Page 372 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

9781412934633-Chap-23 1/10/09 8:55 AM Page 343

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN BRAZIL 343

their social composition and draw on a wide Even though most of the lower socio-
variety of ideological conceptions. economic classes in Brazil are made up of
black or ‘mulatto’ (brown) people, there are
few lower class Afro-Brazilian organizations.
Pluralistic social movements: some More common are NGOs of the middle-class
Afro-Brazilians which operate independently
characteristics
on broader political issues such as poverty
The movements with an identity centred on and focus their interest on the question of
ethnic and racial factors, such as the Afro- racial discrimination.
Brazilian movement and the indigenous move- Among movements characterized by the
ment have survived and are gaining strength at age of the members, we can distinguish
the beginning of this millennium. The indige- a movement of those who are younger, a
nous movements made important institutional movement of senior citizens and the ‘defence
conquests in the 1988 Constitution, among of children’ movement. Youth is predominant
them the demarcation of their lands and in the youth movements, both in the students’
instruction in their own language. However, movements (concentrated in the state univer-
their situation is precarious. Recently, with sities) and in the popular youth movements.
support from international NGOs, they have Youth’s cultural manifestations are expressed
begun to sell their products in globalized through music (hip-hop, rap and other musi-
rather than alternative markets, at fair and cal styles). The modern anarchist movement
competitive prices. In 2006, at the time of the is on the rise among the young middle-class
second ‘Environmental Institute’ there were Brazilians. Movements in defence of street
225 groups of Indian peoples (approximately children and others of senior citizens (con-
600,000 persons) living on Brazilian territory. centrated in the middle classes) complete the
They occupy 1.08 million square kilometres gamut of the generations’ movements.
(12.74% of the national territory). Gender movements include women’s and
The Afro-Brazilian movement struggles homosexuals’ movements. Some women’s
against racial prejudice. Recently the federal organizations act more like NGOs than like
government approved quotas for university social movements, and the majority of their
entrance and passed a federal law, the ‘Race activists are from the middle class. The pro-
Equality Statute’ (2006). The movement is grams of these movements have focused on
also struggling for ownership of the land women’s health, breast-feeding campaigns
already occupied by Afro people. One stream, and so on. Gay and lesbian movements have
for example, is the ‘Quilombola Movement’. grown in Brazil over the last decade. Since
This name comes from ‘Quilombo’, a word 1996 the ‘Gay Parade’ has taken place annu-
that has origins in the Bantu language and is ally in São Paulo, with a steadily increasing
close in meaning to words, such as habita- number of participants. Two million people
tion, camp, forest and warrior. In Brazil, in participated in 2005 and 2,300,000 in 2006.
the nineteenth century, the ‘Quilombo’ was a Before ECO 92, interest in the environ-
territory occupied by fugitive slaves from mental question was very much restricted to
farms. Nowadays, contemporary ‘quilom- the middle classes, but afterwards, it became
bos’ in Brazil are constituted as the a concern of the popular neighbourhood
‘Quilombola’ community. In 2006, there movements. This constituted a great qualita-
were 2,842 ‘Quilombola’ communities rec- tive leap because in the popular demands and
ognized by the federal government. calls of the 1970s and 1980s, the environ-
A total of 69,649,861 Brazilians were clas- mental issue was played down in centres
sified as black and brown by the Brazilian such as São Paulo. In Brasilia there are many
Institute of Geography and Statistics in 2000, offices of international organizations of ecol-
making up 47% of the national population. ogists that fight for the preservation of forests