Filipe Carreira da Silva

• PhD
• Assistant Research Professor at University of Lisbon

This article reexamines the race-populism nexus. It asks: Does populist political construction of the figure of 'the people' necessarily involve processes of racial othering? We answer this question by revisiting three emblematic cases of populism. Each historical case illustrates a basic type of identity formation that can have an i) exclusionary,...

This article discusses the concept of ‘insubmission’. This concept is the cornerstone of Amílcar Cabral’s critical theory. Introduced in his early agronomic writings, it refers to the human species’ refusal to submit to the nature of which we are always a part. The context is the anticolonial critique of traditional European humanism. Insubmission...

The relationship between humanity and the soil is an increasingly important topic in social theory. However, conceptualisations of the soil developed by anticolonial thinkers at the high point of the movement for self-determination between the 1940s and the 1970s have remained largely ignored. This is a shame, not least because theorists like Eric...

Análise Social: 60 Anos

This article analyses, from a statistical point of view, the titles of the articles published in Análise Social (from 1963 to 2022), by comparing the words used over these six decades. Starting from the premise that a certain choice of words reflect a diverse set of “textual worlds”, which are organised according to different motivations and intere...

How does material culture shape contentious politics? Things, we argue, influence political contention in ways that are reducible neither to struggles over meaning nor to the thingly aspect of things. The article combines pragmatic semiotics with insights on ritual practice and collective experience. By bringing together three often separate litera...

Why did Hong Kong protestors choose a symbol of former oppression – the old colonial flag – as a banner for their fight for democracy, rights and autonomy in 2019? We propose to answer this puzzle by studying the colonial-era flag as a displacement device. The waving of the colonial-era flag is shown to induce non-linear temporal and extraterritori...

Is there such thing as a populist thing? This article tries to answer this question by comparing two iconic populist objects: the Make America Great Again (MAGA) cap and the yellow vest. Despite their centrality to populist politics, there is remarkably little systematic examination of these objects' populist affordances, let alone a comparative st...

Current definitions of populism are insufficiently determinate. They fail to distinguish between populism and nationalism. We propose to remedy this problem by advancing a new definition of populism as the logic of democratic resentment. We apply this new definition to a comparison between Spain's Podemos and Portugal's Left Bloc (BE), which we cla...

In recent years, images of climate catastrophe have become commonplace. However, Black visions of the confluence of the Anthropocene and the apocalypse have been largely ignored. As we argue in this article, Black social thought offers crucial resources for drawing out the implicit exclusions of dominant representations of climate breakdown and dev...

Populism is one of the most contested political ideas of the modern age. It has also become a key concept in the social sciences, especially in the last few decades. Both as a polemic and as a concept, populism has accompanied democratic politics since at least the late nineteenth-century. The current “populist revolt” suggests this embryonic relat...

In this article we discuss the politics of the essay of three major twentieth-century Portuguese-speaking intellectuals: Gilberto Freyre, Jorge Dias and António Sérgio. Our topic of discussion is Lusotropicalism. Through an examination of the essayist production of these thinkers (1920s-1960s), we revisit this social theoretical account of racial m...

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) has been variously considered as historian, sociologist, and political theorist. His most well known work is Democracy in America (1835–1840), a classic study not only of democracy in America but of democracy itself. Sociologists have found in this analysis of the early years of the American Republic a seminal sour...

This article asks: What is, sociologically speaking, a beginning? And why has sociology so relatively little to say about beginnings, that point of discontinuity between past meaning and future meaning? We answer these questions in four successive steps. First, we suggest that the existing literature on beginnings can be organized in light of Lévi-...

Este artículo ofrece una nueva perspectiva para entender el populismo. El argumento se desarrolla de la siguiente forma. En un primer momento, se pasa revista a la literatura populista y se identifican dos enfoques principales: uno óntico y otro orientado a la lógica, entre los que destaca la lógica de la enemistad planteada tanto por Schmitt como...

This article addresses a puzzle in the history of academic disciplines: Why is Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, once considered a sociological classic, nowadays mostly praised as a classic in political philosophy? Existing approaches emphasize either aspects internal to the text or to the figure of the author, or external factors such...

It is impossible to separate the content of a book from its form. In this study, Filipe Carreira da Silva and Mónica Brito Vieira expand our understanding of the history of social and political scholarship by examining how the entirety of a book mediates and constitutes meaning in ways that affect its substance, appropriation, and reception over ti...

