Research Project Blog

Many aspects of Brazilian life drastically changed under the rule of Getulio Vargas and his “Estado Novo.” In my previous studies here at the College, I have learned about different dictatorships throughout the world and I have always found gender roles during these times very interesting. I decided to conduct my research on the role and expectations of women under Vargas. In my previous Spanish classes, I have studied the expectations of women under the rule of Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco and I believe that it would be interesting to see how women under Vargas compare and contrast in this regard. Also, I believe that my major in Political Science will provide a political background that is important when looking at such a politicized time period.

In my research I hope to look at the portrayal of women by the state as well as the political, social, and cultural expectations of women during this time period. I believe that through the analysis of both primary and secondary sources, I will be able to capture a full picture of the role women played in the dictatorship. Also, I think that it will be interesting to look at the progression of political rights that occurred. I know that during this time, women gained the right to vote and would like to study the progression that led to this political advance.

The role of women in Vargas’ “Estado Novo” is important because it still effects women in modern Brazil. To fully understand the modern portrayals and expectations of women in Brazil today, it is important to first study the history that led to the modern state. Through my research I hope to be able to learn more about the history of women’s rights in Brazil and how it compares to the US as well as other countries.

Luckily for this topic, we will be discussing gender roles under the dictatorship briefly in class and the Brazil Reader offers many primary sources from the era. For primary sources, I plan to utilize many different primary sources from the era. I am currently working on trying to find pictures that I could analyze as primary sources, but as of right now many of my sources come from the Brazil Reader. Some of these sources include a speech given by Vargas himself as well as first-hand accounts from women living under Vargas.

Secondary Sources:

From class:

“Norma Fraga: Race Class Education and the Estado Novo” by Jerry Davila

“Unskilled Workers, Skilled Housewife” by Barbara Weinstein

Outside sources found:

Barros, Gelka. “BELA E SADIA! A MULHER NAS PÁGINAS DA REVISTA ALTEROSA (1939-1945) DURANTE O ESTADO NOVO E O PROCESSO DE AMERICANIZAÇÃO DO BRASIL.” Comunicação E Sociedade 32, (July 2017): 191-209. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 13, 2018).

Joel Wolfe, “From Working Mothers to Housewives” in Gender and Populism in Latin America:  Passionate Politics ed. Karen Kampwirth. Penn State Press, 2010. 

Primary Sources:

de Masi Zero, Joana, “Ordinary People: Five Lives Affected by Vargas-Era Reforms” in The Brazil Reader eds. Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti, p.218-221.

Vargas, Getulio, “New Year’s Address” in The Brazil Reader eds. Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti, p. 186-189.

Galvao, Patricia, “Where They Talk about Rosa Luxemburg”in The Brazil Reader eds. Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti, p.166-171.

 

Research Project

For my potential research project I am hoping to discuss the music that moves Brazil. Specifically, I would like to research the Samba and its importance in modern Brazil’s music. Samba is not only a musical genre, but also a dance style. Arriving with African roots to Bahia, Brazil through the sambia de roda- samba quickly spread to the rest of Brazil starting in the 17th century. While Samba came to Brazil in the 17th century, its significance stayed and spread  until present day.

While analyzing Samba, primary sources are important to my research. Having first hand accounts from artists, composers, and dancers enhances my reader’s understanding of Samba. In my research I will focus on the history of Samba, but I primarily will focus on Samba in the 21st century. Gilberto Gil, a composer and a minister of culture in Brazil, submitted to Unesco an application declaring Samba as a a “Cultural Heritage of Humanity”. His involvement  with Samba over the past 60  years contributes to the historical research along with other primary sources.

The scholarly secondary sources are also important to my research. By reading secondary sources and incorporating them into my research, I will be able to give the reader an unbiased account of the history of Samba. Additionally, the secondary sources will contribute to modern Samba in Brazil. One of my secondary sources is Hello, hello Brazil: Popular music in the making of modern Brazil, which also is the book I will be analyzing later in the semester for this class. Having this book pre-assigned for this class only supported the credibility and importance to modern Brazil’s musical history.

In this research I hope to discover two things. First, the history of music in Brazil and some of the important composers, musicians, or DJ’s that helped shape the music movement in Brazil. Secondly, I hope to discover the historical importance of Samba and the relevance that it has in modern Brazil’s music scene today and in the past. Music and dance are important to every culture, Brazil non the less. By understanding an important music and dance in Brazil, we can better understand the culture and social impact.

Scholarly Secondary Sources:

  • McCann, Bryan, 1968. 2004. Hello, hello Brazil: Popular music in the making of modern brazil. Durham: Duke University Press.
  • Vianna, Hermano, 1960, and John Charles Chasteen 1955. 1999. The mystery of samba: Popular music and national identity in brazil. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
  • Shaw, Lisa, 1966. 1999. The social history of the brazilian samba. Aldershot, England;Brookfield, VT;: Ashgate.
  • Hertzman, Marc A. 2013;2014;. Making samba: A new history of race and music in brazil. Durham: Duke University Press.

