After the rainbow: South Africa's interregnum through Brazil's lens

SCIS warmly invites you to a seminar

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) warmly invites you to a talk by Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos, "After the Rainbow: South Africa´s Interregnum Through Brazil´s Lens," on 22 November 2024. 

Abstract
This talk discusses contemporary politics in Brazil and South Africa. The comparison is framed by the hypothesis that both countries face an hegemonic crisis and therefore, an interregnum. These legitimation crises stem from frustrated expectations of social integration and nation building. Neo-developmentalism under Lula envisaged making Brazil a global player while black economic empowerment would open a path to redress historical economic inequalities. Although different, both ended up mired in corruption, which I read as a symptom of the narrow possibilities of expanded capital accumulation and class building in 21st century capitalism. The ensuing political dispute is framed as a politics of crisis containment (embodied by Lula and Ramaphosa) as opposed to the acceleration of the hegemonic crisis (embodied by Bolsonaro and Zuma). Finally, challenges to ANC dominance posed by Zuma´s MKP and Malema´s EFF are discussed, having in the background the rise of Bolsonarismo in Brazil. If containment fails, the face of acceleration remains to be seen, in South Africa and Brazil. 

About the speaker
Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos is professor of Latin American Studies at Unifesp and Prolam-USP. He is the author of Power and Impotence: A history of South America under progressivism (Haymarket: 2020) and co-editor of “Radical Right: politics of hate on the margins of global capital” (Brill: 2022), among other books that have been translated to English, French and Spanish. He is a visiting researcher hosted by SWOP at the University of the Witwatersrand.

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