From absent to present pasts: civil society, democracy and the shifting place of memory in Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article takes Alexis de Tocqueville’s concern with the emotional life of citizens as a cue for exploring the role of collective memory within ‘the self-organizing sphere’ and asking how the invocation of memory affects progress towards democracy. The article hones in on the Brazilian experience, re-assessing Brazil’s amnesiac past as well as its much-lauded ‘turn to memory’. Against common assertions that Brazil’s ‘turn to memory’ will enhance the country’s democratic credentials, this article argues that the move from an ‘absent’ to a ‘present’ past in Brazil in fact bodes rather mixed prospects for the country’s democratic deepening.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society
• democracy
• collective memory
• Brazil
• Tocqueville
• truth and justice

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the editors and to anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback during peer review. The author is also grateful to Thomas Davies, Sophie Harman, and the BISA@40 Workshop on ‘Protest, Social Movements, and Global Democracy Since 2011’ for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.