Futures of Difference in Brazil Webinar

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English version | Portuguese version

For more details please contact marina.adomeit(at)ips.mpg.de.

Race, indigeneity, gender, religion, and inequality in a country at the crossroads

Social categories — race, gender, religion, sexuality, legal status, and more — are neither natural nor neutral. They are born out of a contested history of modernity and coloniality, politically and socially salient today, yet also subject to change. Futures of Difference is an international platform that brings together scholars to examine how these categories are being challenged and transformed at this critical moment. Across the world, three forces are converging: the social complexification driven by digital technologies and fluid identities; dramatic demographic and climatic shifts; and the advancement of right-wing populism seeking to challenge and police who counts and who does not. These forces are propelling us further into uncertain and troublesome futures — and Brazil is among the countries with the most insightful history, challenging present, and potential to allow relevant insights into uncertain futures.

Long framed — and fiercely contested — as a place of encounter, Brazil is one of the world’s most unequal countries, where social categorization defines profoundly asymmetric life chances. In recent decades, Brazil has seen intense political struggles over categorization of difference: a vibrant indigenous politics asserting territorial and cultural rights; a Black intellectual and political field dismantling the myth of racial harmony and demanding rights; feminist and LGBTQ+ movements that fought for recognition and equity; and a sweeping transformation of the religious landscape, with evangelical Christianity reshaping politics, morality, and social belonging. Furthermore, right-wing populism has capitalized on manichean understandings of social difference, neo-conservativism, and fear.

Brazil’s particular history and contemporary struggle directly dialogues with global trends. Scholarship in the country is capable of offering relevant insights into some of the most concentrated expressions of social categorization and its consequences, thereby aptly shining light onto possible directions for the futures of difference.

SPEAKERS

Flávia Rios

Flávia Rios is a professor of sociology at the University of São Paulo (USP) and one of Brazil's foremost scholars of racial politics and Afro-Brazilian social movements. Her research traces the historical formation and contemporary transformations of Black political identity in Brazil, with particular attention to activist intellectuals, the critique of racial democracy, and the emergence of anti-racist public policy. She is a key figure in debates about how race is constructed, mobilized, and contested in Brazilian society.

Isadora Lins França

Isadora Lins França is a professor of anthropology at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and a leading scholar of gender, sexuality, and LGBTQ+ themes in Brazil. Their research examines the politics of sexual identity, LGBTQ+ consumption and social spaces, and the tensions between recognition, commodification, and exclusion in Brazilian queer life. Their work engages closely with feminist and queer theory, in particular, in their Brazilian and Latin American articulations.

Luiz Henrique Eloy Amado

Luiz Henrique Eloy Amado has served as executive secretary at the Brazilian Ministry for Indigenous Peoples since 2023. He is a Terena indigenous lawyer, activist, and researcher specializing in indigenous peoples' rights, territorial struggles, and legal pluralism in Brazil. He holds two Ph.D.s (social anthropology, UFRJ & legal sociology, UFF). Eloy has been a prominent voice in debates at the intersection of academic research and political advocacy. His work engages both the situation of indigenous peoples and broader questions about the place of indigeneity in Brazilian law, politics, and public life.

Roberto Dutra Torres

Roberto Dutra Torres is a professor of sociology at the University of Northern Rio de Janeiro (UENF) working on social inequality, sociological theory, and the sociology of religion in Brazil. He led the Department of Studies and Policies of the State at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA). Between 2025 and 2026, he is a Humboldt fellow and a visiting professor at the University of Bremen (Germany). His research has examined how economic inequality intersects with moral and religious frameworks, particularly in the context of evangelical Christianity.Roberto Dutra Torres is a professor of sociology at the University of Northern Rio de Janeiro (UENF) working on social inequality, sociological theory, and the sociology of religion in Brazil. He led the Department of Studies and Policies of the State at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA). Between 2025 and 2026, he is a Humboldt fellow and a visiting professor at the University of Bremen (Germany). His research has examined how economic inequality intersects with moral and religious frameworks, particularly in the context of evangelical Christianity.