The right to shine: Poverty, consumption and (de) politicization in neoliberal Brazil

This article discusses the political impacts on poor’s subjectivity provoked by neoliberal policies such as inclusion through consumption in 21st century Brazil. From 2009 to 2014, we carried out ethnographic research with new consumers a low-income neighbourhood – Morro da Cruz city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. We argue that does not necessarily depoliticize human experience, it is broadly assumed have done scholarly literature neoliberalism. In society which poor has obtained goods hierarchical and servile relationships, possibility buying things provides micro sphere for recognition, though terms classic collective action or even hidden subversion. Coupled momentum towards national ‘economic emergence’, status became vehicles an emergent subjectivity, conceptualize ‘the right shine’. The shine are subtle forms class racial self-worth, individual interpersonal empowerment revealed interclass defiance.