Introdução O objetivo deste ensaio é o de mostrar como George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), conhecido em sociologia sobretudo pela sua conceção intersubjetiva da consciência humana, sendo por isso mesmo a principal figura inspiradora do interacionismo simbólico de Herbert Blumer, Howard Becker e Erving Goffman, bem como pela sua pertença na galeria de...

This article re-examines current definitions of populism, which portray it as either a powerful corrective to or the nemesis of liberal democracy. It does so by exploring a crucial but often neglected dimension of populism: its redemptive character. Populism is here understood to function according to the logic of resentment, which involves both so...

This article offers a new understanding of populism. The argument unfolds as follows: first, the populist literature is reviewed and two main approaches are identified: ontic and logic-oriented, the more important of which is the Schmitt-Laclau logic of enmity. While the authors broadly agree with Laclau’s criticism of ontic approaches, they endors...

At the time of his death, 9 January 2017, Zygmunt Bauman was one of the foremost social theorists in the world ...

Written in an epoch marked by a growing sense of anxiety regarding the future of the book, Nicholas Thoburn’s Anti-Book. On the Art and Politics of Radical Publishing offers us a critical re-examination of what the book is – hence, the prefix ‘anti’ in the title of this elegantly designed and forcefully argued book. The ‘anti’ prefix, however, does...

This paper proposes a new approach to the study of sociological classics. This approach is pragmatic in character. It draws upon the social pragmatism of G. H. Mead and the sociology of texts of D. F. McKenzie. Our object of study is Norbert Elias's On the Process of Civilization. The pragmatic genealogy of this book reveals the importance of takin...

Do attitudes towards the welfare state change in response to economic crises? Addressing this question is sometimes difficult because of the lack of longitudinal data. This article deals with this empirical challenge using survey data from the 2008 European Social Survey and from our own follow-up survey of Spring 2013 to track welfare attitudes at...

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0001699316641859

Embora todas as constituições incluam direitos, e muitas delas incluam direitos sociais, a verdade é que algumas são mais generosas do que outras a este respeito. Mas nenhuma se aproxima da Constituição da República Portuguesa de 1976 no que toca à extensão e detalhe do seu catálogo de direitos sociais, económicos e culturais. As principais teorias...

This chapter covers the post-war period when, whilst still not formally recognized as an academic discipline, sociology began to enjoy independent scholarly production in Portugal. The right-wing dictatorship of Salazar and Caetano is analysed as the impeding factor. The strategies of social agents, namely the case of Adérito Sedas Nunes and the cl...

This chapter focuses upon the birth of sociology in Portugal as a fully recognized academic discipline following the left-wing revolutionary democratic transition of 1974–75. The return of a generation of exiled social scientists, including sociologists, from Switzerland, France, and elsewhere is analysed. Within a few years, all four major centres...

In this chapter, Filipe Carreira da Silva presents excerpts from 16 interviews by leading Portuguese sociologists. ‘Sociology’s voices’ is a collective discourse composed of first-hand accounts of the ways in which these sociologists have responded to three main problems: the initial attempts at the academic establishment of sociology in Portugal,...

This chapter begins with the presentation of the theoretical approach employed to study the history of sociology in Portugal from 1945 to the present day: genealogical pragmatism. This is followed by a discussion of the chief methodological challenges facing such an endeavour. The chapter concludes with a presentation of the five main analytic dime...

Filipe Carreira da Silva concludes with some brief remarks about the challenges facing sociology in Portugal in the near future. His argument develops in three successive steps. First, recent data on enrolments and graduations in sociology is presented. Second, he discusses how these figures reflect the impact of austerity policies following the 20...

This is the period of consolidation of sociology as an academic discipline, marked by gradual yet salient differentiation. New specialisms emerged, a professional association was created, and various degrees in sociology were offered in universities across Portugal. Research interests generally focused upon Portuguese society, often in comparison w...

This chapter discusses the current phase of development of sociology in Portugal as one characterized by internationalization. Internationalization is here understood to refer both to a stage of development and to the challenge involved in making use of key sociological ideas and instruments within a changing institutional setting. Unlike the phase...

This paper proposes a new approach to the study of sociological classics. This approach is pragmatic in character. It draws upon the social pragmatism of G.H. Mead and the sociology of texts of D.F. McKenzie. Our object of study is Norbert Elias’s On the Process of Civilization. The pragmatic genealogy of this book reveals the importance of taking...

Sociology in Portugal provides the first English-language account of the history of sociology in Portugal from 1945 to the present day. Banned by the fascist regime until 1974, the institutionalization of sociology as an academic discipline came relatively late. Understanding academic disciplines as institutionalized struggles over meaning, Filipe...

