms of grassroots resistance (Perry, 2016, p. 98). A grievance agenda is certainly an engine for mobilisation, and Brazilian peripheries were never short of demands. However, poverty is also a form of political oppression (de Souza Santos, 2019a; Goldstein, 2003; Scott, 1985), and it compromises the capacity and duration of mobilisation (Dahlum, Knutsen and Wig, 2019). In other words, while the poor may directly profit from grassroots mobilisation to improve housing and living conditions (Bertorelli et al., 2017), it is also true that this group often benefits from their invisibility and avoidance of confrontations.

The complexity I explore in this chapter refers to the powerful coexistence of a grievance agenda on the one hand (claiming access to transportation, education, health and tenure rights, among other services, that were not offered to the standards people needed during the commodities boom cycle), and on the other hand, an ascending socio-economic curve offering a powerful combination of motivation and capacity for political action (Dahlum, Knutsen and Wig, 2019). After that, I discuss the horizons of grassroots (im)possibilities amid socio-economic decline.

Breaking the silence

One remarkable characteristic of politics in small cities in Brazil,1 as I have discussed at length elsewhere (de Souza Santos, 2019a), is that indignation hardly ever takes the form of direct verbal confrontation when people know each other through a variety of co-dependency ties (Holston, 2008, p. 276). In cities where everyone knows everyone else, and when in times of economic recession, there is a growing reliance on networks to get by, many residents refer to public political participation as false opportunities, when political responsibility is wrapped in economic losses (de Souza Santos, 2019a). Political protests in such contexts can cause short-term loss to participants. To directly confront the state in political action may be costly for those who rely on it for basic public services, particularly where anonymity is not an option and public service can be biased (Eiró, 2019). In addition, to those who rely on informal jobs as well as those who depend on kinship and friendship ties to pay the bills only when ‘things get better’ (de Souza Santos, 2019a, p. 65), breaking interpersonal networks also jeopardises possible economic and emotional favours (Rebhun, 1999). Grassroots participation in these places, for these reasons, has been marked as a neoliberal project that imagined engaged citizens but instead empowers ‘expert citizens’ and not everyday residents (Caldeira and Holston, 2015, p. 11). Participatory politics, an instrument to fight for spatial and social inclusion, is thus not possible without costs.

Looking at political indignation from the perspective of small towns ethnographically is therefore a good opportunity to understand a context that is expanding to larger Brazilian cities. While looking for jobs in a shrinking economy (Marquetti, Hoff and Miebach, 2020), openly expressing political views can disrupt employment opportunities, and social media screening prior to job interviews is a common tool (Ebnet, 2012; Hurrell, Scholarios and Richards, 2017; Trottier, 2016). Whether in small cities, where personal ties are intertwined with employment opportunities and economic favours, or in larger urban spaces, with high online connectivity, to publicly discuss political views can impact on employment. I focus on small towns, already struggling with self-censorship before the most recent economic crisis in Brazil, to discuss political silences at times of economic struggles, as well as the tools to break citizens’ reservations about getting involved in urban activism.

I learned about small Brazilian towns when in 2013, I spent the year living in Ouro Preto, in the state of Minas Gerais, for my doctoral fieldwork. I returned to Ouro Preto in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 and have continuous interactions with my informants and friends in town. During the seven years of continuous interactions in person and online, I have also regularly visited nearby Mariana, as these two cities share a university and residents often commute between the two towns and campuses. Both these cities are similar in the number of residents, in having an extensive territory and a relatively small number of inhabitants, they are cities with a mining-based economy, and they both have an elevated number of students and tourists.

When doing fieldwork in that region of Minas Gerais, I engaged with grassroots politics and examined policy councils, where a combination of civil society (community leaders), government employees and politicians meet to determine or suggest policies in different spheres of government, such as health, public security, housing or education. These spaces are organised by the state and, unsurprisingly – given the politics of avoidance in small towns – state bureaucrats are over-represented (de Souza Santos, 2019a). However, residents who do not participate in those spaces are not politically inactive; they know and engage with the place they inhabit. Understanding why they do not participate in policy meetings even when they have a strong interest to speak up, as well as which other channels may be available to them, was also part of my ethnography.

