Lost for words?: Brazilian liberationism in the 1990s

Abstract

Lost for Words? explores rise and decline of progressive Catholic grassroots activism and its drive for social justice and democratic change in four low-income neighborhoods in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Ottmann focuses on obstacles faced by poor who took seriously claim that the people were to transform Brazilian society bottom up. He follows their travails through periods of democratization, mass unemployment, and conservative backlash within Church. Goetz Frank Ottmann moves beyond purely political analysis to record how residents and progressive Catholic activists were drawn into a struggle for a juster society, and how this movement began to unravel even before it reached its peak in early 1980s. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, and drawing on theoretical insights from recent debates on social movements and sociology of religion, he examines how, by early 1990s, liberationist movement had lost its following, lost its allies, failed to achieve its core goals, and seemed to die. Ottmann then shows how in recent years activists have worked to create a new and pragmatic form of religious activism, one that draws on a range of agendas, including Catholic feminism.