Brazilian Inequalities in the Global Balance: From Jogo Bonito to Jogo Diplomático

Abstract

This article connects two seemingly unrelated globalized processes of mobilization: the anti-FIFA demonstrations in Brazil and Brazil’s diplomatic offensive around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The purpose is to explore the tension between these two global arenas and analyze how claims about inequalities were articulated and circulated, and how the Brazilian state eventually used them as leverage for its own multilateral agenda. The first section dwells on the anti-FIFA mobilization in Brazil, focusing on the way in which the World Cup became an opportunity of global reach for citizens to express their discontent and indignation vis-à-vis structural problems and entrenched inequalities that extended well beyond all things FIFA. Here, I focus on the way claims were articulated through online resources and social media, as well as through graffiti and street art. The second section explores the way Brazil’s mobilization around the SDGs created a space for citizens and civil society to articulate a series of technocratic and technocratized claims around inequalities. I analyze the way these claims made their way into the Brazilian government’s position for the SDG negotiations—as an instrument to elbow its way to the “grown-ups” table and tackle broader geopolitical concerns.