In this chapter, I will look at community association as a form of grassroots politics. Leaders of community associations do not always have a seat on policy councils. Especially in new housing settlements, the new leadership may not have yet gained a seat; those are limited and usually one leader will represent more than one community. New urban settlements can, however, claim a direct contact to the town hall, as was the case here. In 2013, in Mariana, the general fear of eviction among dwellers of an informal periphery changed into action through community organisation. When actions for change took place, I followed the community in their struggle and organised actions.

Motivation and capacity for political mobilisation

During the commodities boom cycle, Brazil experienced sinking levels of unemployment, but workers, regardless, had a difficult time accessing the costly housing market. Housing prices rose across the country (Paes, Besarria and Silva, 2018) and especially in cities hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup and in locations such as Ouro Preto and Mariana – mining towns, tourist areas and university centres – as all these sectors were in expansion. In such cities, educated and employed families, who would in the past have access to formal housing, moved to informal peripheries. At the same time, long-term inhabitants of the peripheries had greater access to higher education institutions in Brazil (Neves, 2014) and to formal employment (Menezes-Filho and Scorzafave, 2009). Peripheries became a site of ambiguity where socio-economic improvement on a personal level did not necessarily mean better infrastructure.

Mariana is thus an important site to understand grassroots politics following the commodities boom cycle in Brazil. Besides being a mining and university town – two reasons why living there became increasingly expensive in 2013 – the city is also home to preserved areas in the centre – with Baroque architecture from the eighteenth century, so these areas cannot respond to mounting housing demands by adapting the built environment. As mining and university activities expanded, more workers and students moved to the town, real estate prices boomed and families enjoying formal employment (emprego com carteira assinada) could not easily access bank loans for house purchases unless they had a high income. The rental market was equally selective, with students from the expanding university having priority as students rent rooms and not the entire house. Landlords usually prefer students as they can profit more when renting each individual room instead of the full house for a single family. In that context, the peripheries of the city began to house an expanding working class, with some residents of those areas having access to the main university in town. This group of residents faced not only a precarious housing situation but also a shortage of transportation. As peripheries grew, distances increased and public transport or roads did not respond at the same speed. This combination led to the increased politicisation of that space.

Context has also to be considered, and 2013 showed the power of crowds in Brazil. Protests for better transportation prices gained traction in Brazil’s streets in 2013. The June protests, as they became known, showed the impact of an urban population who, to access work, education and leisure, would spend up to ‘five hours a day and 30 percent of their income on crowded buses and trains’ to navigate across the city (Erber, 2019, p. 39). Transportation shows the difficult pathway, quite literally, towards a better life (Purdy, 2019). It was also a political promise: hosting the expensive games was explained in terms of a transportation legacy to be delivered after the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympic Games (Pereira, 2018). When it became clear that investments did not resonate with people’s everyday needs and, if anything, it was mainly access to sports venues that was improving, people took to the streets to protest against the increasing price and deteriorating quality of transportation (Hunter and Power, 2019).

The fight for inclusion did not happen around transportation only. Consumption, especially of brand-name clothes, is also a way to fit in. The strolling activists of January 2014 (rolezinnhos) deserve attention as a movement that fought marginalisation in Brazil’s periphery through the ascent of the individual’s image, e.g. by wearing more expensive clothes and purchasing luxurious brands (Pinheiro-Machado and Scalco, 2014). Residents from impoverished areas organised visits to exclusive malls, but ended up in police stations and newspaper headlines. Strolling around shopping malls in 2014 was not a deliberate political action. When young, mostly dark-skinned boys and girls from Brazil’s peripheries mobilised through social media to gather in some of the most upscale malls in their cities, they did not do so to vandalise symbols of the commodification of leisure, but occupying political spaces had impact. The movement showed the ambiguity of an urban periphery that aspires to become and mimic (what they think are) styles of dress among the upper class (Erber, 2019; Pinheiro-Machado and Scalco, 2014). This urban periphery was racially distant from the upper class and, despite mimicking the dress code, they were easily recognised by private guards in malls. Malls shut down because of the presence in large numbers of poor young people.

