ABSTRACT
This chapter revisits a conceptualization of sovereignty as a technique for the articulation of time and space geared towards the production of an international order of competition. It suggests that discourses about Brazil’s new status and about an expectation of institutional transformation associated with the emergence of the ‘developing world’ in the twenty-first century create claims that are founded upon and reinforce limiting temporal and spatial constructs that, in turn, foreclose the possibility of a less exclusionary world order. It does so through an examination of how the efforts of Brazil in the United Nations Mission of stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH) tells us a story about peace operations as ways of disciplining spaces into particular temporal trajectories and about a particular encounter that even in its potential to challenge traditional narratives, ends up revealing obstacles to alternative ontologies that are not based on hierarchical positions of different actors in international politics. This chapter is ultimately a reflection on the implications of accepting the conditions for visibility and influence in international politics, and of acquiescing to discourses regarding the limitations and inadequacies of Brazil vis-à-vis its aspirations uncritically.
