Interpretations Of Brazil Research Articles

Gilberto Freyre na Imprensa: a coluna "Pessoas, coisas e animais" na revista O Cruzeiro (1948-1967)

This article aims to discuss the weekly column entitled “Persons, things and animals” of the Magazine O Cruzeiro, written by Gilberto Freyre and published between 1948 and 1967. Since Casa-Grande & Senzala (1933), Freyre achieved a prominent place in the Brazilian public life, with an extensive, but poorly studied participation in the press, whose scope may have had a decisive role in the propagation his interpretation of Brazil. The Magazine O Cruzeiro (Rio de Janeiro) was the main channel used by Freyre to reach large audiences, on a national scale, capable of routinizing a certain image of the nation, including the “racial democracy” idea.

Goodbye, Mr. Portugal: Fiscal crisis, constitutional revolution, and the independence of Brazil (1808–22)

AbstractThis article provides a new interpretation of Brazil's independence that relates the process of political emancipation to the Portuguese empire's fiscal crisis at the beginning of the nineteenth century. We discuss the origins and impact of the fiscal crisis that followed the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal in 1807 and the transfer of the government to Rio de Janeiro. Quantitative evidence shows that expenditures with the palace and the army in Brazil were higher than those discussed in the previous literature. Moreover, the government was only able to finance itself by increasing loans via paper money issuances from the Bank of Brazil. Real wages show that the inflationary policy in the 1810s led to a rapid decline in living standards, fuelling dissatisfaction with the government. Our findings are consistent with views expressed in contemporary official correspondence and parliamentary debates.

MOVING AWAY FROM BRAZIL TO INTERPRET BRAZIL

The sociologist and anthropologist Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987), author of The Masters and the Slaves (1933), and historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda (1902-1982), author of Roots of Brazil (1936), are considered some of the main interpreters of Brazilian society, having produced works that continue to impact the understanding of Brazil, according to some researchers, these were the works that "invented Brazil". In this essay, I seek to analyze the impact of the experiences these authors had abroad during the production process of their best-known works. In the case of Gilberto Freyre, I highlight his academic training in the United States, and in the case of Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, his free training in Germany. I believe that due to different academic and cultural experiences abroad, Gilberto Freyre and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda developed different interpretations of Brazil. Based on the analysis of their biographies and their best-known works, I seek to highlight how some of the main interpretations of Brazilian society were only possible due to the "intellectual diaspora" in which these authors participated, trying to understand the influences permeating their work.

The Interpreters of Brazil: Sociopolitical Thought Based on Ideas Flow, Narrative and Realities in Search of a Brazilian National Identity

The Interpreters of Brazil: Sociopolitical Thought Based on Ideas Flow, Narrative and Realities in Search of a Brazilian National Identity

Formas do pensar: aportes metodológicos à filosofia brasileira

Por que não haveria uma filosofia brasileira? Eis a questão que nos move há tempos e que nos levou à identificação de alguns dos paradigmas abaixo. À medida que meditamos sobre ela, entrevimos novos cenários e perspectivas possíveis à elaboração de alguma resposta para a mesma. Neste momento, não oferecemos uma resposta, apenas elencamos possíveis paradigmas compreensivos acerca da originalidade de uma filosofia brasileira, a saber, uma caracterização das posturas: afirmativa, negativa, historiográfica, literário-filosófica, filosofia universitária, sabedoria primitiva, práxis-libertadora, filosofias das visões de mundo estrangeira, intérpretes do Brasil, metafilosofia, e filosofia das formas de pensamento. Essa caracterização não se encontra em muitos dos autores citados, mas a formulamos tão só como uma pré-compreensão de um trabalho mais amplo que estamos desenvolvendo em torno das metodologias filosóficas brasileiras e, em parte também, latino-americanas, cujo foco será responder à questão inicial. Dois esboços precedentes foram apresentados no IESMA e na UFOP. Cumpre-nos averiguar a coerência e a utilidade desses paradigmas como pretexto à questão “o que é filosofia brasileira”?

