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Census categories of difference: occupation, race and social condition in 19th century Brazil
| The aim of this paper is to analyze social inequality in 19th century Brazil, using nominative lists of inhabitants produced during the 1830 decade. First I use HISCO and HISCLASS as an initial approach to social inequality in a pre-industrial non-European society. Then, I introduce a discussion about the necessity of considering other dimensions of social life to be able to build an accurate system to measure social status and social mobility in colonial and post-colonial societies. I analyze race and social condition (slave, freed and free status) as important categories in Latin American and other Portuguese colonial areas. Another dimension to be considered is the ways the colonial and national bureaucracy built the census categories. In this sense, it is important to understand the uses and misuses of categories like occupation, race and so, considered as crucial dimensions to the social structure and social mobility studies.
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