The power of the crowds to improve public transportation collectively or to gain inclusion through consumption on an individual level did indeed play a part in the economic and political turning point of 2013–14 in larger cities (Erber, 2019). Small towns, though without malls and with limited access to and support for the June protests (de Souza Santos, 2019a, pp. 62–4), also fought for inclusion, especially for better public services and tenure rights. And their fight, as we have seen above, did not happen in a social vacuum.

The dreams of inclusion, from better clothes to better transportation and housing tenure, reveal more than generational differences; they show the particularities of cities and the spaces they offer for protest. The June protests in Ouro Preto and Mariana, for example, were far from unanimous; they mainly mobilised students, who have privileged access to housing as described above. Different from mass protests and rolezinhos, those on the urban periphery in Mariana protested in their own neighbourhoods rather than the city centre, and the aesthetics of inclusion for them were not on an individual level – instead the demand was a city that ‘looks right’.

Alto do Rosário

For those who live in Mariana, a system of acquaintances shapes both the formal and informal economy. People rely on friends for shopping, house construction and job seeking. In the supermarket, for example, residents may have a tab for shopping, instead of a credit card, to allow them to pay later. The poor do not always have access to credit, and having friends means having credit. However, not only those with low incomes benefit from connections. As this is a touristic city, those working as tour guides or in restaurants, shops and hotels (and even other business as owners) have a strong seasonal variation in income. To cope with income fluctuations and avoid high overdraft fees (cheque especial), having a tab in the supermarket is convenient. To make local enemies may thus compromise not only future employment but also economic favours across the city. There is also a domino effect in small cities, where the actions of family members, friends and neighbours reflect badly on those around them. Even for those in formal jobs, such as in public service, there is a risk of ‘going into the freezer’ when politically expressing views that may not be aligned with those in power. Going into the freezer (ir pra geladeira) means to be removed from core activities, to be precluded from taking meaningful decisions, to be excluded from management; it means to upset the hegemonic narratives of those in power.

For the above reasons, a common saying in the region is: Manda quem pode, obedece quem tem juízo, ‘Those who command do so because they can, those who obey do so because they are sensible’ (de Souza Santos, 2019a). This saying represents the need to avoid direct confrontation to escape political persecution, economic isolation or interference in kinship and friendship ties – often one’s source of economic survival. More than that, this saying epitomises asymmetrical power relations that prescribe social positions as well as political capital (Scott, 1985).

For example, to avoid fines or eviction when living in informal settlements, residents often remain quiet, rather than protesting for services, to avoid calling attention to the irregularity of their settlements. Quietly squatting is one example of getting by in cities with great housing deficits and avoiding confrontations. If invisibility in informal house building can be an important resource for guaranteeing a roof, how do residents go from there to grassroots housing movements?

Alto do Rosário offers the answer. This neighbourhood starts where public transport, garbage collection, electricity, sewage and asphalt end (Figure 6.1). One needs to access the area by foot because for vehicles the uneven, labyrinthine and unnamed alleys offer great obstacles. The uneven streets in Alto do Rosário follow the course of the houses, rather than the other way around. Houses are, however, built to remain. No constructions are temporary: they are made of bricks and concrete. Like in other areas of Brazil, housing settlements start in chaotic ways, with small improvements usually made by residents, until the area – looking somehow ‘right’ – becomes legal and people receive tenure rights, or house papers, as they are known.

Figure 6.1 Alto do Rosário, in Mariana, Brazil. Source: Author’s own collection.

In Alto do Rosário, the demand for provision of public services was always counter-balanced by fear of relocation. When in 2013 two UFOP (Federal University of Ouro Preto, which has a campus in Mariana) graduates decided to form a community association, they changed fear into action.