Sociology in Portugal provides the first English-language account of the history of sociology in Portugal from 1945 to the present day. Banned by the fascist regime until 1974, the institutionalization of sociology as an academic discipline came relatively late. Understanding academic disciplines as institutionalized struggles over meaning, Filipe...

This article critically discusses the field of political culture research. It reviews the historical development of the concept of political culture since the 1950s. It examines some of the key authors and approaches in political science and political sociology. Special attention is paid to the conceptual and methodological innovations of the last...

This article offers an outline of a pragmatic sociology of the book. Whilst ubiquitous, books have received relatively little attention from sociologists. I propose to remedy this situation by drawing upon the ideas of GH Mead, namely his neo-Hegelian theory of the subject–object relationship. Mead’s chief insight is that objects such as books are...

This article examines social attitudes towards social rights in Portugal. It utilizes original survey data from 2013 to study the distribution of welfare attitudes in a context of economic austerity and welfare retrenchment. The main argument is that there are at least two sources of preference formation regarding public social provision: one is un...

In this paper, I try to explain the inclusion of Karl Marx in the sociological canon by means of a pragmatic genealogical approach. This puts the emphasis not so much on structural or ideational factors, such as disciplinary dynamics or the nature of Marx’s ideas, but on the materiality of such ideas within key relevant contexts. My focus is on Mar...

This is the period of consolidation of sociology as an academic discipline, marked by a gradual yet salient differentiation. New specialisms emerge, a professional association is created, and various degrees in sociology are offered in universities across the country. Research interests generally focus on Portuguese society, often in comparison wit...

This chapter covers the post-war period when sociology, still not formally recognized as an academic discipline, begins to have an independent scholarly production in Portugal. The right-wing dictatorship of Salazar and Caetano is analysed as the impeding factor. The strategies of social agents, namely the case of Aderito Sedas Nunes and the cluste...

In this paper I focus on the birth of sociology as a fully recognized academic discipline, following the left-wing revolutionary democratic transition of 1974-1975. Within a few years, all four major centres of production of sociological knowledge will be established: ISCTE, New University, CES and the ICS. Each of these centres will eventually dev...

Do attitudes towards the welfare state change in response to economic crises? Addressing this question is sometimes difficult because of the lack of longitudinal data. This article deals with this empirical challenge using survey data from the 2008 European Social Survey and from our own follow-up survey of Spring 2013 to track welfare attitudes at...

G.H. Mead (1863-1931) oriented much of his intellectual efforts around three unavoidable questions to anyone living in a modern society: how are selfhood, knowledge, and politics understood and organized in such a society? Modern individuals continually seek to find answers to questions such as these although no one has ever come up with a definiti...

Archaeological theory is a fluid and fractured field that is an arena of lively debate. This Handbook will guide students and practitioners through this field in a novel way, connecting ideas in different schools of thought through the key problems upon which they focus. Major themes are tackled in review papers by experts in those areas, while the...

In this chapter, we discuss the relationship between the tradition of American philosophical pragmatism and contemporary archaeological theory. Our focus is on the work of G.H. Mead, whose social pragmatism has played an important role in the recent neo-pragmatist revival. We begin by explaining the reasons for the highly selective appropriation of...

Nowadays a sociological classic, W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1903 The Souls of Black Folk, was virtually absent from sociology reading lists, let alone theoretical debates, until very late into the twentieth century. By that time, however, cultural studies on race and ethnicity had already become a well-established domain, with its own theoretical approaches,...

Eight propositions state how contexts shift citizen participation. Religion, consumption patterns, and varied political repertoires transform participation. Hierarchical, authoritarian contexts foster antiestablishment participation and protest activities. Trust only emerges from some contexts. Participation in the arts and culture vary with other...

In this paper, we propose a new approach to the study of sociological classics. This approach is pragmatic in character. It draws upon the social pragmatism of G.H. Mead and the sociology of texts of D.F. McKenzie, which we complement with genealogy as exercised by the late Foucault. Our object of study is Norbert Elias’s On the Process of Civiliza...

This article offers an outline of a pragmatic sociology of the book. Whilst ubiquitous, books have received relatively little attention from sociologists. I propose to remedy this situation by drawing upon the ideas of G.H. Mead, namely his neo-Hegelian theory of the subject-object relationship. Mead’s chief insight is that objects such as books ar...