Interpreting Antares – a laboratory of Brazilian political-social relations

Incident in Antares, book by Érico Veríssimo, is divided into two parts. The first, Antares, refers to the historical process of formation of political-social relations in this imaginary municipality of Rio Grande do Sul’s interior. In the Incident part the author exposes the underbelly of Brazilian private life. In both, however, the author examines carefully the intricacies of an extremely corrupt and decomposed public-institutional apparatus, as if it were the interior of what could be the first national institution, the family. Starting from the idea that Antares can be historically read as a social laboratory of Brazilian political-social relations, the article takes as object the first part of the book so as to establish, through the events and facts presented, a reflective dialogue with other interpreters of Brazilian social thought. To this end, in order to preserve the historical coherence and ambience that inspired its creator, almost all the authors selected here either wrote before the publication of Veríssimo's book or are his contemporaries.Keywords: interpretations of Brazil; Brazilian social thought; Incident in Antares; authoritarianism; coronelismo.How to citeGERHARDT, Cleyton. Interpretando Antares – um laboratório das relações político-sociais à brasileira. Estudos Sociedade e Agricultura, Rio de Janeiro, v. 28, n. 3, p. 508-549, out. 2020. DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.36920/esa-v28n3-2.Received on July 18, 2020. Accepted on August 31, 2020.

ISEB - Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros

O desafio de compreender o papel e o sentido das estratégias desenvolvidas pelo ISEB - Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros, criado como órgão vinculado ao MEC em 1955, parte do entendimento das sociedades modernas como bloco histórico - a unidade diversa entre estrutura e superestrutura. No Brasil, os anos de 1950 foram palco de um gradual processo de consolidação do modelo econômico e concomitante processo de democratização e politização da sociedade civil que resultou na reconfiguração do papel do Estado capitalista brasileiro; o ISEB se constituiu parte dessas mudanças necessárias ao novo papel do Estado. Concebido como um núcleo de assessoramento estratégico, o ISEB resultou da iniciativa de um grupo de intelectuais, com significativa notoriedade e influência política, que colocou seus estudos acadêmicos a serviço da compreensão dos problemas brasileiros, tendo em vista as “[...] tarefas e matérias que o moderno Estado capitalista é incumbido de realizar.” (TOLEDO, 1997, p. 184). Mas a despeito de se constituir num centro de estudos dos problemas nacionais, os isebianos não tiveram voz ativa na máquina governamental; sua atuação se destacou no fomento e no desenvolvimento de estratégias educativas e formativas de natureza pós-universitária, voltadas à formação de intelectuais orgânicos disseminadores de determinado projeto de nação - o “nacional-desenvolvimentismo”. O objetivo do presente trabalho é compreender o papel do ISEB e o sentido do uso dessas estratégias educativas e formativas de natureza pós-universitária, seu legado acadêmico nas novas gerações de intelectuais e seu impacto político (in)direto nas novas formas de construção de entendimento e interpretação do Brasil.

The Sociological Invention of Brazil: Essays and the Social Sciences

This article aims to problematize the vision of Brazilian essayism from the 1920s to 40s crystallized by the social sciences and the uniformizing tendency of the different interpretations of Brazil developed through this form of sociological imagination. This analytical procedure is understood as a prerequisite for rethinking the status of the essay and its interrogatory capacity contemporaneous with the Brazilian social sciences and society.

Interpretations of Brazil and Global Capitalism

Certain interpretations of Brazil may be read as texts providing theorizations of global capitalism. Study of a set of these texts focusing on Florestan Fernandes’s A revolução burguesa no Brasil exposes the connections between the internal and the external and the articulations of past, present, and future in the production of inequality within and among countries. Renewed attention to them is likely to be fruitful for debates on global capitalism that are not of exclusive interest to the Brazilian case and to challenge a certain global division of intellectual labor. Certas interpretações do Brasil podem ser lidas como textos que fornecem teorizações do capitalismo global. O estudo de um conjunto de textos com foco no A revolução burguesa no Brasil, de Florestan Fernandes, expõe as conexões entre o interno e o externo e as articulações de passado, presente e futuro na produção da desigualdade dentro e entre os países. Uma atenção renovada para eles provavelmente é proveitosa para debates sobre o capitalismo global que não são de interesse exclusivo do caso brasileiro e para desafiar certa divisão global do trabalho intelectual.

