An innovative reading of the social history of Brazil using the "politics of the precariat" as an analytical vector.

Ruy Braga, Ph.D. (2002), University of Campinas, is professor in the Sociology Department at the University of São Paulo. He has published many books and articles on Brazil, including Hegemonia às avessas (Boitempo Editorial, 2010), along with Francisco de Oliveira, as well as Infoproletários (Boitempo Editorial, 2009), along with Ricardo Antunes.

Table of Contents

Preface

Michael Löwy

List of Tables and Figures

Introduction

Part 1 The Formation of the Reversal

1 The Spectre of the People

The Sociology of Modernisation Encounters the Working Class

Unions in Peripheral Fordism

Populism and the Migrant Precariat

Between the Archaic and the Modern: An Ethnography of the Precariat

Working-Class Archaeology: Populism in Reverse

From Fordist Mirage to the Politics of the Precariat

Final Considerations

2 The Fatalism of the Weak

Sociology of Applied Work: The Limits of Bureaucratic Unionism

Public Sociology of Work: Towards Working-Class Independence

The Precarious Hegemony of Peripheral Fordism

From Populism to Social Discontent (and Vice-versa)

Critical Sociology of Work: Discontent as Disalienation

For a Sociology of Working-Class Discontent

Final Considerations

Part 2 The Transformation of Hegemony in Reverse

3 The Smile of the Exploited

Work and Politics in São Bernardo

The Despotic Factory Regime and the Metalworker Precariat

Peons 1: From Contingent Consciousness to Necessary Consciousness

Peons 2: From the Union Bureaucracy to the Metalworker Vanguard

Peons 3: From Rank-and-File Rebellion to Strike Waves

Precarious Hegemony: The Return of Bureaucratic Power?

Final Considerations

4 The Anguish of the Subalterns

Post-Fordism and the Neoliberal Company

A Peripheral and Post-Fordist Precariat

Discontent and Consent in the Call-Centre Industry

Unionism in the Telemarketing Sector

Lulista Hegemony: Between Social Discontent and Active Will

Telemarketers: The Reverse of the Reverse

Final Considerations

Conclusion: "Let's Play That?"

Interventions

1 Dilma and the Brazilian Utopia

2 Unrest in the Kitchen

3 Chronicle of an Unforgettable Month

4 For a Sociology Worthy of June

5 Rosa Parks in Itaquera

6 The Most Visible Colour

7 Challenging Hegemony

8 The Era of Pillage

9 The End of Lulism and the Palace Coup in Brazil

Bibliography

Index