Brazilian Nationalism Research Articles

The Afro-Paradox: Diasporic Chauvinism and Cultural Expertise in Afro-Brazilian Capoeira

Increasingly, Brazilian experts of capoeira—an Afro-Brazilian combat game—travel to African cities for an imagined return to the sites of capoeira's origins, as well as to train African students. Focusing on a cultural festival in Abidjan, I analyze capoeira cultural exchange events across West Africa through the anthropological lenses of expertise and racial analysis. These exchanges feature displays of Brazilian nationalism embodied by West African capoeira students, while they also reveal West Africans’ creative endeavors, such as constructing new capoeira songs in African languages. I demonstrate how the diasporic position to protect “Afro” cultural forms ironically gives way to policing creative work by continental Africans, capoeira's most recent recruits in the contemporary moment. I examine the racial hierarchies that proliferate within Black performance worlds through my concept of diasporic chauvinism to argue that diasporic returns can marginalize Africans and their innovations.

Brazilian far-right neoliberal nationalism: family, anti-communism and the myth of racial democracy

ABSTRACT This paper offers an interpretation of the ideology expressed by Jair Bolsonaro, current president of Brazil, as a Brazilian far-right neoliberal nationalism, which typically distinguishes between the members of the nation and its traitors and enemies, creating an authoritarian atmosphere of governance combined with the defense of neoliberal values. To establish the bases that sustain this ideology, we investigate four key arenas of his administration – family issues; the anti-left rhetoric; the call for a mixed-race identity; and Brazilian foreign policy. We sustain that Bolsonaro’s discourse, instead of revealing a fragmented political project, actually articulates a powerful and authoritarian image of the Brazilian nation, while also reinforcing the idea of individual entrepreneurship and traditional morality. Although this project is deeply informed by past national ideological traditions, it is also aligned with the expansion of the far right internationally and sheds light to its dynamics in periphery countries.

The Unmarked Whiteness of Brazilian Linguistics: From Black‐as‐Theme to Black‐as‐Life

The racist ideology of traditional, ruling‐class Brazilian nationalism, which denies the existence of racial divisions, is inherently anti‐Black. For example, in 2020 the Federal Government of Brazil revoked affirmative action programs for graduate degrees in universities. These anti‐black ideologies also influence linguistics in Brazil. In the twenty‐first century, one of the high‐profile representatives of this initiative is the Educated Urban Linguistic Norm Project that chose the urban speaker, who is mostly white, as the norm for all the speakers. Similarly, a series of daily online lectures hosted by ABRALIN, the national professional association for linguistics, beginning in May 2020, was without Black Brazilian speakers over the first month and a half of the schedule. In this work we seek to provoke discussions towards rethinking the role of whiteness in Brazilian linguistics moving from the Black‐as‐theme to Black‐as‐life framework.

Cannibals, Colorful Birds, and Exuberant Nature: The Representation of Brazilian Nationalism and Its Tropical Modernity in the 2016 Rio Olympics

Hosting the Olympics is a singular opportunity to build an updated narrative of the nation. Such a narrative is traditionally intended to emphasize the hosting country contributions toward the modern project through the displaying of key nationalistic accounts linking the country’s history to the development of western society. In the case of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, its organizing committee has sought into Brazil’s history different elements that were central to both the formation of Brazilian identity and the discussion over current global issues. Therefore, the country’s enduring relation with nature as well as national narratives such as modernist Anthropophagy, the discourse of ethnic miscegenation, and the myth of Brazil as a racial democracy became historical credentials to use environmentalism and tolerance as the paramount features of Rio-2016’s aesthetics as well as a means to denounce xenophobia and the effects of the Anthropocene on the planet. We argue that the exposition of these two issues in the event’s ceremonies was a way to symbolically insert the country within modernity’s forefront. In this article, we examine the sociopolitical aspects that led to the creation and popularization of Brazilian nationalistic narratives that were later used during the Rio 2016 opening ceremony and the ways such aspects were internationally conveyed during the aforementioned theatrical presentation.

Na defesa dos sagrados interesses: a greve dos ferroviários no sul da Bahia (Ilhéus e Itabuna, maio de 1927)

O principal objetivo deste artigo é analisar a greve, ocorrida em 1927, dos ferroviários da Estrada de Ferro que ligava Ilhéus a Conquista. A paralisação dos ferroviários foi uma das principais mobilizações operárias do sul da Bahia na Primeira República, com a atuação de diversas agremiações proletárias de Ilhéus e de Itabuna em torno das atividades e da agenda na “defesa dos sagrados interesses”. Com contornos pacíficos e atuando nas brechas da política oligárquica, os ferroviários deram dimensões populares à greve, de modo a pressionar intendentes, parlamentares e associações patronais, utilizando-se do nacionalismo brasileiro contra os administradores ingleses da ferrovia. O artigo foi escrito a partir de matérias veiculadas em jornais, de relatórios institucionais e de correspondências coletadas em arquivos da Bahia e do Rio de Janeiro.

