Abstract

SUMMARY This article aims to demonstrate the effects of references to an imagined democracy in South Africa and in Brazil by focusing on the gap between democratic ideals and social reality. In both countries the ideals of reconciliation and of racial democracy do not correspond to the contours of the actual social situation revealed by democracy. This does not prevent these ideals from acting as a constituting force at the core of many of the tensions in democratic dynamics. First we will examine the issues at stake in the interpretations of mixed race. We shall then consider how the way in which ordinary people relate to racial discrimination varies in the two countries. The last part will deal with the controversies created by affirmative action and the issue of memory in South Africa.