Does civic participation, especially in the arts, increase democracy? This chapter extends this neo-Tocquevillian question in three ways. First, to capture broader political and economic transformations, we consider different types of participation; results change by separate participation arenas. Some are declining, but a dramatic finding is the r...

This chapter explores the idea that democratic political legitimacy can emerge by other means than voting or citizen participation. Beyond these conventional methods of building legitimacy, we contend that alternative modes are emerging all over the world. Among these emergent forms are a wide range of policies, from China's economic growth to Bogo...

Selectively using Tocqueville, many social scientists suggest that civic participation increases democracy. We go beyond this neo-Tocquevillian model in three ways. First, to capture broader political and economic transformations, we consider different types of participation; results change if we analyze separate participation arenas. Some are decl...

Constitutions are a key element of the normative script of the modern state. All constitutions lock in rights. Most include social provisions. Some are more generous than others in this regard. But none come close to the Portuguese Constitution of 1976 in the length and detail of its list of social and economic rights. Prevailing theories of instit...

In this article I articulate a neo-pragmatist theory of human rights by drawing and expanding upon the American classical pragmatism of G.H. Mead. I characterize this neo-pragmatist theory of rights by its anti-foundationalist, relational, fictive, and constitutive nature. I begin by providing a reconstruction of Mead’s social pragmatist approach t...

This paper compares welfare attitudes in Portugal before and after the June 2011 bailout, using survey data from the 2008 European Social Survey (rotating module on the " welfare state ") and our own follow-up survey (spring 2013). Our findings suggest the welfare retrenchment rhetoric and agenda by both the international trio of funding bodies (th...

Desde meados da década de 1990, o ideal deliberativo tem vindo a assumir um papel central na teoria democrática contemporânea. Mais recentemente, outra tendência tem vindo a registrar-se: a democracia deliberativa está a deixar de ser uma proposta puramente teórica e a tornar-se num modelo regulador de soluções institucionais concretas. É por essa...

Desde meados da década de 1990, o ideal deliberativo tem vindo a assumir um papel central na teoria democrática contemporânea. Mais recentemente, outra tendência tem vindo a registrar-se: a democracia deliberativa está a deixar de ser uma proposta puramente teórica e a tornar-se num modelo regulador de soluções institucionais concretas. É por essa...

Historically, the influence of American pragmatism on archaeology and archaeological theory has been limited. Until recently, archaeologists have shown little interest in pragmatism (Preucel & Mrozowski 2010). In what follows we will provide a plausible explanation for this omission and, more importantly, an outline of why and how the lacuna can be...

This paper compares welfare attitudes in Portugal before and after the June 2011 bailout, using survey data from the 2008 European Social Survey (rotating module on the “welfare state”) and our own follow-up survey (spring 2013). Our findings suggest the welfare retrenchment rhetoric and agenda by both the international trio of funding bodies (the...

This article critically discusses the field of political culture research. It reviews the historical development of the concept of political culture since the 1950s. It examines some of the key authors and approaches in political science and political sociology. Special attention is paid to the conceptual and methodological innovations of the last...

This paper discusses the canonization process of George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) in sociology through a recounting of the history of the book Mind, Self, and Society (1934). The relation between Mead and this particular work has no parallel in the history of sociological theory. Although the book was not written by Mead, or even organized under his...

The question of how human subjectivity responds to urban life was as central to the founding fathers of urban sociology as it is to us today. Simmel’s insight that urban life presents man with an unprecedented, and ever changing complexity, a cognitive and sensuous overload, which reflects back on individuals’ awareness of themselves as multiply ho...

In this paper I wish to provide a re-examination of G. H. Mead's educational ideas and their radical democratic import. Drawing on both published and unpublished materials, I discuss how Mead applies his social psychological insights to a number of educational mat-ters. In particular, I will focus on the relation between the family and the school,...

This article explores J.G.A. Pocock’s insight that “traces” of civic republican discourse survived within the dominant liberal paradigm of modern political thought. It does so by tracking classical republican themes in the works of American pragmatist John Dewey and English pluralist Harold Laski. The main contribution of the article is to show tha...

The article begins with the assumption that modernity is undergoing a profound change. The focus is on the structural transformation of two typical modern institutional regimes: the academic discipline and the territorial nation-state. Their demise as the predominant institutional forms in the realms of science and politics signals the end of the m...

Despite decades of scholarship on G.H. Mead (1863—1931), we are still far from an adequate estimate of the full scope of his contributions. In this article, I examine the standard caricature that portraits Mead as an essentially idealist thinker, without much to say on the `material conditions of reproduction' of modern industrialized societies. Fo...