Transformation of Japanese Schools before and after WWII: Impact of Brazilian Nationalism on Japanese Immigrants’ Primary Education and Self-identity

This article discusses the changes in the role and function of Japanese schools in Brazil before and after WWII vis-a-vis the host country’s social and political environment, with emphasis on the pressure from nationalism on Japanese immigrants’ education exerted by the Vargas administration. The impact of the policy was both significant and turbulent. It had become one of the main causes of the drastic changes in the national identity and character of Japanese primary schools after the Pacific War, with tragic consequences for the Japanese immigrants. Before WWII, Japanese immigrants had gradually advanced their status from contracted labourers to independent farmers, forming Japanese colonias (settlements) on government-allocated uncultivated land. They were eager to give their children elementary level education, and in remote areas, they had no choice but to provide this education principally in the Japanese language. These schools therefore became targets of the anti-Japanese movement that began in the 1920s, peaked in the 1930’s, and was phased out in the 1940s. Just before WWII, however, President Getulio Vargas developed a nationalistic policy which encompassed education; foreign schools were oppressed, and in 1938, most Japanese primary schools were closed. In addition, there was a ban on holding meetings and public gatherings, and Japanese newspapers were abolished. This was a traumatic situation that made Japanese-Brazilians pessimistic about the future, and their despair pushed them closer to supporting the goals of their Japanese homeland. The conflict between Brazilian and Japanese nationalism took place in primary education, which saw a tragic confrontation among immigrant groups, and resulted in a radical change of public opinion, as well as in the primary schools themselves.

The colonial reverberations of livraria do Globo translations in 1930s Brazil

Este artigo investiga o começo do Brasil pós-colonial sob a ótica de uma de suas editoras mais proeminentes, a Livraria do Globo, procurando definir as ligações entre a tradução literária e o poder colonial supostamente em retrocesso. Em uma análise de nove traduções de textos originários de língua inglesa lançadas por aquela editora na década de 1930, o que inicialmente parecia fazer pouco sentido em termos de coerência de política editorial na verdade acabou por evidenciar uma influência colonial ainda bastante presente. França, Portugal e Inglaterra pareciam travar um embate nas páginas desses livros, ao mesmo tempo em que nelas também se viam os primeiros desdobramentos do nacionalismo brasileiro e da sistematização do português brasileiro.

We Hope to Find a Way Out from Our Unpleasant Situation: Polish-Jewish Refugees and the Escape from Nazi Europe to Latin America

