Conflicts over recognition within “peripheral modernity”: between equality and distinction.

Abstract

Our article begins with the argument that the category of recognition, when used within the context of peripheral modernity, implies a social configuration that is quite differentiated from the context in which it was originally elaborated. This is necessary for our ensuing discussion of how struggles for recognition can in the end provide a basis for and legitimate social inequality in Brazil. In countries of this sort, access to social recognition tends to be built not through struggles for recognition as subjects who are bearers of rights but on the contrary, through the struggle to mark out a difference that makes it possible for them to access the material and symbolic gains associated with this differentiated position. In order to explore the analytic possibilities that this argument opens up, we look at collective organizing experiences of collectors of recyclable materials in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. We demonstrate that, in opposition to the discourses and intentions that undergird the organizations we researched, the struggles for recognition that they undertake are to a large extent marked by their effort to differentiate themselves from others who find themselves in a similarly subaltern condition, thus establishing competition for access to particular scarce material and symbolic goods.. Keywords: peripheral modernity, social recognition, distinction, catadores.