The Realm of Desire and Dream: Brazil and its Self-Constructing Middle Class of the 1980s, 1990s and Today

The Realm of Desire and Dream: Brazil and its Self-Constructing Middle Class of the 1980s, 1990s and Today

The discourse of self-definition in Brazil is based on perceptions of economic success, material value and social prestige. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a general scramble to reconstruct individual identity in social success and achievement. “Assertions of moral and cultural (class and racial) superiority” make up the discourses of national and regional identity, while simultaneously setting up the social building blocks of discrimination and stratification (25). Through the strange consumption of not only goods, but the commodification of experiences, the Brazilian middle class sought to redefine their lives and social status, and ultimately create a world that thrives on social division and prejudice.

In Maureen O’Doughterty’s Consumption Intensified, “the dual vision” of the “immediate reality of crisis and the desired reality of the First World” is shown to have shaped middle class consciousness and desire, and further deepen the marks of division within this “heterogeneous” middle class (O’Doughterty 15, 5). “Transnational consumption, in the form of travel experiences, especially to Disney World, and consumption of imported goods” is a surprising social construction of value and rank, and expresses the influence of a foreign ideal on Brazilian social identity (23). Sustained comfortable living, and superiority over another class of people, was desperately appealing to many Brazilian families in the throes of the economic crisis, as demonstrated by the commodification of a Disney experience in the United States through bought and displayed goods, and the suggestion of expense that goes with it. The suggestion of expense and wealth throughout the crisis shaped the new concept of a Brazilian middle class “character,” a quality of living that could not be removed by an instable economy and loss of existing values. The presentation and propagation of this “character” was an extension of the old lush life prior to the crisis, and a dogged determination to hold to “traditional values.”

Throughout the economic crisis, the middle class wanted to be perceived as continuing to enjoy “lush private space where elevated social status is proclaimed, cared for, and safeguarded” (O’Doughterty 9). Yet the “sense of past and hopes were contradicted by the experience of inflation crisis,” and a new social construction of reality emerged that was tangible in all its effects and efforts (O’Doughterty 9). The act of consuming goods itself is political, and “consumption is central to middle-class self-definition, not only in prosperity, as has more usually been shown but in any and all circumstances, even in recession” (O’Doughterty 11).