by James Holston, 2007
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.
Reviews:
"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."--J.M. Rosenthal, Choice
"Insurgent Citizenship will provoke vigorous debate.
But Holston has set the terms for such debate with force and intelligence, and
his book will surely be an enduring touchstone for scholars of law, social
movements, and urban development."--Brodwyn Fischer, American
Anthropologist
Endorsements:
"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