For Bianca and Camila (I have altered their names to respect their privacy), a community association would allow for urban transformations. With access to higher education, Bianca was a social services student and Camila a history graduate, and as migrants from larger cities in Brazil to Mariana, they both believed in the power of crowds. To them, local fear was an obstacle to be overcome by trust. Trust, in turn, would be achieved by grassroots ownership of the upgrading process.

Their plan was to prepare a local survey to show the prefecture what life in Alto do Rosário was like: how many people lived there, income patterns among residents (to prove people could pay taxes if they became legal) and safety patterns (poor places are often imagined as violent in Brazil (Holston, 2008, p. 281) which harms house tenure). They designed the questionnaire with the help of UFOP professors in a joint effort by the statistics, social services and architecture faculties. Students visited the area to conduct the survey; a resident always accompanied the student to avoid the fear typical of informal areas: that such questions could be followed by eviction (Figure 6.2).

The questionnaire

Students and residents collected data from more than 300 families (each representing one household). Questions addressed gender, age, civil status, education, religion, income, migration patterns, time living in the neighbourhood, reasons for choosing that location, occupation and perceptions about the housing and living area.2 The results showed that most residents migrated to the neighbourhood during Brazil’s commodities boom cycle, especially to work in the then-prospering mining sector. Accessing the housing market, however, became unattainable even to families who had more than one person in full-time employment. The questionnaire also exposed the fact that despite the lack of public services, residents had invested in house construction and improvements were constantly being made by homeowners (the neighbourhood did not have a significant number of tenants), believing tenure rights would follow. The large number of properties and the lack of council tax, electricity and water bills – among others – collected, as well as perceptions of safety in the area, became a great tool to press for public services.

Figure 6.2 Questionnaire interviews in Alto do Rosário. Source: Author’s own collection.

With those results in mind, the community leaders started a conversation with the prefecture, and infrastructure in Alto do Rosário gained momentum. Politically, infrastructure is appealing, as for each service provided, there is room for political publicity. As shown in Figure 6.3, the process of urban development in Alto do Rosário was featured in political ads.

Figure 6.3 Political ads promoting infrastructure improvements. Source: Author’s own collection.

Nonetheless, despite the successful mobilisation and the subsequent service delivery, the pace of the transformations as well as the negotiation over the future of the area showed that grassroots mobilisation is no guarantee to having ownership of the upgrading process.

Infrastructure timing

When infrastructure provision started, oddly, the community association lost strength. With the introduction of asphalt, one of the most highly anticipated provisions, some residents sold their houses (which gained value), and most stopped pressing for housing regulation. The importance of transportation is discussed above, and centrifugal growth in cities puts pressure on roads and public transport, as the 2013 protests showed. Other authors have also scrutinised infrastructure and transportation policies in Brazil, focusing on hurried interventions prior to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games (Genasci, 2012) and the legacies of those events (Pereira, 2018); underperformance and corruption (Armijo and Rhodes, 2017); the Growth Acceleration Programme implemented under the Workers’ Party (PT) governments (Mourougane and Pisu, 2011); and transportation costs, which are considered a bottleneck in Brazil’s development (Quadros and Nassi, 2015). I add to this literature by analysing the material of roads, and asphalt is a key category of analysis. Because it can speed up transportation as well as reducing the amount of dust that the poor carry in their shoes – a reason for stigmatisation in Brazil, as I have mentioned elsewhere (de Souza Santos, 2019a) – asphalt is politically appealing (Borges, 2003, p. 121). While asphalt is well liked by those providing infrastructure services, there is a lack of discussion about the potential destruction the material generates in community activism. Camila explained her apprehension to me by saying that if asphalt were implemented too early, the community would settle for just that and stop pressing the government for further improvements; they could move out or demobilise, and tenure rights might never follow.

The order in which public services are put in place matters, but the community association was far from being in charge of this. The government laid down asphalt, and some of the apprehensions mentioned above became a reality: other, less visible services, such as sewage and housing papers, lingered unresolved.

