Century Brazil Research Articles

Textile design: print of life in the history of art

This article is based on research on the evolution of textile printing and its relationship with cultural and artistic memory in the 20th century in Brazil and specifically at Companhia Têxtil Ferreira Guimarães. Through the memories and objects of individual and/or collective memory, represented through images in the narratives of cultural, social and political history and those related to research in terms of textile heritage, we can rethink Ferreira Guimarães' relationship with the artistic scene and cultural history of the city of Juiz de Fora. The result of this research is the growing perception that textile design is one of the many forms of representation of personal and social history and constantly seeks its references and inspirations in works and artists enshrined in the history of art.

Works analogous to slavery: an analysis of slaves in the 21st century in Brazil

Resumo O presente artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre trabalhos análogos à escravidão no Brasil e que têm sido bastante utilizados dentro das práticas empresariais do capital global. Trata-se de tema pouco explorado nas pesquisas em Administração. Nesse sentido, o objetivo central, neste artigo, é analisar os desdobramentos dos trabalhos análogos à escravidão no século XXI. Quanto ao método, usou-se o enfoque materialista histórico-dialético, além de uma abordagem qualitativa contemplada em pesquisas bibliográficas e documentais. Para análise da investigação, entre casos notificados nos anos de 1995 a 2022, foram utilizados os dados secundários de autuação do Ministério do Trabalho e Previdência, bem como sua “lista suja” do trabalho escravo e, ainda, os dados do Radar SIT. Além disso, este escrito tem aporte de matérias jornalísticas que retratam as fiscalizações do trabalho escravo moderno, possibilitando assim exemplificações de suas práticas na coetaneidade. Como resultado, percebeu-se que a própria falta de políticas públicas mais assertivas e a fragilidade da aplicabilidade penal da legislação brasileira têm sido fatores de dificuldade para a erradicação do trabalho escravo moderno no país.

Accounting records and slavery in 19th century Brazil: a historical approach

Resumo A presente pesquisa tem por propósito analisar o papel da contabilidade no sistema escravagista do Brasil oitocentista, investigando os registros e inventários do tráfico negreiro e também da contabilização dos compradores de escravizados. O estudo teve abordagem qualitativa ao utilizar a pesquisa historiográfica, quantos aos meios, foi bibliográfica e documental com objetivo exploratório. Parte da pesquisa documental foi realizada no banco de dados on-line Slave Voyages e presencialmente no Instituto Histórico e Geográfico de Pernambuco (IAHGP). Com base na análise das fontes documentais do ciclo da escravidão desde o tráfico negreiro até a compra dos escravizados pelos senhores das fazendas, os escravizados eram registrados contabilmente como uma mercadoria e/ou propriedade para gerar riquezas. Considera-se que a contabilidade reproduziu nos seus registros e demonstrações contábeis a naturalização das relações de poder instituídas pelo sistema colonial. Este estudo contribuiu para reflexão acerca da função dos profissionais da contabilidade que, de uma perspectiva mais crítica, poderiam ter compreendido o processo de objetificação ao qual foram submetidos os escravizados, mas também aponta que cooperaram no movimento abolicionista.

Apresentação - Dossiê Temático

Literature, like other art forms, has always served an instrument for resistance, which through various discursive strategies responds to manifestations of oppression, despotism and dogmatism of various kinds. Above all, 20th century literary production — a century that witnessed a proliferation of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, armed conflicts, wars and genocides, despite humanity's extraordinary progress in multiple areas — was marked by a strong sense of social, cultural or political engagement, which also extends to literary creation in the 21st century. Also in the Portuguese-speaking countries, one of the recurrent themes in modern and contemporary literary production has been the criticism towards the arbitrariness by authoritarian governments, as is the case of the Salazar regime — which stifled Portuguese society for over forty years and prolonged colonial exploitation in Africa — and by the dictatorial regimes established in the second half of the last century in Brazil and other Latin American countries. The aim of this dossier is to present some expressions of critical thinking on the literary production that deals with this subject. Therefore, eight studies devoted to the analysis of works by Portuguese and Brazilian authors who, at different times and through different forms of expression, reacted against authoritarian tendencies in Lusophone societies are gathered here.

