Guilherme Leite Gonçalves

Bio: Guilherme Leite Gonçalves is an academic researcher from Rio de Janeiro State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Marxist philosophy & Ideology. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 18 publications receiving 66 citations. Previous affiliations of Guilherme Leite Gonçalves include Fundação Getúlio Vargas.

The global constitutionalization of human rights: Overcoming contemporary injustices or juridifying old asymmetries?:

Abstract: Recent decades are marked by an impressive expansion of actors and legal structures intended to globally extend a certain ‘Western’ catalog of human rights. Recently, too, legal scholars have developed concepts to justify normatively the expansion of human rights (e.g. Habermas, Walker, Koskenniemi). This article reviews recent legal literature on global constitutionalization of human rights to reveal its blind spots, at two levels: i) the reaffirmation of European precedency for establishing the sources of human rights and ii) a lack of sociological tools for describing interpenetrations between law, power and social inequalities. In order to empirically illustrate these objections, the article analyses the recent global expansion of human rights of minorities, using two examples: cases treated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Brazilian legalization of ancestral territories of afro-descendants. Finally, the article argues for a decentered perspective that (at the local level) connects ...

From primitive accumulation to entangled accumulation: Decentring Marxist Theory of capitalist expansion:

Abstract: During the last few decades, the concept of primitive accumulation (ursprungliche Akkumulation) introduced by Karl Marx and expanded by Rosa Luxemburg has been revived and improved. Accordingly, sc...

O iluminismo no banco dos réus: direitos universais, hierarquias regionais e recolonização

Abstract: This paper presents a critique on the process of universalization of law, designed by the illuminist project, and foundation for both the modern understanding of human rights and the definition of juridical-political patterns of development for different areas of world society. The critique is drawn from the reception of post-colonial studies in the area of sociology of law. Based on the notion of neocolonialism, contradictions in universal juridical discourse are identified, since its unitary moral foundation becomes a means for establishment of regional hierarchies and re-colonization of southern juridical practices. In conclusion, the alternative global law project based on the notion of heterogeneity is confronted with the authoritarian character of dominant juridical universalism.

Functional differentiation as ideology of the (neo)colonial society

Abstract: This article discusses the ideological character of the notion of functional differentiation. According to Luhmann, the development of worldwide social differentiation (that is, the rise of the world society) leads to different regional developments and generates, through the inclusion/exclusion code, a division of the world between places where the functional differentiation operates appropriately and inappropriately. This paper argues, however, that functional differentiation is only readable as an ensemble of relations of power and ideological discourses. This subject is developed in light of theoretical approaches from the Marxist tradition and from postcolonial studies. Regarding the first, the functional differentiation is reread as an abstract and generic equality, which permits the material reproduction of regional inequality. This idea provides a background for discussing the ideological features of the functional differentiation which serves the dominant position of Western countries in the inte...

The Accumulation of Capital

Abstract: We've all had the experience at some time or other of walking through a department store and being amazed at the many different articles we see there. One counter after another filled with this, that, and the other thing-some useful, some of little or no use. Almost every day a new gadget is advertised, electric blankets, or hats that look like chimneys, or a special kind of vitamin tablets. A common reaction of people as they look in shop windows is, "What will they think of next?"This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Re-contextualising human rights education: some decolonial strategies and pedagogical/curricular possibilities

Abstract: This paper argues that a decolonising approach in human rights education (HRE) needs to examine human rights issues through a critical lens that interrogates the Eurocentric grounding of human rights universals and advances the project of re-contextualising human rights in the historical horizon of modernity/coloniality. This alternative configuration of HRE as ‘critical’ and ‘transformative’ offers pedagogical and curricular possibilities that go beyond conventional forms of HRE and create openings for pedagogical praxis along social justice lines. The quest to create these openings and possibilities is a fundamental element for decolonising the theory and pedagogical practices of human rights. It is argued that the move to create spaces for decolonising pedagogy and curriculum in HRE can take HRE theory and practice to a less Eurocentric outlook and thus a more multiperspectival and pluriversal understanding of human rights – one that recognises the histories of coloniality, the entanglements wi...