Bolsonaro and the Inequalities of Geographical Development in Brazil

Bolsonaro and the Inequalities of Geographical Development in Brazil Nelson Rojas de Carvalho and Orlando Alves dos Santos Junior The election of Jair Bolsonaro to the Brazilian presidency in 2018 shocked the world. Renowned for his conservative views and accused by many of defending fascist ideology, Bolsonaro ran as the candidate for the previously insignificant Social Liberal Party (PSL), as part of a coalition calling itself “Brazil Above Everything, God Above All.” This coalition was formed by the PSL and another small party, the Brazilian Labor Renewal Party (PRTB), with which Bolsonaro’s vice president, General Mourão, is affiliated. In the second round of the elections, Bolsonaro ran against left-wing candidate Fernando Haddad, affiliated with the Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT), and won with 55.13 percent of votes cast, to Haddad’s 44.87 percent. This stunning victory has led to various interpretations, in an attempt to comprehend and explain how a candidate with such conservative views was victorious in a country that between 2003 and 2017 was governed by a progressive left-wing party, the PT. Main explanations for Bolsonaro’s victory include the strong feelings of opposition toward the PT that have swept the country, and rising conservatism across society at a time when a general movement toward conservative values is being observed around the globe. The purpose of this essay is to problematize these explanations through an analysis of the votes won by Bolsonaro and Haddad in the second round of the elections, and to raise some possible explanations that consider the complexity and heterogeneity of electoral behavior in Brazil, as well as the geographical expressions and implications of this. We start with the understanding that electoral behavior is complex and cannot be explained by any one single cause. It is related to structural variables such as voters’ social and demographic traits (Berelson, Lazarfeld, & McPhee, 1954) and party identification (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1980), as well as to variables such as propaganda strategies used by parties and candidates and the struggle to set the political agenda and the main issues (Schattschneider, 1960). Given this perspective, explanations [End Page 198] for Bolsonaro’s victory should be sought by looking at a combination of various concurrent factors. In addition, it is important to remember that narratives used to explain the election results can also be contested, as these, too, are a part of the struggle to classify society (Bourdieu, 2001). In line with approaches from critical theory (e.g. Brenner, 2010) and critical geography (e.g. Harvey 2001), it is our understanding that the interpretations of Brazil’s electoral results should take into consideration inequalities in geographical development and put “emphasis on the political and ideologically mediated, socially contested— and therefore malleable—character of urban spaces [and of territories in general]. In other words, their continuous (re)construction as places and environments, and the result of socially and historically specific power relations” (Brenner, 2010, p. 21). Given the above, we point out some aspects that we believe should be taken into consideration in any analysis of the electoral results that won Bolsonaro the presidency of Brazil, and their different geographical expressions across the country. emerging ultra-neoliberalism and the end of the polarization between the pt and the psdb The 2018 elections marked the end of a long cycle of partisan competition between the center-left PT and the center-right Social Democratic Party (PSDB). These two parties had faced off against each other in the second round of the previous four presidential elections (2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014). The break from this cycle in 2018 was not due to weakness within the PT, which managed to elect a significant number of federal deputies and did field a candidate (Haddad) in the second round. Rather, PSDB’s poor showing in the 2018 elections and, above all, the failure of this party to reach the second round, attests to the fact that the country’s political center shifted during these elections in a way that benefited the far right, which until then had never achieved any significant political or electoral sway in Brazil. A combination of several factors was undoubtedly behind the election of...

Puericultura, eugenia e interpretações do Brasil na construção do Departamento Nacional da Criança (1940)

Resumo: A criação do Departamento Nacional da Criança em 1940, em meio à crescente incorporação das demandas sociais pelo Estado durante a era Vargas, pode ser considerada um marco na história das políticas de assistência materno-infantil no Brasil. Este trabalho, ao abordar os primórdios da estruturação dos serviços federais de proteção materno-infantil no país, analisa a forma como os médicos puericultores buscaram delimitar uma esfera própria de atuação profissional no âmbito do Estado, defendendo a implementação de um intrincado leque de ações em saúde, educação e assistência. Argumenta-se que os puericultores foram em grande medida informados por interpretações do Brasil que indicavam o quadro de pobreza e desnutrição da população como os principais obstáculos à construção da nação, lançando mão da linguagem da eugenia a fim de acentuarem a dimensão social dos problemas da criança no país, como a mortalidade infantil e a delinquência juvenil.

