Brazilian Studies Programme Annual Conference: Is Brazil Back? Assessing the Politics and Challenges of Brazil's Unfolding Reconstruction
Reconstrução
is an omnipresent term in Brazil’s current political and policy debates. Not only the term was at the core of the 2022 presidential campaign but also ‘building back’ Brazilian democracy, institutions, public policies, and the very national social tissue, also became a major task for the Workers’ Party (PT)-led coalition government in power since in January 2023. More than a political slogan for the new federal government, reconstruction as a political, policy, and social agenda must be situated against the backdrop of a decade of political-economic instability coupled with the rise of the far-right to the centre of Brazil’s national political life.
The 2024 BSP Annual Conference takes on the challenge to look at Brazil’s unfolding reconstruction as a multifaceted social-political process and critically assess the discourses that constitute its aspired goals as well as its unfolding practices. Through a series of expert panels, this one-day conference explores what reconstruction looks like in different thematic and issue areas, ranging from the economy and social policies to foreign policy, and the expansion of conservative political forces and thinking in Congress and society. Rather than conceiving ongoing reconstruction efforts as a pathway to a normalisation of Brazil and Brazilian politics (or a return to patterns from a recent past), the Conference explores the contours of a new and still extremely volatile normal for Brazil, shaped by growing levels of political polarisation and instability at home and abroad.
Please register here to attend.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Dr Laura Trajber Waisbich
laura.trajberwaisbich@lac.ox.ac.uk
PROGRAMME
Venue: Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College
10-10.20am: Opening
Prof David Doyle (Director of the Latin American Centre, University of Oxford)
Dr Laura Trajber Waisbich (Director of the Brazilian Studies Programme, University of Oxford)
10.20am-12pm: Panel 1 – The ‘building back’ agenda: Assessing the macro-challenges
Chair: Dr Felipe Krause (University of Oxford)
Prof Tim Power (University of Oxford)
Prof Mahrukh Doctor (University of Hull)
Dr Suely Araújo (Instituto Brasileiro de Ensino, Desenvolvimento e Pesquisa - IDP/Brazil)
12-1pm: Lunch break
1-2.40pm: Panel 2 – Bringing the state back? Forging new social-economic development paradigms
Chair: Dr Filipe Recch (University of Oxford)
Prof Kathy Hochstetler (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Prof Graham Denyer Willis (University of Cambridge)
Dr Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos (King’s College London)
2.40-3pm: Coffee break
3pm-4.40pm: Panel 3 – Political polarisation, new authoritarianisms and far-right politics
Chair: Dr Mariana Borges (University of Southampton)
Prof Anna Petherick (University of Oxford)
Dr Victor Araújo (University of Reading)
Dr Henrique Tavares Furtado (UWE Bristol)
5-6.30pm: Panel 4 – Back to the world stage? Rethinking Brazilian foreign policy in an uncertain world
* Please note this panel will take place at the China Centre Lecture Theatre (St Hugh’s College)
Chair: Dr Laura Trajber Waisbich (University of Oxford)
Keynote speaker: Ambassador Antonio Patriota, Brazil’s former Foreign Minister and current Ambassador to the UK
Expert discussants:
Prof Alvaro Mendez (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Dr Marco Vieira (University of Birmingham)
6.30-7pm: Networking drinks
