The place of diversity in Canadian everyday life

• Grant number: 22/13617-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): May 01, 2023
• Effective date (End): August 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Urban Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Paula Montero
• Grantee: Lucas Ramos da Cunha
• Supervisor: Lori G. Beaman
• Host Institution: Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Ottawa (uOttawa), Canada
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/03458-7 - The value and the perception of diversity from religious and nonreligious people, BP.IC

Abstract

Under the "protection of God'', the 1988 Brazilian Constitution was instituted to secure, among other principles, "liberty", "justice", "welfare" and "equality" to a whole society where "prejudices" would not find a place to rest. In the years that followed it, social actors from the north to the south of the country have taken its lines to claim for social visibility an unprecedented series of public identities that seems to contrast in a continuous way with another recent phenomenon: the reconfiguration of the religious landscape in the country. Led mainly by the Christian Evangelical institutions' growth, the renewed Brazilian religious plan has as one of its actions to expedite the possibilities of estimation on material relations in spite of the "sacred" and spirituals ones. However, evaluating and reflecting on contemporary Brazil also refers to "taking" positions on the new public identities that have been presupposed by it. Consequently, religious values and "secular" and political identities seem to occupy a public space that drowns itself in manifestations of intolerance. Otherwise, in an almost symbolic opposition, the Canadian experience watches "secular" and "progressive" principles being used to judge religious values from religious minorities. Through "Reasonable Accommodation", the country has been trying to manage its own social differences. But, by doing so, Canada has been publicly exposing minorities and has reinforced an "us" against "them" symbolic structure. Lori Beaman, who will be the abroad advisor of this proposal, has been closely analyzing this controversy. Conceptualized by her, "deep equality" would be a more effective social tool to deal with these differences, since everyday interactions demonstrate the ability to negotiate them. Thus, in view of the Canadian case and the existence of a significant alternative social technology to deal with social differences, we propose a comparison between the two countries on their experiences with the contemporary "diversity" paradigm. (AU)