Another controversy was related to the university. An important actor in the negotiation between the community and the government, the university arrived before services were put in place. However, when the government began to implement public services, the partnership between these actors weakened. Researchers wanted to design a city plan with open areas and green spaces, but the government prioritised a different list of improvements, valuing first and foremost visual and impactful improvements such as asphalt; for the community leaders, tenure rights were the most important. In addition, students, who received course credits and a small bursary to work in the neighbourhood as part of their university course, stopped activities when the semester ended. Despite this departure from the university, community leaders remained committed to the delivery of infrastructure and housing papers, but their work in the community association encountered a growing number of challenges.

Community leadership

The two leaders from the community association were women, Black and mixed-race, mothers and migrants. Poverty in Brazil is Black (Perry, 2016, p. 99). Poor and dark-skinned women are particularly at risk from the perils of the city. Accumulating caring and earning demands, women lack a steady routine and for that reason are more susceptible to inefficient public transportation (Chant, 2013; McIlwaine, 2013). Such inefficiency in public transportation impacts on childcare, work and personal security. Nursery provision and public lighting equally impact on women’s routines greatly, and fear of crime impacts on access and use of transportation (Koskela and Pain, 2000; Heinrichs and Bernet, 2014). If class cannot be ignored in grassroots politics, as it affects motivation and the capacity for mobilisation, gender should also be a focus of analysis, as the dynamics of women in towns are different from those of men, with women often mediating family interests in the community, or, in other words, the fluid borders between public and private spaces (Perry, 2016).

The fact that dark-skinned women are often in a privileged position to be aware of the problems of their community and know the families inhabiting the area, and may lead community associations, does not, however, mean they will be recognised when in positions of power (Perry, 2016). The two community leaders faced challenges to their posts which included ‘jokes’ about the lack of time they spent at home, thus implying their relationships with their partners were not going well. They were also tested as migrants; their accent not only signified the reason why they would take the leadership – coming from larger towns, they would not be subdued by the manda quem pode – but also caused estrangement, and trust had to be constantly negotiated.

When the first outcomes of the community initiative took place, the leaders used the local school to announce results. The upgrades to the community, however, were publicised by white male faculty members from the university, and not by the leaders themselves. Black women’s mobilisation in Alto do Rosário, as well as in Salvador and other places in Brazil, brings to the fore

limited images of Black women . . . although people accustomed to seeing them occupy the support bases of social movements – those masses who participate in community assemblies and street protests – they are not envisioned as leaders. And yet the political organisation of Black urban neighbourhoods has depended largely on the leadership and mass participation of women, who use their local wisdom and social networks within their communities to galvanize political support when their homes and lands are under siege (Perry, 2016, p. 14).

However, not only the outcomes but also the process matters. Political literacy and a change in the landscape from silence into action in that urban periphery were the immediate results of this community activism. This activism allows us to learn from Mariana and understand the subsequent years in Brazilian politics, from 2013 to 2018.

Learning from small cities

Despite the large number of small and medium towns in Brazil (94 per cent of municipalities have under 100,000 inhabitants), the vast majority of the political economy literature on Brazil focuses on state capitals or metropolitan areas. The no more than 16 municipalities and the Federal District that have more than a million inhabitants occupy most urban and political scholarship, despite representing an urban reality of far less than 1 per cent of Brazil’s municipalities. This paper argues that small cities are territorially, demographically and politically meaningful. There is much to be learned from these cities for the rest of the country. The system of networks that shapes both the formal and informal economy makes it difficult for citizens to speak out publicly, as this might create disruptions in their work life. Citizens in positions of privilege may alone hold the ability to strongly express and share their political views in public, dominating and shaping the political discourse. This situation has expanded to state capitals in Brazil.