Retratos não-modelares da modernidade: hegemonia e contra-hegemonia no pensamento brasileiro

O presente artigo almeja apurar no seio do pensamento social brasileiro a existência de elementos que indiquem alternativas a noções sociológicas consolidadas acerca da modernidade. Indaga-se sobre as premissas que subjazem imagens do Brasil talhadas em algumas obras ditas “clássicas” de interpretação de nossa formação social. Em seguida, busca-se identificar peças-chave do quadro de referência que, desde longa data, circunscreve os horizontes de ideação sociológica acerca da experiência moderna. Logo após, são contempladas as reflexões de analistas contemporâneos a respeito do valor heurístico de retratos do país delineados no seio do pensamento brasileiro. Por fim, à luz de programas e abordagens da teoria social contemporânea, lança-se mão de insights e sugestões ensaiadas em tais interpretações “clássicas” com o propósito de indicar saídas a alguns dos impasses e limites da sociologia da modernidade sublinhados na atualidade.

JESSÉ SOUZA: A RELAPSE INTO THE INTERPRETATION OF UNIVERSAL MODERNITY?

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to discuss Jessé Souza’s interpretation of Brazil. To this end I develop two interrelated arguments. The first, presented in the first part, is the idea that Jessé Souza in Selective modernity uncritically absorbs a certain ambiguity present in Max Weber’s theory of modern rationalization: namely, the Weberian idea that, on the one hand, singularities define the process of formation of modern societies, and, on the other, the European model of society would expand to all parts of the world. These orient Jessé Souza’s critique of the classical interpretation that Brazilian modernity is atavistic. The second argument is a logical consequence of the first, intending to show that his concept of selective modernity makes the same mistake of assuming an ideal of modernity upon which Brazil, as a historical reality, should model itself.

Looking through a glass, darkly: the unsolved problem of Brazilian democracy

ABSTRACTAlthough recent interpretations of Brazil’s current political crisis are not wrong in bringing out the institutional problems related to presidencialismo de coalisão and with the judicialization of politics, they do not take into account an important factor fueling the crisis: the acute decrease in the legitimacy of political institutions, and particularly of the president. After briefly showing that this decrease cannot be credited to poor economic performance, I analyze the big media coverage of President Dilma Rousseff and of her party (Workers’ Party), to reveal its tremendous negative bias, if compared to other political figures and parties. I conclude by pointing out that the oligopolistic hold that the large politically active conservative media conglomerates have on the flux of political information must be take into account in political analysis and that it is a major problem for the stability of democracy in Brazil.

De doença da civilização a problema de saúde pública: câncer, sociedade e medicina brasileira no século XX

Resumo Este artigo analisa o enquadramento do câncer pela medicina brasileira em três diferentes momentos do século XX, com o objetivo de verificar a transformação do câncer de uma enfermidade ligada à ideia de civilização a um problema de saúde pública, vinculado a precárias condições de vida e às dificuldades de acesso e funcionamento dos serviços de saúde. A partir de artigos científicos e discursos de médicos nacionais reputados, procura-se mostrar como as visões acerca da relação entre câncer e sociedade mudaram. Argumenta-se que essa transformação se relaciona principalmente a dois diferentes aspectos: o processo de estruturação dos saberes e práticas da medicina e o cruzamento dos conhecimentos médicos sobre a doença com interpretações sobre o desenvolvimento do país em diferentes momentos.

Looking for a forgotten Subject Matter: the Place of Education in the Recent Interpretation of Brazil.

Este texto se propoe a analisar o lugar reservado a educacao nas contemporâneas interpretacoes do Brasil. Para isso, escolhemos um conjunto de obras publicadas a partir do final do seculo XX, ocasiao em que se avolumava as comemoracoes/discussoes sobre os 500 anos do descobrimento, ate o ano de 2015, quando se instalou a crise que, como vimos, resultou no golpe civil parlamentar que destituiu a Presidenta eleita, Dilma Roussef, da Presidencia da Republica. O artigo defende que, se, ao longo do seculo XX, o acesso a educacao foi panaceia para todos os males da nacao, no seculo XXI, interpretar o Brasil tornou-se um exercicio que permite abordar a permanencia de quem chegou a escola, ampliando o foco do acesso para a inclusao, procurando entender, mais do que a transposicao de limites, a aproximacao, o fazer juntos que a quase universalizacao da escola basica possibilita. Mas tambem impoe entender as distâncias atualizadas e ampliadas entre a casa grande e a escola publica, no cultivo dos privilegios de classe e de raca de longeva tradicao no Brasil.

