MACMILLAN Blackness and Social Mobility in Brazil: Contemporary Transformations

This book examines the emergence of the black middle classes in urban Brazil, after 30 years of black mobilization and against the backdrop of deep economic, cultural, and political transformations taking place in recent decades within the country. One of the consequences of such transformations is said to be the restructuring of gender, race, and class relations. Utilizing qualitative research techniques such as ethnography, interviews, life histories, and focus groups among Afro-descendant families in the Northeast region of the country, the book explores contemporary race, class, and gender inequalities and their impact on daily lived experience. It reveals the dynamics underlying upward mobility, the diverse modes and experiences of social ascent into the middle classes, and the everyday negotiations involved in establishing one's status in the socio-racial hierarchy, which are not captured by other, more "macro" lenses. While some of these patterns are not peculiar to black people, this book argues that "race" shaped the contours and possibilities of social mobility in particular ways. This book is critical reading for specialists in the fields of inequality and race, class, and gender relations. Review “The book is an exceptional piece of theoretical and empirical work, which will strongly contribute to the investigations of how class and race shape individuals’ lives and experiences on a daily basis. The author creatively employs several techniques and methods of data collection and analysis providing robust empirical evidence to ground her arguments. It is also noteworthy that the book is very well structured and organized: the first chapters lay the theoretical groundwork, and the next chapters addresses different aspects of class and racial relations and how they impact on and are acted upon by individuals. Field experience provided the author with the data and ‘sensibility’ to introduce certain nuances which were not captured through ‘macro’ lenses. It is also praiseworthy that the author kept some native terms in the original language, so that the reader – especially those acquainted with Portuguese- may grasp the meaning of the word more faithfully.” --Edison Bertoncelo, Professor of Sociology, University of Sao Paulo From the Back Cover This book examines the emergence of the black middle classes in urban Brazil, after 30 years of black mobilization and against the backdrop of deep economic, cultural, and political transformations taking place in recent decades within the country. One of the consequences of such transformations is said to be the restructuring of gender, race, and class relations. Utilizing qualitative research techniques such as ethnography, interviews, life histories, and focus groups among Afro-descendant families in the Northeast region of the country, the book explores contemporary race, class, and gender inequalities and their impact on daily lived experience. It reveals the dynamics underlying upward mobility, the diverse modes and experiences of social ascent into the middle classes, and the everyday negotiations involved in establishing one's status in the socio-racial hierarchy, which are not captured by other, more "macro" lenses. While some of these patterns are not peculiar to black people, this book argues that "race" shaped the contours and possibilities of social mobility in particular ways. This book is critical reading for specialists in the fields of inequality and race, class, and gender relations. Doreen Joy Gordon is a Lecturer in Anthropology in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Dr. Gordon's research interests focus on race and other social inequalities, postcolonialism, decolonization, family/kinship, religion and aesthetics, and social justice issues in Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean. About the Author Doreen Joy Gordon is a Lecturer in Anthropo