Brazilian literature on the "adventure of citizenship in Brazil" frequently suggests that the terms of the modern normative order were set up here in a peculiar form, if we consider them in relation to those prevailing in what are referred to as the modern societies of "the center". As an indication of this "exceptional nature", allusions are made to the supposed particularities of the institutionalization of political, social and civil guarantees and obligations in Brazil: the routes taken, the historical sequence that has ensued, the actual depth and breadth of every one of them and of the bases that sustain them, are seen as proof of "Brazilian normative deviance". The present article represents an effort toward critical review. I begin with a specific and selective consideration on recent literature on "citizenship in Brazil" meant to indicate some of the difficulties and analytical dilemmas. This is followed by a problematization of what I consider to be two of the main theoretical anchors of Brazilian social thought, in order to shed light on elements having a decisive influence on interpretations made regarding modern Brazil's alleged "normatively exceptional" character. Finally, I argue for the need for an analytical emphasis on the contingent dimension of citizenship building, in order to avoid "essentializing" approaches to the processes that define our normative order. For these purposes, I will make some historiographic incursions meant to illustrate the type of attempts that have been made to deal with such dilemmas through the operationalization of two key ideas: on the one hand, the notion of political opportunities and on the other, the idea according to which rights and duties are not only juridical categories but also situated practices.
citizenship in Brazil; Political Sociology; modernity; essentialism