Utopia Digital

Non-governmental organizations and the making of consumers in Brazil’s “New Middle Class” shantytowns

Bibliographic Data

ID12698271
AuthorsJ B Scott (0000-0001-7924-8479, University of Colorado Boulder, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume21
Issue4
Pages913-931
Publication date2019-11-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Consumer Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1469-5405 • E-ISSN: 1741-2900
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1469540519890000
OpenAlexW2990807017
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited39

This article examines how class, consumerism, and employment influence beliefs of an idealized digital world in marginalized communities. I recount 24 months of ethnographic and institutional observation in a non-governmental organization that promoted the concept of “ utopia digital” (digital utopia in Portuguese) in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas (shantytowns). This corporate-funded non-governmental organization employed members of Brazil’s traditional middle class and promoted the liberating potentials of digital inclusion to members of a “New Middle Class” made up of 35 million “previously poor” Brazilians. Interviews with middle-class employees reveal how ideas of digital utopia act as a code for corporate efforts to encourage consumerism among the New Middle Class and bolster employment opportunities for members of Brazil’s traditional middle class. Reflecting on informal conversations, I also highlight a middle-class “crime talk” that frames the favela as an inherently violent place and, in contrast to their inclusionary work related to digital utopia, encourages non-governmental organization workers to physically avoid favela space. I use Zygmunt Bauman’s discussion of an “active” or “hunter” utopia as an ethnographic lens to discuss the practical and everyday experiences of technological inclusion in classed settings. By describing digital utopias as actively shaped by everyday understandings of urban exclusion and privilege, this article provides an ethnographic framework for decoding the socially reproductive nature of class-inflected consumer interventions in marginalized communities

Consumerism · Economic growth · Ethnography · Inclusion (mineral · Informal sector · Middle class · Political science · Sociology · Utopia · Anthropology · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Social Media and Politics