Risk Society, new shapes of violence and citizenship dilemmas: a comparison between Brazil and the United States

Abstract

The notion that new types of violence arise in the post-Fordist period and that they are associated to citizenship ruptures and to decreased centrality of work in social life is fundamental for this work. Such reflection include two concepts that provide a theoretical basis for this work, which are: the new violence paradigm (WIEVIORKA, 2009, 2013) and diffuse violence (TAVARES DOS SANTOS, 2004). The subjects chosen for analysis are forms of violence that emerge from the impossibility of living with "others", including the ones against minorities such as homosexuals, black people, homeless people, and also the ones related to the inability to deal with different opinions, behaviors, and lifestyles. More specifically, this framework includes hate crimes, rampage shootings, as well as violence motivated by unwise everyday misunderstandings, which has increased in Brazil in the last decade. The main goal of this work is to understand how the forms of violence addressed here are included in the new paradigm of violence, which is deeply explained by the difficulty of acting politically in face of the material and ideological changes promoted by flexible capitalism. The more specific objective is to highlight, in Brazil and the United States, in which ways the respective national processes of citizenship construction help understanding the existent impasses in regard of the effectuation of a dimension of freedom rooted in the premises of self-government and democratic political actions. This second dimension of the research is part of the comparative study that has been defined, which will be completed by the analysis of data on the types of violence and the correlation to be held between the models of citizenship and the types of this social phenomenon. The purpose of the research internship abroad is the deepening of the study propounded in the United States, especially in regard of the nuances and ambiguities of American citizenship, and the details of hate violence spread in this country. (AU)