Primary Sources:

  • Jones, Quincy (2002). Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. Three Rivers Press.
  • Pele Telefone, o primeiro samba. CD release.
  • MYERS, R., and G. GIL. 1990. brazilian popular-music in bahia, the politics of the future an interview with gil,gilberto. Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 9 : 297-309.

 

Research Blog Post

I will study the history of the environmental movement in Brazil. How/when did this movement begin? What forces caused it? Also the history involving deforestation of Brazil. There is the historical context of European countries exporting the Brazilwood to Europe. This investigation will also uncover the changes in motives of the people that are removing the trees.

The Portuguese were the first to export brazilwood, they were selling it to many countries including the British who used it as a dye. It was high in value due to the red color it produced.

I am interested in this project as a Biology major and environmental studies minor, studying the progression of the movement in a country that is not mine. Personally I am interested in agriculture and how that may be a motive

 

Primary Sources

Dean, Warren. “The First Wave.” In The Brazil Reader History, Culture, Politics, edited by Robert Levine and John Crocitti. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.

Hemming, John. “Noble Savages.” In The Brazil Reader History, Culture, Politics, edited by Robert Levine and John Crocitti. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.

“Map of Brazil, from Miller Atlas by Pedro and Jorge Reinel, Lopo Homen, Cartographers and Antonio de Holanda, Miniaturist, 1519 | Bridgeman Images: DeAgostini Library – Credo Reference.” Accessed February 13, 2018. https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/bridgemandeag/map_of_brazil_from_miller_atlas_by_pedro_and_jorge_reinel_lopo_homen_cartographers_and_antonio_de_holanda_miniaturist_1519/0.

 

Secondary Sources

Dean, Warren. Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber: A Study in Environmental History. Cambridge University Press, 1987.

“Dyes and Dyewood | Iberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History – Credo Reference.” Accessed February 13, 2018. https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/abcibamrle/dyes_and_dyewood/0.

Lockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil. Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Mittermeier, Russell A., Gustavo A.b. Da Fonseca, Anthony B. Rylands, and Katrina Brandon. “A Brief History of Biodiversity Conservation in Brazil.” Conservation Biology 19, no. 3 (June 1, 2005): 601–7. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00709.x.

Tavares Rocha, Yuri, Andrea Presotto, and Felisberto Cavalheiro. “The representation of Caesalpinia echinata (Brazilwood) in Sixteenth-and-Seventeenth-Century Maps.” Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências 79, no. 4 (2007). http://www.redalyc.org/resumen.oa?id=32779414.

Fixing Wikipedia’s Coverage of the Festa Junina

Alongside the start of winter comes the end of the rainy season in most of Brazil. To commemorate this event, Brazilians partake in a tradition originating from Portugal known as the Festa Junina, or June Festival. It commemorates the birth of St. John the Baptist and serves as a way to thank him for the past season of rain. Though this annual event spurs mass festivities across all of Brazil, Wikipedia’s English coverage of the topic is rather barren and unprofessional. The article is plagued by a general lack of information and poor formatting, despite being a national holiday with festivities comparable to that of Carnival. The English version of this page is in desperate need of improvement, as the lack of proper information is inhibited English speaking audiences from accessing information on Brazilian culture.

Specific mention of the English version of this page is made, as in Portuguese, it is a well-structured Wikipedia article. There are various subsections that go into detail about aspects of the festival, including clothing, dancing, cuisine, and the purpose of the fire pit, or fogueira. Each section is properly cited with credible sources, a template for what the English version ought to be. Unfortunately, an English-speaking audience is locked out of a proper general overview of the tradition, as the current page is simply four paragraphs with no subsections. There is only mention of clothing and dances, with only one link to another page on Brazilian culture, whereas in Portuguese there are links to articles that further explore each aspect of the festival.  In fixing this page, a helpful first step would be to borrow citations from the Portuguese page for the English page and translate them for a wider audience. This way, rather than being a vague explanation of a few cherry-picked ideas, the article can cover a wide variety of topics concerning an integral part of Brazilian culture.

Sources for a proposed editing of this page, as mentioned, would primarily arise from already established citations on the Portuguese version of this page. However, the point of this refurbishment is not to simply translate the Portuguese page. Rather, those sources will serve as a foundation for recreating this page. Along with that, some sources can be found online using the College of Wooster’s partnership with OhioLINK. These offer various criticisms surrounding the celebration, including the racial exclusivity underlying the festivals (Packman). This database already has various works which analyze and describe the culture and history surrounding the tradition. Even websites run by the Ohio State University offer articles surrounding the celebration of a rural lifestyle in an urban location (Chisholm). Reputable coverage of this events exists, the only issue is simply summarizing it into a properly formatted article, crediting each source of information properly.

