Brazil and Transnational Human Rights Movement, 1964–1985 explores how solidarity for Brazil contributed to the global human rights movement of the 1970s. Through protests, petitions, posters, and numerous other cultural, artistic, and media-based campaigns, solidarity for Brazil popularised the language of human rights and prompted the international community to join the fight against the country’s military regime. But solidarity for Brazil also reframed the debate on human rights itself, stretching the concept beyond mainstream interpretations that emphasised the violation of ‘basic’ individual rights, such as the use of torture and political imprisonment, to also incorporate social and economic rights, inequality, indigenous minorities, and the human rights responsibilities of multinational companies and development projects. Crucial to this process were multiple networks of exiles, catholic activists, journalists, and academics between Brazil and Western Europe, who drew from the Latin American experience to challenge mainstream narratives of human rights from below.
“Brazil and the Transnational Human Rights Movement, 1964-1985 is an important contribution to a still nascent field of research about the multiple ways Brazilians and international actors worked together to denounce the Brazilian military dictatorship and support the efforts for progressive social change in that country by focusing on the ways in which Brazilians and their European allies mobilized support with the strategy of isolating the regime and pressuring for a return to democratic rule” — James N. Green, Professor of Brazilian History and Culture, Brown University, Rhode Island, USA.
Acronyms; Introduction; Chapter 1: Foundations of Solidarity 1964–1969; Chapter 2: Exile, Torture, and Disappearances 1969–1972; Chapter 3: Poverty, Inequality, and Transnational Responsibility 1973–1975; Chapter 4: Brazil and Latin America; Brazil and the Third World 1975–1985; Conclusion; Epilogue.