Jessé Souza - Böcker

Inequality is one of the most discussed topics of our times. Yet, we still do not know how to tackle the issue effectively. The book argues that this is due to the lack of understanding the structures responsible for the persistence of social inequality. It enquires into the mechanisms that produce and reproduce invisible dividing lines in society. Based on original case studies of Brazil, Germany, India and Laos comprising thousands of interviews, the authors argue that invisible classes emerge in capitalist societies, both reproducing and transforming precapitalist hierarchies. At the same time, locally particular forms of inequality persist. Social inequality in the contemporary world has to be understood as a specific combination of precapitalist inequalities, capitalist transformation and a particular class structure, which seems to emerge in all capitalist societies. The book links the configurations to an interpretation of global domination as well as to symbolic classification.

Imagining Brazil provides a comprehensive and multifaceted picture of Brazil in the age of globalization. Privileging diversity in relation to the authors as well as the manner in which Brazil is perceived, Jessé Souza and Valter Sinder have assembled historians, political scientists, sociologists, literary critics, and scholars of culture in an attempt to understand a complex society in all its richness and diversity. Rising from one of the world’s poorest societies in the 1930s to the eighth largest world economy in the 1980s, Brazil is used as an example of globalization’s impact on peripheral societies, exploring in new contexts the serious social problems that have always characterized this society. Imagining Brazil explores the connections between society and politics and culture and literature, creating an encompassing volume of interest to scholars of Latin American studies as well as those interested in how globalization impacts the varied aspects of a country.

Inequality is one of the most discussed topics of our times. Yet, we still do not know how to tackle the issue effectively. The book argues that this is due to the lack of understanding the structures responsible for the persistence of social inequality. It enquires into the mechanisms that produce and reproduce invisible dividing lines in society. Based on original case studies of Brazil, Germany, India and Laos comprising thousands of interviews, the authors argue that invisible classes emerge in capitalist societies, both reproducing and transforming precapitalist hierarchies. At the same time, locally particular forms of inequality persist. Social inequality in the contemporary world has to be understood as a specific combination of precapitalist inequalities, capitalist transformation and a particular class structure, which seems to emerge in all capitalist societies. The book links the configurations to an interpretation of global domination as well as to symbolic classification.

Die vorliegende Studie von Jessé Souza, ursprünglich als Habilitationsschrift für die Universität Flensburg geschrieben, stellt den anspruchsvollen Versuch dar, die Idee der peripheren Ungleichheit zu kritisieren, indem sie als Bestandteil des klassischen, längst überfälligen Modernisierungsparadigmas präsentiert wird. Nach dem klassischem Erklärungsschema werden periphere Gesellschaften, also solche, die sich am Rande der kapitalistischen Kernländer des Westens befinden, als Entwicklungsstufen auf einem Modernisierungspfad verstanden, der in die einzige Richtung eines institutionellen Komplexes von kapitalistischer Mar- wirtschaft und verfassungsrechtlich garantierter Demokratie und Gleichheit weist. Gegen dieses Erklärungsmodell möchte Herr Souza nun aber nicht nur das inzwischen bereits hinlänglich ausgearbeitete Alternativmodell einer multiplen Moderne in Stellung bringen, vielmehr setzt er sich zum Ziel, ein solches Alt- nativmodell weit über den bisherigen Stand hinaus gesellschaftstheoretisch a- zuformulieren, indem er sich zugleich des Mittels der moralischen Hermeneutik Charles Taylors und der Konzeption unterschiedlicher Kapitalsorten von Pierre Bourdieu bedient. Auf diese Weise entsteht im Zuge der Arbeit eine komplexe, höchst originelle, wenn auch vielleicht noch nicht in allen Aspekten durchdachte Theorie multipler Entwicklungspfade der Moderne, in der sich je nach lokaler Ausgangslage und kultureller Tradition die grundlegenden Prinzipien der Arbeit und Authentizität auf der einen Seite, der Gleichheit und Ungleichheit auf der anderen Seite auf je spezifische, einzigartige Weise mischen.