Rethinking Slavery's Abolition in Ceará Through an Engagement with maritime Marronage

In late January 1881, a group of anti-slavery raftsmen blockaded the port of Fortaleza to slave traders declaring that enslaved persons would no longer be shipped to Brazil’s southern plantations out of Ceará’s northeastern harbor. The blockade was a decisive moment in the rising abolitionist movement in Brazil and culminated in slavery’s abolition in Ceará in 1884, four years before the national prohibition of the institution. Traditional narratives on slavery’s abolition in Ceará emphasize the development of a middle-class led, radical abolitionist movement in the province while lionizing the role played by Francisco José do Nascimento, a free man of color, in leading the raftsmen’s charge against human trafficking. Recent research on the raftsmen’s blockade highlights the role played by the formerly enslaved man José Luiz Napoleão in the anti-slavery strike. This article revisits the 1881 anti-slavery strike and places it in the context of maritime marronage in nineteenth century Brazil. By probing the long tradition of fugitive slaves using their access to the sea and their skills as sailors and boatmen to escape slavery and relocate from one province to another, this article demonstrates that the world of maritime labor provided opportunities and challenges for slave resistance, and fugitive mariners created a culture of contesting the geography of slavery in Brazil.

Afro-Catholic Festivals in the Americas: Performance, Representation, and the Making of Black Atlantic Tradition

Afro-Catholic Festivals in the Americas: Performance, Representation, and the Making of Black Atlantic Tradition

Book Review: Religious Conflict in Brazil: Protestants, Catholics and the Rise of Religious Pluralism in the Early Twentieth Century Brazil

Book Review: Religious Conflict in Brazil: Protestants, Catholics and the Rise of Religious Pluralism in the Early Twentieth Century Brazil

A saúde ocular e o Programa Saúde na Escola: uma pesquisa documental

ABSTRACT Eye healthcare interventions and prevention of blindness at school have been developed since the last century in Brazil, following changes in models of care and health at school. This is a qualitative research of documentary analysis that aimed to analyze the normative documents on the subject of eye health in schools in Brazil, especially within the scope of the School Health Program (PSE) and the historical trajectory of eye healthcare policies. For data treatment, content analysis was adopted, and the corpus of the study consisted of 48 normative acts. Among the normative acts, it was possible to identify Presidential Decrees, Public Consultations, Ministerial Decrees, and Interministerial Decrees. It became evident that a comprehensive and coordinated eye healthcare is still a challenge for the Unified Health System (SUS) due to the interruption of initiatives that guarantee access to healthcare and the little incentive to carry out these practices in detriment of other PSE actions. It was also found that the debate on eye healthcare actions in the school environment dates back to the National Policy of Care in Ophthalmology, revealing a pioneering work on the subject in Primary Health Care.

Educating bodies for the nation: schools, masculinity and transnational knowledge in 19th century Brazil

This paper discusses the senses and meanings attributed to physical culture, its conceptions, functions, and role within nineteenth-century Brazil’s educational system. By focusing on diverse kinds of schools as spaces of reference for children and adolescents and the efforts to shape their bodies, this work analyzes the importance of youth for national projects and how educators tried to represent young ideal bodies in school curricula as they made the transition from infancy to adulthood. It also shows how the body is a complex web of ideas and representations, a territory fought over within state institutional spaces. By understanding the “new behaviors” that the modern state wished to promote, the present paper focuses on how physical education shaped health and hygiene conditions through bodily exercises and the pivotal role played by schools within the strategy to transform young students into healthy, strong, disciplined citizens ready to serve the nation.

Cutting Down Trees Does not Build Prosperity: On the Continued Decoupling of Amazon Deforestation and Economic Development in 21st Century Brazil

Background and Aims We present evidence examining spatial and temporal patterns in forest cover changes and economic indicators in Brazilian Amazonia. Specifically, we tested two predictions embedded in arguments used by influential interest groups: (i) indicators of economic progress should increase where there is less forest and (ii) areas with most recent deforestation should have increased economic indicators. Methods Complementary methods assessed annual variation in economic indicators across 794 administrative districts (municipalities) covering 4.9 Mkm2 of the Brazilian Amazon from 2002 to 2019. A representative subset of municipalities was used to compare economic and socioeconomic indicators across municipalities with contrasting forest cover. Results Contrasting results between the full and a representative subset of municipalities suggested that municipality-level economic indicators cannot be directly attributed to the loss of natural forests. There was no association between forest loss and economic (average salary) or socioeconomic indicators (existence of sanitation plans and internet connectivity). The economic indicators of municipalities with less than 40% forest cover in 1986 were no different to that of similar municipalities with more than 60% forest cover from 1986 to 2019. Conclusion The evidence contradicted both predictions tested. Reducing forest cover does not appear to directly promote socioeconomic progress. Any localized associations between forest cover and poverty most likely result from other more plausible alternatives including lack of opportunity and a widespread failure to effectively implement and enforce existing policies within the local socioeconomic context. Implications for Conservation Our findings support evidence from across the tropics that shows deforestation does not necessarily generate transformative and equitable food production systems or lead to poverty alleviation.

