The Latin American barrio movement as a social movement: contribution to a debate.

The study of social movements flared up at the height of structural (Althusserian) Marxism in the late 1960s. At the time, the leading figure in the sociology of social movements was Alain Touraine and it was his student, Manuel Castells, who shifted the focus of research to the subcategory of urban movements which are of interest in this article. Castells can take much of the credit for disseminating the French work to the new world, where it stimulated a host of studies in Portuguese, Spanish and English. The argument in this article concerns the impact on social change of collective actions at the "barrio" level. It also brings into question the class nature of social movements. Touraine's influence on the Latin American sociological establishment, especially in Brazil, should not be underestimated. It has led numerous Latin American sociologists to speak of the popular as the "excluded" sector, that is, excluded from politics and effective participation in society, as well as from the benefits of socioeconomic development. In short, the popular sector is regarded as having a purely passive voice in politics and as comprising a virtual "underclass."