Evidently there is already mass coverage on this event, but there are crucial reasons to give this topic such delicate attention. Not only is the Festa Juina celebrated throughout the entire country, but Brazil holds the record for having the largest celebration of Saint John in the world (Bastos). This is a festivity celebrated in Europe as well, so not only would this expand knowledge on Brazil, but it would also give insight into the European traditions themselves. The page itself is recognized by Wikipedia as being crucial to the understanding of Brazilian culture, as it has been added to “WikiProject Brazil” and “WikiProject Holidays”. Fixing the article would be contributing to a wider goal of spreading information about all of Brazilian culture. Doing so would also bring justice to the page, as it has been vandalized on more than one occasion. The talk page barely focuses on any of this however, as the only entries are from nearly a decade ago, followed by a single post asking a question that has yet to be properly answered with a reputable source. Helping alleviate the issues on this page would not only contribute to diversifying information for more users, but it would bring retribution to a page that has been ignored by the Wikipedia community.

The Festa Junina is an integral part of Brazilian culture. It gives insight into how Brazilians value their origins from rural farm life in a modernized age. To allow the coverage of such a vital topic on Wikipedia to remain vague and without citations is an injustice to a brilliantly intricate festivity. Thus, a plan has been set forth to repair the page and improve its status on Wikipedia, not only for English readers, but for the credibility of Wikipedia’s platform, and for Brazilians who hope to spread information of their culture.

 

Sources

  • Packman, Jeff. 2012. The carnavalização of são joão: Forrós, sambas and festive interventions during bahia, brazil’s festas juninas. Ethnomusicology Forum 21 (3): 327-53
  • Chisholm, Jennifer. “Festa junina and the Changing Meanings of Brazilian Rural Festivals in Urban Spaces.” Alter/nativas, no. 4 (2015).
  • Bastos, Ângela. “Na maior festa de São João do mundo, público chega a 1,5 milhão de pessoas.” NCS DC, June 25, 2011. https://goo.gl/WjFkUE.

Brazilian History & Culture : Brazil’s New Reforestation Efforts

Brazil Begins Effort to Plant 73 Million Trees in the Amazon
written by Jason Daley for the Smithsonian

 

In order to support their weak economy, Brazil began cutting down trees from the Amazon Rain Forest in the 1970’s to provide land for cattle and Agriculture. Though this may have increased Brazil’s export of beef, soybeans, and coffee it also resulted in major Environmental concerns such as losses in Biodiversity, and increases in Carbon emission (Fearnside).

However, recently new efforts have been proposed to help protect the Amazon, and allow it to expand to it previous extents. Last Fall Brazil announced a plan which included the planting of 73 million trees in the Amazon, which is the most extensive tropical replantation effort in history (Daley). The main issue at hand when formulating this plan was the amount of money it would cost to buy, and plant so many trees. The solution is a new technique called Muvuca, which involves the collection of seeds from native trees and depositing them in dense networks (Daley). Although the use of Muvuca is completely experimental the vice president of Conservation International’s Brazil program, Rodrigo Medeiros, states, “With plant-by-plant reforestation techniques, you get a typical density of about 160 plants per hectare. With Muvuca, the initial outcome is 2,500 trees per hectare”(Daley). This Proposes Muvuca as a very effective technique; however, those 2,500 trees are in reality just seeds with the potential to become trees. This is where the risk lies, within the Muvuca technique. Additionally, resulting from objectives of the Paris Accord Brazil has announced its efforts to restore 12 million hectares of the Amazon. Due to its position as the initial step of Brazil’s massive proposal, much importance has been placed on the Muvuca experiment.

Studies have shown Second-Growth Forests (younger than 60 years) to have remarkable abilities to consume vast abundances of Carbon. With Brazil as one of the planet’s leaders in deforestation, a successful implementation of their recent proposal could drop global carbon emission’s significantly. The discontinuing of deforestation alone could decrease carbon emissions by up to 37%, with even larger decreases with the regrowth of forests (Daley). Unfortunately, results such as this are unlikely because Brazil hasn’t taken enough action in stopping deforestation with 25 million acres of deforestation occurring annually.

Time-lapse of deforestation in Brazil

The proposal has resulted in a lot of hype within environmental media that is, for the most part, encouraging in this Article. Muvuca is proposed as a cheaper and more effective technique than the conventional replanting of previously grown saplings. The article displays this by not only providing Muvuca’s promising potential from credible sources but also exposes some of the weaknesses of conventional replanting. One way Daley did this was by explaining how not all previously grown saplings survive the process of being replanted. The only negative response to Brazil’s conservation efforts was the experimental design of the usage of Muvuca, and the nature of experiments to have uncertain results.