Subversão pelo humor: A «Pequena história da República» de Graciliano Ramos

In this essay we intend to comment Graciliano Ramo’s «Pequena história da República», in a way to observe the satiric mode and the didactic character of this biography about Brazil. During the analysis, we have stablished dialogues between Ramos’s work and other manuals that have been produced along 20th century in Brazil.

Characterisation of Contemporary Slavery through the Analysis of Accommodation Conditions

Slave labour or work in conditions analogous to slavery continues on all continents and sometimes tends to be mistaken for “simple” violations of labour laws. Therefore, this work aims to identify parameters that allow distinguishing between situations of non-compliance with labour legislation and modern rural slavery in Brazil through the analysis of accommodation conditions. To achieve this objective, a bibliographic research was developed in six databases on sanitary, accommodation and clothing issues of enslaved workers in the 19th century in Brazil. The resulting data were compared with data from a sample of 392 proven cases of neoslavery detected between 2007 and 2017 in Brazil. The analysis focused on the general conditions of the physical structures necessary to protect workers against bad weather, animal attacks, violence, sanitary conditions to support physiological and asepsis needs, as well as the clothing provided and used. Similarities were found in the accommodation conditions between enslaved and neoenslaved workers in Brazil between the 19th and 21st centuries. The availability of sanitary conditions (toilets), rest (bedrooms/dormitories), and the general housing structure are very similar. Future research may point towards identifying other parameters and developing a tool to help authorities unequivocally identify neoslavery situations.

Review: Automatic Religion: Nearhuman Agents of Brazil and France, by Paul Christopher Johnson

Review: <i>Automatic Religion: Nearhuman Agents of Brazil and France</i>, by Paul Christopher Johnson

Populism in the XXI Century in Brazil: A Dangerous Ambiguity

In this paper, I hope to shed light on the social and institutional transformation processes in Brazil in the 21st century, contrasting what can be understood as two populist waves. The first is the one led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as a left-wing leader whose government has been internationally recognized for implementing distributive economic policies (inclusion of the poorest majority) and inclusive social policies (inclusion of racial and sexual minorities). The second is the right-wing wave led by Jair Bolsonaro, internationally recognized, but rather for embracing a discourse contrary to the inclusive practices adopted by their predecessor. Thus, the question I want to answer is: How can the same concept fit into such different phenomena? My hypothesis is that we are facing two patterns of representative relations. An inclusive one that aims to expand the number of groups that can be properly represented within the political collectivity, increasing its pluralism, and an exclusive one that aims to restrict them, shortening the plurality of groups and identities that forms the people. In both, the theme of racial and sexual minorities becomes a priority. Through this discussion, I want to emphasize the substantive and existential quality of the differences between these two representative patterns that are sometimes neglected or reduced by those who use the concept of populism to attribute some kind of symmetry or ideological convergence between them.

The right to shine: Poverty, consumption and (de) politicization in neoliberal Brazil

This article discusses the political impacts on the poor’s subjectivity provoked by neoliberal policies such as inclusion through consumption in 21st century Brazil. From 2009 to 2014, we carried out ethnographic research with new consumers in a low-income neighbourhood – Morro da Cruz – in the city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. We argue that consumption does not necessarily depoliticize human experience, as it is broadly assumed to have done in the scholarly literature on neoliberalism. In a society in which the poor has obtained goods through hierarchical and servile relationships, the possibility of buying things provides a micro sphere for recognition, though not in terms of classic collective action or even hidden subversion. Coupled with the momentum towards a national ‘economic emergence’, status goods became vehicles of an emergent subjectivity, which we conceptualize as ‘the right to shine’. The right to shine are subtle forms of class and racial self-worth, and individual and interpersonal empowerment that revealed interclass defiance.

