Constellations of inequality : space, race, and utopia in Brazil / Sean T. Mitchell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mitchell, Sean T., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Centro de Lançamento de Alcântara.

Quilombos--Brazil--Alcântara--Government relations.

Quilombos.

Economic development projects--Political aspects--Brazil--Alcântara.

Economic development projects.

Launch complexes (Astronautics)--Brazil--Alcântara.

Launch complexes (Astronautics).

Equality.

Black people--Land tenure.

Black people.

Economic development projects--Political aspects.

Alcântara (Brazil)--Race relations.

Alcântara (Brazil).

Alcântara (Brazil)--Social conditions.

Black people--Land tenure--Brazil--Alcântara.

Equality--Brazil--Alcântara.

Brazil--Alcântara.

Physical Description:

xiii, 255 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Summary:

In 1982, the Brazilian air force arrived on the Alcântara peninsula to build a state-of-the-art satellite launch facility. They displaced some 1,500 Afro-Brazilians from coastal land to inadequate inland villages, leaving many more threatened with displacement. Completed in 1990, this vast undertaking in one of Brazil's poorest regions has provoked decades of conflict and controversy. Constellations of Inequality tells this story of technological aspiration and the stark dynamics of inequality it laid bare. Sean T. Mitchell analyzes conflicts over land, ethnoracial identity, mobilization among descendants of escaped slaves, military-civilian competition in the launch program, and international intrigue. Throughout, he illuminates Brazil's changing politics of inequality and examines how such inequality is made, reproduced, and challenged. How people conceptualize and act on the unequal conditions in which they find themselves, he shows, is as much a cultural and historical matter as a material one. Deftly broadening our understanding of race, technology, development, and political consciousness on local, national, and global levels, Constellations of Inequality paints a portrait of contemporary Brazil that will interest a broad spectrum of readers. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: relaunching Alcântara

Mimetic convergence and complementary hierarchy

Alcântara in space and time

Interpreting an explosion

Expertise and inequality

Racialization and race-based law

The making of race and class

Space at the edge of the Amazon

Conclusion: space and utopia.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226499260

022649926X

9780226499123

022649912X

OCLC:

975858696