1st Edition

Status Honor and White Privilege in Brazil and Beyond

By Bernd Reiter Copyright 2026
190 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

190 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

190 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

With this book, Bernd Reiter reflects on over three decades of research on race, exclusion, inequality, white supremacy, and the defense of privilege in Brazil to explore how social hierarchies, honor, and dignity perpetuate systemic disparities in Latin America. Status, as a structuring force of societies, Reiter argues, offers a different lens through which to analyze Latin American societies.... Read more

Introduction: Understanding Racism and Exclusion in Latin America.  PART I: Theory  Chapter 1: Reality and Analytical Categories  Chapter 2: The Theory of Status in Tönnies, Weber, and Elias  Chapter 3: Whiteness as a Symbolic Racial Capital  PART II: Brazil  Chapter 4: Status in Brazil through the Lens of Five Brazilian Classics: Guerreiro Ramos, Raymundo Faoro, Florestan Fernandes, Jacob Gorender, and João José Reis  Chapter 5: The Historical Construction of Privilege via Exclusion: Bacharelismo and the State  Chapter 6: Performing Whiteness in Brazil  Chapter 7: Language, Education, and the Habitus of Privilege  Chapter 8: Status through Servitude  PART III: Beyond Brazil  Chapter 9: Hispanic America: Buying Whiteness: Gracias al Sacar  General Conclusions: Rethinking Status in Latin America and Its Global Implications.  Epilogue

Biography

Bernd Reiter is Professor of political science and Luso-Latin American Studies, working for the department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literature at Texas Tech University. He is the editor of Routledge’s Decolonizing the Classics book series. He is a specialist in democracy, race, and decolonization, with over 30 years of experience conducting empirical research in Latin America, Africa, and Western Europe. He has published over 20 books and 70 articles to date and served on the Ph.D. and M.A. committees of close to 100 students. He has held visiting positions at Harvard, the Barcelona Institute for International Studies, the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil), the Universidad del Norte (Colombia), the Free University of Berlin, and the University of Kassel (both in Germany). In 2024, he served as a Fulbright Specialist for the Federal University of São Paulo and in 2022 as the Fulbright Distinguished Chair of Public Policy in Recife. Reiter is the recipient of the Outstanding Alum award, as well as several other awards and recognitions, such as the Outstanding Mentor Award, from the Florida Education Fund.