The Military Influence on Industrial Policies in Brazil During the 20th and Early 21st Centuries

The defense industry is a part of a country’s industrial base and often has multiple uses, serving both civilian and military purposes. It does not stand alone and is a significant part of the country’s industry. From this perspective, the article demonstrates the military influence on Brazil’s industrialization policies. This influence was not always vested with legitimacy, as in the 1964 coup d’état and the subsequent military government (1964-1985). Furthermore, this influence was not always caused by internal reasons. Political-military events, such as World War I, and especially World War II, have directly affected the country’s industrialization policies. The methodology employed is a review of policies, institutions, laws, and historical facts. The conclusions highlight that during the 20th century Brazil went from the stage of not producing defense equipment to the status of one of the largest exporters in the world. This role underwent profound changes in the 1990s and 2000s. However, if a new military regime takes power in Brazil, when this regime ends, what happened in the 1990s may repeat itself, with deindustrialization and the subsequent dismantling of what remains of the defense industry, which would also affect the civilian industry.

Ethnopharmacological studies in 21st century Brazil: a systematic review

Brazil is a country with a large party of the population, including traditional communities, that use plants for medicinal purposes, however, the prospect of drugs derived from plants is still little explored. The present study aimed to carry out a systematic review of the literature, in an attempt to understand how studies involving ethnopharmacology have developed in Brazil during the 21st century. The Scielo and PubMed data bases were used, using the keywords “ethnopharmacology” and “Brazil”. In a total of 212 articles were selected and the highest number of publications in the years of, respectively: 2018 (9.43%), 2020 (8.96%) and 2014 (8.96%). Experimental studies (laboratory studies, such as phytochemicals and biological activity) accounted 41.98% of the total, followed by literature reviews (36.32%) and ethno-directed interviews (20.28%). The results showed that the most common types of studies were popular use and biological activity (33.96%), followed by studies of popular use, phytochemical composition and biological activity (21.70%) and ethno-directed survey (20.75%). The most cited botanical families were Fabaceae (8.49%), Asteraceae (5.19%) and Lamiaceae (2.83%) and the main biological activities evaluated were anti-inflammatory (10.85%), antimicrobial (10 .85%), antimalarial (5.19%) and antioxidant (4.72%). Among the traditional communities surveyed were rural communities (50%) and quilombola communities (13.64%). The present study indicates that there was a significant increase in publications involving ethnopharmacology in Brazil, mainly from 2010, associated with a greater diversification of the researched objectives.

Views on the nobility in 19 th century Brazil: Political and historiographical discourses

Resumo Este artigo analisa o conceito de nobreza na cultura luso-brasileira desde o século XVII até o XIX. A abordagem prioriza a continuidade em detrimento da ideia moderna de transição. A opção por um amplo recorte temporal visa explorar contextos históricos em que distintas linguagens políticas sobre a “nobreza” foram pertinentes. A tese central é que, apesar das semânticas liberal e democráticas disponíveis no Brasil oitocentista, o conceito de nobreza típico do corporativismo ibérico continua a disputar o contexto linguístico da época. Essa investigação se baseia na história do discurso político e usa como fontes jornais, correspondências e obras historiográficas. Particular atenção é aqui concedida ao pensamento do historiador Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, principal defensor da Alta Nobreza hereditária.

Themes of Administrative Law in the Brazilian legal Doctrine of the 19th Century

The paper aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the Brazilian legal culture using the content analysis method to examine the main “themes” discussed by the science of administrative law in 19th century Brazil. A quantitative analysis of the main subjects discussed at the time by experts in administrative law allows us to identify the most relevant objects of regulation, the main concerns of the doctrine, the general function attributed to administrative law, and the effects expected from its incidence on society. In addition, a diachronic analysis highlights the developments that occurred in legal-administrative thought during the period.

Military Influence on Industrial Policy in Brazil During the 20th and Early 21st Centuries

The defense industry is part of a country’s industrial base and often has multiple uses, serving both civilian and military purposes. It does not stand alone and is a significant part of the country’s industry. From this perspective, this article demonstrates the Brazilian military’s influence on industrialization policies. Such influence has not always been vested with legitimacy, as in the 1964 coup d’état and the subsequent military government (1964-1985), nor has it always been due to internal reasons. Political-military events, such as World War I and especially World War II, have directly affected the country’s industrialization policies. The methodology employed in this article is a review of policies, institutions, laws, and historical facts. The conclusions highlight that during the 20th century Brazil went from the stage of not producing defense equipment to the status of one of the largest exporters in the world. This role underwent profound changes in the 1990s, and 2000s. However, there are threats that a new dictatorship could be established in Brazil. If the country suffers another democratic-era coup d’état, what happened in the 1990s could repeat itself. That is, deindustrialization and the subsequent dismantling of what remains of the defense industry, which would also affect the civilian industry.