Especially following 2014 and 2016, when Brazil’s economy experienced negative growth (IBGE, 2020b), unemployment and informality have been on the rise. This context leads individuals to a situation of political vulnerability, which was visible during the presidential political campaign in 2018. Even though that campaign was widely spread on social media and Brazilians were to a large extent using their virtual space to declare their political views, the space was not egalitarian. Social media was frightening for those who did not have the privilege of a voice as a citizen without the risk of being identified as a sister, parent, employee or partner. Despite the illusion of anonymity and privacy that fosters expression, previously kept in private, to gain public viewers, the illusion is short-lived. As much as the internet has challenged hegemonic narratives, and in peripheral areas of Brazil demands have been politicised and broadcasted online (Levy, 2018), ‘the poor majority are outside of formal mechanisms of rights and claims-making’ (Baiocchi and Corrado, 2010). Survival strategies leading to silence, as well as the impenetrability of the political world (laws, institutions and a bureaucratic language), make political participation often unattainable (Baiocchi and Corrado, 2010). White, male and upper-class Brazilians, not by chance, but by virtue of their position, launched themselves headstrong into social media campaigns during the years of economic crisis in Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro, now Brazil’s president, who attracted most of these voters, had a phenomenally successful social media campaign.

During the twilight of Dilma’s impeachment, some public servants were ‘sent into the fridge’, some asked to change positions, while others, perhaps, built new – still to be examined – activism strategies (Abers, 2019, p. 39). A famous case in the early days of the Bolsonaro administration which marked a new moment when doing one’s job may lead to being dismissed was the sacking of Ricardo Galvão, head of the National Institute for Research on the Amazon, after he released an annual report. The data in the report showed an increase in deforestation, and instead of diminishing deforestation, the idea was to diminish comments on it by sacking Galvão (Phillips, 2019). To avoid a similar fate, when Brazilian diplomats wanted to criticise the then Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo and President Bolsonaro’s view on Brazil’s military dictatorship, they wrote an anonymous letter (Folha de São Paulo, 2019). Inhabitants of large cities such as scientists and diplomats, who retain economic, cultural and, for those reasons, also political capital (Cornwall and Shankland, 2013), have started using anonymous confrontation as a form of resistance. This form of defiance, however, has long been typical in small towns. Long-term non-confrontational resistance – such as quietly squatting – shows some of the benefits of silence, before opportunities for direct confrontation emerge.

What this chapter shows is that economic affluence can increase political exposure (Mangonnet and Murillo, 2019). When James Scott (1985) famously wrote on peasant resistance, direct verbal engagement was not among their weapons. Student and labour movements (Dahlum, Knutsen and Wig, 2019) on the other hand, are famous for their capacity to mobilise and sustain mobilisation. In Minas Gerais, economic dependency and political silence are often summarised in the saying: ‘those who command do so because they can, those who obey do so because they are sensible’ (de Souza Santos, 2019a). Publicly voicing interests, such as demanding better public services in informal urban settlements, is balanced against fear of eviction.

What do residents do when they lack economic affluence and political capital to protest in the face of political injustice? This question should be answered on a case-by-case basis; economic growth, employment stability, gender, race and urban demography matter if we want to understand how indignation is expressed and why it is at times ‘swallowed’. Residents in Alto do Rosário, though negatively affected by the commodities boom cycle in housing prices, had employment and study opportunities associated with the mining and university expansion in town; they did not have to engolir sapo, which literally means ‘to swallow a frog’ (Rebhun, 1994), or suppress their anger about poor services in their neighbourhood. With leadership and guidance from the two community leaders and the university, they pressed for improvements. This situation is different from what I have described elsewhere (de Souza Santos, 2019b).

In Ouro Preto’s Miguel Burnier, a mining community that faced economic and social decline during the 2000–12 commodity cycle, the community did not freely speak up for their needs. Afraid of housing removal and trying to gain a job at the one company in town, those residents remained apprehensive when they had an opportunity to negotiate infrastructure improvements. The capacity to mobilise is important, as much as it is complex to assess. The economically and intellectually emerging group of residents in Mariana, under the leadership of two migrant women (coming from larger cities and as such unused to the feeling of censorship that comes with life in small towns), organised the community’s agenda for urban improvements and achieved infrastructure service provision. The community association did not gain ownership of improvements and they did not set a timeline or sequence for improvements. This analysis, therefore, moves from economic affluence towards gender and race in grassroots leadership.