O susto e a ordem: o barroco como ferramenta de análise da formação do Brasil

Expondo a relevância do Barroco enquanto possibilidade de interpretação do Brasil, toma-se como pressuposto as dúvidas lançadas pelo mundo moderno à constituição do sujeito ibérico e, igualmente, português. Desse modo, diante dos questionamentos promovidos à sua cosmologia, de tradição tomista, e da derrota deste projeto, tal como formulado por Richard Morse, pretende-se observar como esses elementos se enveredam na colonização do Brasil. A nova terra, contudo, leva às últimas consequências seus questionamentos, restando apenas o Barroco enquanto alternativa para a construção de algum sentido para sua vida e, consequentemente, a construção de um novo povo.

Legitimising Emerging Power Diplomacy: an Analysis of Government and Media Discourses on Brazilian Foreign Policy under Lula

This study analyses whether Brazilian foreign policy under Lula successfully legitimised the country's international identity as a rising power in the eyes of the domestic and international media. Based on a constructivist framework, we have applied French Discourse Analysis to a corpus of 36 official addresses by the President of the Republic and the Minister of Foreign Relations and 137 news articles from four news outlets, two Brazilian and two international, concerning two diplomatic episodes deemed representative of Brazil's quest for greater pre-eminence: the leadership of MINUSTAH (2004) and the Nuclear Deal signed with Iran and Turkey (2010). Results show that official discourse characterises Brazil's identity as a rising power chiefly by South-South diplomacy, while media discourse was more heterogeneous, being the discursive formation of each news outlet determinant in explaining their interpretation of Brazil's international identity.

A “HISTÓRIA” DO ATRASO BRASILEIRO UMA RELEITURA DE CELSO FURTADO E RAYMUNDO FAORO NA ÓTICA DA NOVA ECONOMIA INSTITUCIONAL DE DOUGLASS NORTH

O objetivo do ensaio é buscar, nas obras de Celso Furtado e Raymundo Faoro, explicações para o atraso brasileiro que, atualmente, ainda pode ser percebido em função da pobreza e desigualdades sociais que afetam uma grande parcela da população. Trata-se de um ensaio teórico e o método consiste numa releitura desses intérpretes do Brasil com base num terceiro autor (Douglass North), representante do que se convencionou chamar de Nova Economia Institucional. Como principal conclusão, destaca-se que os três autores, ao analisarem os problemas que afetam o desenvolvimento de um país, possuem em comum a ênfase nas instituições, na história e no papel das elites.

Ideias em outro lugar? Constituição liberal e codificação do direito privado na virada do século XIX para o século XX no Brasil

Based on assumptions of systems theory in a critical perspective, this paper analyzes the relationship between social structure and semantics in the Brazilian State at the turn of nineteenth century, specifically considering the issues of liberal constitutionalism and codification of private law. First, the author seeks to depart from the model of “interpreters of Brazil” in order to characterize the Brazilian State as a territorial political-legal organization within the modern society as world society. In the second section, the author discusses the difficulties in adopting a civil code during the Brazilian Empire. In this regard, he points to the difficulty of liberal legal ideas under non-liberal local socioeconomic structures. In the third part of the article, the author deals with the conditions of emergence of the 1891 Constitution, emphasizing the shift of meaning and function of the liberal legal-political ideas in the context of the Brazilian State of the “First Republic”. He then addresses the conditions of emergence and the practical meaning of the Civil Code of 1916, considering again the displacement of liberal legal ideas in the context of the Brazilian state. Finally, the author takes distance from the notion of “misplaced ideas” to complete with the paradoxical formulation that liberal ideas, in that context, acted as both ideas in another place (society in the scope of the Brazilian State) and in the same place (the world society).