It appears as though a political battle is waging in Brazil between its President, Michel Temer and Conservational organizations such as the Brazilian Ministry of Environment. President Temer has found economic success by building dams and increasing the nations mining efforts, but at what cost (Staff). The land in which mining and dam construction are occurring used to be part of the Amazon Rain Forest. Additionally, last August Temer issued a decree to dissolve a 4.6 million hectare national reserve for mining. Fortunately, the decree was so unpopular throughout the country that it was revoked.

 

Work Cited

 

Daley, Jason. “Brazil Begins Effort to Plant 73 Million Trees in the Amazon.” Smithsonian,      https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brazil-begins-effort-plant-73-million-trees-amazon-180967086/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2018.

Fearnside, Philip M. “Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates, and Consequences.” Conservation Biology, vol. 19, no. 3, June 2005, pp. 680–88. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00697.x.

Marguerita, Choy. “Brazil Opens Vast National Reserve to Mining.” Reuters, 23 Aug. 2017. Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-mining/brazil-opens-vast-national-reserve-to-mining-idUSKCN1B32A5.

 

Research Project Blog Post: The Work of Aleijadinho

For my research project, I wish to examine the sculpture and architecture of Antônio Francisco Lisboa (Aleijadinho). The motivation for this project comes from my general interest in religion and its relationship with identity, society, and politics. This project would attempt to answer the question of what Aleijadinho and his work reveal about Brazilian identity and culture. Aleijadinho’s work has overwhelming religious themes and are all incredibly intricate. This project would seek to explain why such large amounts of resources and care were used in these creations. Additionally, it would unpack the implications of these structures in an attempt to discover broader social values and power structures in Brazil during their creations.

The primary works I would consider are the Church of São Francisco de Assis and the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos. The Church of São Francisco de Assis is located in Ouro Preto, Brazil. It is known particularly for its front alter, which is covered in intricate carvings of religious scenes and symbols, and its towers. There are two primary focuses within the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos. The first are the sculptures of the stations of the cross and the twelve prophets. The second is an image of the crucifixion above the altar, which is located inside the structure. Images, videos, and interactive websites that show these buildings and sculptures are digitally accessible.

As we have already established as a class, Catholicism is an essential component to the understanding of Brazilian history. It is used in varying forms, from a tool of colonizers for the justification of slavery, to an embraced and cherished faith of many (and everywhere in-between). Catholicism is significant not only as a prominent religious tradition, but also as a way to understand power dynamics and social hierarchies in Brazilian culture and society.

This topic, or generally the study of religious architecture and sculpture, is historically significant because buildings and sculptures are physical creations that represent broader social and political concepts. The addition of the Church to these social and political implications complicates the narrative and adds religion, specifically Catholicism, to the list of factors that influence Brazilian culture. The implications of  these structures, their preservation, and continued significance, suggest a certain level of continuity in Brazilians’ collective understanding of these structures as historically important and physical components of Brazilian identity.

Primary Sources:

De Lio, Arthur. “Caminhos da Arte – Documentário sobre Aleijadinho.” YouTube. September 28, 2016. Accessed February 12, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvLJH68SWSc.

Lisboa, Antônio Francisco, 1730-1814. 1800-5. Church of Congonhas do Campo and the Prophet’s Atrium Sculpture: det.: Ezekiel: ninth figure from left. http://0-library.artstor.org.dewey2.library.denison.edu/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822000392363.

Lisboa, Antônio Francisco, 1730-1814. 1772-94. Main Chapel and Altar of St. Francis of Assisi’s. http://0-library.artstor.org.dewey2.library.denison.edu/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822000392447.

Lisboa, Antônio Francisco, 1730-1814. Ouro Preto, Brazil: Church of Our Lady of Carmo: facade.

http://0-library.artstor.org.dewey2.library.denison.edu/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822000101277.

Lisboa, Antônio Francisco, 1730-1814. 1772-1794. Ouro Preto, Brazil: St. Francis of Assisi facade – Monumental portal & Medallion. http://0-library.artstor.org.dewey2.library.denison.edu/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822000101285.

Secondary Sources:

Bald, Sunil. “In Aleijadinho’s Shadow: Writing National Origins in Brazilian Architecture.” Thresholds, no. 23 (2001): 74–81.

Bury, J. B. “The ‘Borrominesque’ Churches of Colonial Brazil.” The Art Bulletin 37, no. 1 (1955): 27–53.

Hogan, James E. “Antonio Francisco Lisboa, ‘O Aleijadinho’: An Annotated Bibliography.” Latin American Research Review 9, no. 2 (1974): 83–94.

Maddox, John. “The Aleijadinho at Home and Abroad: ‘Discovering’ Race and Nation in Brazil.” CR: The New Centennial Review 12, no. 2 (2012): 183–216.

Smith, