Eisenstadt, Brazil and the multiple modernities framework: Revisions and reconsiderations

Abstract

The notion of multiple modernities as developed by Eisenstadt has become increasingly influential in debates about modernity and the historical formation of societies in comparative perspective. On closer inspection, the theoretical framework is less than straightforward when it comes to specific applications. This article considers Brazil from the perspective of a revised theory of multiple modernities. There has been virtually no application to specific case studies within the countries of the South. Brazil could be considered an important case study of modernity that deserves attention in its own right. The article shows that the theoretical framework of multiple modernities offers insights into the Brazilian trajectory of modernity, a consideration of which also challenges some of the assumptions of Eisenstadt’s approach. Despite the limits of the framework, the notion of multiple modernities offers a good basis for a global analysis of modernity. Greater attention needs to be given to civilizational encounters and to sources of conflict and plurality within modernity and which cannot be accounted for in terms of the principles of axiality postulated by Eisenstadt.

On the relevance ofsmall nations. Religion and politics in S.N. Eisenstadt's multiple modernities paradigm

“…However, in our opinion, it differs from Eisenstadt's main concern, from the originality of his heuristic view. 10 This might have avoided some of the weaker criticisms of the multiple modernities paradigm, notably its overly theoretical aspect (Mota and Delanty 2015), as well as the too little importance assigned to inter-civilisational and infra-civilisational encounters and their diversity (Carreira da Silva and Brito Vieira 2009: 68;Stoeckl 2011: 224). In this sense, we do not seek to offer another revision of the multiple modernities paradigm by offering our own concept as a necessary correction.…”

Dona Flor and Scarlett O’Hara: One dilemma, two love stories in Brazilian and American cultures

“…Conversely, Teodoro’s character encapsulates the pursuit for establishing the Brazilian Republic as a comparable power to European countries, especially France and England in the early twentieth century, and the United States after World War II. In ideological terms, the modern project in Brazil ‘was mainly a fusion of republicanism, liberalism and positivism’ (Mota & Delanty, 2015: 12), even though the elites embraced these ideas in a very cautious and selective way. According to that project, the country’s ‘order and progress’ 14 was meant to be based on the rule of law, science and capitalism (Oliven, 2000; Cukierman, 2014).…”

Europe in world regional perspective: formations of modernity and major historical transformations

“…In the longer perspective of history, it is undoubtedly the case that at different periods various western powers were disproportionally influential as colonizing agents. However, in such cases the outcome has rarely been the whole‐scale transplantation of one model of modernity into another setting, but its widespread appropriation leading in many cases to hybrid formations, if not ones antithetical to European modernity (Mota and Delanty ). It can be further hypothesized that the outcome is less a clash of civilizations than a conflict between different formations of modernity.…”