We Hope to Find a Way Out from Our Unpleasant Situation:Polish-Jewish Refugees and the Escape from Nazi Europe to Latin America Mariusz Kałczewiak1 (bio) On September 26, 1940 Zygmunt Turkow, a Yiddish-speaking Polish actor and theater director, arrived in Argentina, escaping the war in Europe. Upon his arrival, Turkow tried his luck at establishing a new life for himself in Buenos Aires, which he knew because his theatre work had brought him there previously. But it was hard for him to focus on the arts. Local Jews worried about the situation in their "old countries," meaning that they barely had the time to think about producing and attending theater performances.2 Turkow soon left for Brazil, living there for twelve years. In Recife, Turkow and his wife spent sleepless nights listening to BBC news reports filled with words such as "ghettos," "camps," and "crematoriums." The war in Europe had a tremendous effect on Turkow's psyche: he had nightmares, and his days were filled with pain and "thoughts of German cannibalism."3 The actor feared that Brazil might not be a safe refuge and that the Nazis could reach him from across the ocean. These fears were not unfounded. During the war, German submarines sank numerous Brazilian merchant ships, and thwarted Brazilian ship navigations systems.4 When invited to perform in Rio de Janeiro, Turkow had to travel by boat. Although the Brazilian navy provided an escort, the sense of danger remained ever-present.5 [End Page 25] While Turkow's experiences may have been unusual—following the outbreak of World War II most Jews had no choice but to remain in Poland—they are nonetheless representative of a small group of relatively privileged Jews who had sufficient personal connections and financial means to arrange their escape. This article examines the fate of Jews who sought to enter Latin America during and shortly after World War II. I concentrate on the periods 1939–1941 and 1945–1948, and on Argentina as well as Brazil. The case studies I illuminate inform several broader themes including Argentine and Brazilian nationalism, antisemitism in Latin America, and the postwar refugee crisis. Attitudes towards Jewish refugees reveal that anti-Jewish policies hardly changed, even in the face of genocide in Europe. I focus on the dramatic experiences of those Jews who docked in Latin American ports, but were barred from disembarking. I analyze the experience of those who were smuggled illegally into Argentina.6 I examine how they took their fate into their own hands, thereby uncovering Jewish agency and lived experience during desperate time. Jewish Refugees and Latin American Politics Polish Jews' attempts to escape to Latin America between 1939 and 1941 followed a long history of Jewish migration to Latin America. Since the 1890s, impoverished and persecuted Eastern European Jews immigrated to Latin America, and for many it seemed to be a reasonable option with the Nazi threat looming on the horizon.7 Many Polish Jews had family members in Latin America who had the potential to assist them upon their arrival. Indeed, following the Nazi's rise to power in 1933, thousands of German Jews sought and found refuge in Argentina and Chile.8 When the war broke out in 1939, Latin America seemed to be sufficiently far away from Europe to provide safety for those seeking [End Page 26] refuge. Argentina maintained its official neutrality for almost the entirety of the war, declaring war against Germany only in March 1945.9 Brazil had declared war against Nazi Germany three years earlier, in August 1942. Yet in the first two years of the war the likelihood of finding refuge in Latin America appeared slim.10 In Argentina, quotas introduced in 1930, in the wake of a right-wing takeover, severely curtailed Jewish immigration. After 1938, new immigration laws, which were racially based, made it virtually impossible for Jews to enter as immigrants.11 In Brazil, president Getúlio Vargas and minister of foreign affairs Osvaldo Aranha introduced a policy in 1937 that effectively banned Jewish immigration. Circular 1,127 prohibited people of "Semitic origin" from obtaining visas. The result was a seventy-five percent drop in Jewish immigration...

Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism. By Richard A. Gordon. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. 259. $55.00 cloth.

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Resituating Nitheroy in the Translation Zone: Transnational Travels, Creative Transformations, and the Making of a Modern Brazil

This article situates Domingos Goncalves de Magalhaes (1811–1882) and Nitheroy, which he published in Paris in 1836, between languages, nationalist cultures, political beliefs, and economic models. My reading of the poet and the periodical as transnational translators complements existing studies that either emphasize their literary contributions of introducing Romanticism in Brazil or focus on their political relevance to Brazilian nationalism in comparison to Spanish American countries. I highlight how Nitheroy and its editors engaged in acts of translation by extending the reach of European and North American ideas, values, and practices to elite Brazilian readers through the periodical's content and circulation. By reading Goncalves de Magalhaes and Nitheroy through the lens of trans-national translation, I emphasize that Brazilian writers and artists did not copy European Romanticism and other foreign concepts, but rather, creatively transformed them for Brazil as part of the process of transatlantic transfer.

Comida Mineira: A “Cultural Patrimony” of Brazil

In 2016, the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil passed a law declaring gastronomia mineira – the state’s cuisine – a “cultural patrimony” worthy of promotion and protection. The state’s goals of promoting tourism and development by touting the heritage of its cuisine is common in an age of culinary tourism. More unusual, was the attempt to safeguard a regional cultural identity not only from foreign influences and the whims of food industry marketing but also from Brazilian national identity. This present article examines the historical development of the promotion of comida mineira. It considers food in the context of Brazilian regionalism and nationalism, the way contemporary chefs and culinary historians have sought to define a “historical essence” of comida minera, and the state government’s effort to promote it.

Gordon, Richard A.Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism. Austin: U of Texas P, 2015. xi + 272 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Works Cited. Index.

<b>Gordon, Richard A</b>.<i>Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism</i>. Austin: U of Texas P, 2015. xi + 272 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Works Cited. Index.

Assobio a Játo de Heitor Villa-Lobos: propuesta de reedición e interpretación

The work, Assobio a Játo (W493) was written by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos in 1950 for flute and cello. It includes surprising and spontaneous rhythmic and melodic elements, which make it a reference point for Brazilian musical nationalism for the twentieth century. Given that the first and only publication of this work is in score format, this investigation proposes the re-edition of the work based on published references, while taking into account the nationalistic style of Villa-Lobos as well as different interpretations of the work. Using music notation software and a basic editing manual, the result of this investigation helped obtain parts of the work, ensuring easy reading, studying and interpretation for the academic music community. Thanks to its circulation, this work maybe an example of the use of music publishing tools applied to the transcription and edition of sheet music

Richard A. Gordon, Cinema, Slavery and Brazilian Nationalism (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2015), pp. xi + 272, $55.00; £36.00, hb.