While recent scholarship with a focus on Latin America has shown the importance of prosperity and membership homogeneity in grassroots politics (Mangonnet and Murillo, 2019), a focus on race and gender shows the limits to capitalising on grassroots activism outcomes. In Alto do Rosário, the leaders, dark-skinned women, were not associated with positions of power (Perry, 2016); they renounced the important opportunity to announce the gains of their mandate to the community. Others announced the results for them. Male university faculty took to the stage and explained to the community the results of the community survey as well as the first upgrades made by the prefecture. They spoke the language of statistics and politics, with the credibility that comes with their race and position; there were no questions as to their place on the stage. In addition, when negotiating with the prefecture, community leaders’ schedule for improvements was not followed. Service provision happened, but not at the pace that the association had in mind, which would favour the implementation of less visible services first and not those with more political weight, such as laying down asphalt.

If economic affluence, gender and racial equality matter when it comes to increasing grassroots participation, it is fair to say that we are in a descending curve to achieving greater social mobilisation in Brazil. In early 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic, some economic numbers had shown signs of improvement (IBGE, 2020b), but the expression of numbers did not account for the experience on the ground: growing informality, inequality and poverty. With Brazil being one of the most severely affected countries by the Covid-19 pandemic, poverty and job insecurity have further increased. In addition, gender and racial politics are not at the top of Bolsonaro’s agenda, to put it mildly.

Conclusion

The cycle of prosperity was not equally experienced across Brazil, and locations where commodities were produced were often places of contestation. Mining areas were impacted by environmental disaster and extraction techniques were not as labour intensive as before and profitable industries are not to be confused with direct jobs and better life quality (de Souza Santos, 2019b). Even in locations that were directly prospering during the commodity cycle years, such as Mariana, a grievance agenda was still present, focusing on access to affordable housing, better infrastructure, access to health centres and better transportation. However, motivation alone does not explain grassroots mobilisation, especially in small towns where people often retreat from public confrontations (manda quem pode); however, in a scenario of prosperity and with the leadership of migrant individuals and nodal actors such as the local university, fear gave way to action and Alto do Rosário mobilised. The role of the university, however, was a double-edged sword. Although key in the early stages of data collection, students as well as professors had a timeline set by the university calendar, and some of their involvement could not extend outside term-time. In addition, professors have credibility in the public eye. They used this to present data to the community, which, unintentionally as it might have been, weakened community leaders. Communitarian gains were thereafter limited.

The case of Alto do Rosário is important in discussions of grassroots mobilisation in Brazil in general. When prosperity declines – as it did in Brazil recently – and inequality and poverty levels increase, it is expected that the grievance agenda upsurges. More people depending on public services amid less tax spending on such provisions can only lead to turmoil. And yet, protests in 2015–16 (years of intense economic decline) were nothing like those experienced in 2013. What Alto do Rosário exemplifies, adding to the existing literature, is that to understand political mobilisation it is necessary to bear in mind the costs of protesting (de Souza Santos, 2019a; Mangonnet and Murillo, 2019), because the price of activism can be socially and economically high for vulnerable participants. For that reason, social movements often encourage taking leadership turns to avoid singling out a few individuals as ‘trouble-makers’, and as such, having them punished (de Souza Santos, 2019b; Escoffier, 2018). This chapter seeks to add to the literature on grassroots movements by bringing in other caveats, such as urban demographics, gender and race as important co-variables.

This study also points to the importance of addressing development policies through a temporal prism (Raco, Henderson and Bowlby, 2008). In Alto do Rosário, the implementation of asphalt led to a shortage in community support; asphalt should have followed, not preceded, house regulation.

Looking at political indignation through economic, political, temporal, racial and gender lenses (and their intersectionality, rejecting the separation of these prisms) allows a discussion of the living situation of those who verbally manifest their indignation and of those who do not. We may indeed need to get used to studying silences in the Brazilian grassroots scene. Not only is economic dependency a great form of oppression, but the Brazilian army and police are also scarcely known for their listening skills – and their representation in the corridors of power is in the ascendant.

References

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