Richard A. Gordon, Cinema, Slavery and Brazilian Nationalism (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2015), pp. xi + 272, $55.00; £36.00, hb.

Oswaldo Costa, Antropofagia, y la crítica caníbal de la modernidad colonial

Oswaldo Costa was a key member of the Brazilian modernist Antropofagia (Anthropophagy) movement of the late 1920s, yet he has been largely forgotten by critics and marginalized from national cultural history. Costa articulated —as no other member of the movement did, including his famous leader Oswald de Andrade— an Antropofagia intellectually engaged in what we call a cannibal critique of colonial modernity and Occidentalism. Costa’s Antropofagia cannibalized the historical archive, reading against the grain of a triumphant Western imperial history. Throughout his contributions to the Revista de Antropofagia , he questioned Brazil’s cultural allegiance to Europe, pointed out the existence of asynchronous temporalities within Brazil, and defied Eurocentric notions of civilization and progress that ideologically structure Brazilian nationalism in the ninetieth and twentieth centuries. He also enacted an anthropophagous re-reading of Brazilian historiography against its celebration of colonialism and proposed the necessity of a cultural decolonization. This article analyzes Costa’s principal contributions to Antropofagia and rescues his hitherto overlooked countercolonial thought from the oblivion of collective forgetting. Moreover, it examines Costa’s significant view of Brazilian modernity as a perfidious armistice with other barbarous temporalities, and of the Westernization of Brazil as a deceptive appearance that hides ever-present colonial antagonisms.

Cinema, slavery, and Brazilian nationalism

Cinema, slavery, and Brazilian nationalism

Native and national in Brazil: indigeneity after independence

How do the lives of peoples relate to the romanticized role of Indians in Brazilian history, politics, and cultural production? Native and National in Brazil charts this enigmatic relationship from the sixteenth century to the present, focusing on the consolidation of the dominant national imaginary in the postindependence period and highlighting Native peoples' ongoing work to decolonize it. Engaging issues ranging from sovereignty, citizenship, and national security to the revolutionary potential of art, sustainable development, and the gendering of ethnic differences, Tracy Devine Guzman argues that the tensions between popular renderings of Indianness and lived experience are critical to the unfolding of Brazilian nationalism, on the one hand, and the growth of the Brazilian movement, on the other.Devine Guzman suggests that the indigenous question now posed by Brazilian peoples themselves--how to be Native and national at the same time--can help us to rethink national belonging in accordance with the protection of human rights, the promotion of social justice, and the consolidation of democratic governance for and nonindigenous citizens alike.

Brazil's Grand Design for Combining Global South Solidarity and National Interests: A Discussion of Peacekeeping Operations in Haiti and Timor

This study analyzes how Brazil has assumed visible leadership of peacekeeping operations in order to increase its international status, with the ever-present goal of attaining a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, but also with the larger aim of cultivating forms of political-economic, cultural, and military globalization in which the Lusophone giant can articulate new forms of transnational influence. Brazil's role in MINUSTAH (the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti) and in peacekeeping interventions in Timor have become cornerstones of Brazilian nationalism, which is evolving into a particular, global South framed ‘Brazilian exceptionalism’. I will argue that these operations are seen by Brazilian policymakers as win–win scenarios: Brazil increases its international peacekeeping credentials while these fragile states obtain internal security, a first step towards development. But is this what is actually happening? I will conclude by addressing how peacekeeping in Haiti and Timor fit into Brazil's grand design for long-term global extension. Este estudio analiza la manera como Brasil ha asumido un evidente liderazgo en las operaciones de mantenimiento de paz, para incrementar su estatus internacional con el objetivo omnipresente de obtener una silla en el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas, y además con una meta mayor de cultivar formas de política económica, cultural y globalización militar, en la que el gigante lusófono puede articular nuevas formas de influencia transnacional. El papel de Brasil en MINUSTAH (la Misión de Estabilización de las Naciones Unidas en Haití) y en las intervenciones de paz en Timor, se han convertido en pilares de nacionalismo brasileño, que está evolucionando a una ‘particularidad brasileña’ del sur global. Yo sostendré que los políticos brasileños ven estas operaciones como escenarios de mutuo beneficio: Brasil aumenta sus credenciales de mantenimiento de paz, mientras estos estados frágiles obtienen seguridad interna, un primer paso hacia el desarrollo. Pero en realidad, ¿qué es lo que está sucediendo? Yo concluiré, abordando el tema de cómo el mantenimiento de paz en Haití y Timor, encaja dentro del gran diseño del Brasil hacia una extensión global a largo plazo. 这项研究分析了巴西如何担当维和行动中可见的领导力量，进而提高其国际地位，包括一直以来获得联合国安理会常任理事国席位的目标，除此以外还有更高的目标，即逐渐形成政治-经济、文化和军事全球化的诸形式，通过这些形式，这位葡语巨人得以阐明跨国影响的新形式。巴西在“联海稳定团”（MINUSTAH 联合国海地稳定特派团）以及东帝汶维和干预中发挥的作用，已成为巴西民族主义的基石，并正逐渐发展为一种特定的、全球南方的“巴西例外主义”。我认为这些行动被巴西政策制定者视为双赢的方案：巴西增加了其国际维和的资历，与此同时这些脆弱的国家获得了国内安全——这是迈向发展的第一步。然而，这是实际正在发生的事吗？我将通过解释海地与东帝汶的维和如何契合于巴西长远全球扩展的宏伟设计来结束全文。 이 연구는 어떻게 브라질이 UN 안보리의 상임이사국 지위를 얻고 또한 포르투갈어른 사용하는 거대한 인구가 새로운 형태의 초국적 영향력을 접합시킬 수 있는 정치적-경제적, 문화적, 군사적 세계화라는 더 큰 목적을 가지고 국제적인 지위를 높이기 위해서 평화유지 업무에서 가시적인 지도력을 맡았는가를 분석한다. MINUSTAH(하이티 유엔 안정화 임무)와 티모르 평화유지 개입에서 브라질의 역할은 브라질 민족주의의 초석이 되었다. 브라질 민족주의는 ‘브라질 예외주의”라는 독특한 지구적 남부(global South)로 진화하고 있다. 나는 브라질 평화유지군에 의해서 이러한 활동은 윈-윈 시나리오로 여겨진다고 주장할 것이다: 위태로운 국가들은 발전을 향한 첫 발걸음으로 국내의 안보를 이룩했지만, 브라질은 국제적인 평화유지의 신임을 쌓을 수 있었다. 그러나 실제로 어떤 일이 일어나고 있나? 나는 하이티와 티모르의 평화유지가 어떻게 장기적인 지구적 확대를 모색하는 브라질의 거대한 디자인에 적합한지를 언급하면서 결론을 맺고자 한다.

Atraves do Atlantico: Dialogos luso-brasileiros em torno da lingua portuguesa (1820-1930)

Abstract This article addresses the importance of the Portuguese language to Brazilian and Portuguese nationalism, focusing on the debate among writers and grammarians during the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. In both countries, the question of national language reflected anxieties about each nation’s role in a broader civilizing project; in Brazil, concerns were expressed about race and progress, while, in Portugal, preoccupations with decadence and tradition came to the fore. An intense dialogue emerged between the two nations’ literary communities that began when the idea was raised on both sides of the Atlantic that the future of the Portuguese language belonged to Brazil and led, eventually, to a more palpable compromise in which the two nations defended their common cultural roots.

A Teoria da Obnubilação Brasílica na História da Música Brasileira: Renato Almeida e "A Sinfonia da Terra"

Trata da construção historiográfica do nacionalismo musical brasileiro enfocando obras fundacionais. Busca mapear concepções de identidade nacional no quadro das teorias “cientificistas” que influenciaram o pensamento sócio-antropológico brasileiro, a crítica literária e, conforme propomos aqui, a historiografia musical. A Escola do Recife explicou o “caráter nacional” segundo duas teorias: o determinismo racial e o determinismo geográfico (mesologismo). Tais concepções influenciaram os autores das primeiras histórias da música brasileira. O presente estudo aborda uma das vertentes da teoria do "caráter nacional" do período inaugural da musicologia brasileira, norteada pelo determinismo geográfico. O livro de Renato Almeida (1928) é analisado à luz da teoria da “obnubilação brasílica” de Araripe Júnior, que via no parâmetro ‘meio’ (clima e geografia) fator de conformação da cultura, fundamentado no mesologismo. Com base nas idéias de Araripe sobre a literatura, analisaremos o capítulo onde Almeida propõe que a formação do “caráter nacional” brasileiro devia-se primordialmente ao impacto da natureza sobre o homem e a adaptação ao meio hostil dos trópicos, manifestando-se na música. A paisagem local foi critério historiográfico não apenas como “tópico” nacionalista, mas, sobretudo, na identificação de uma “expressividade” musical brasileira.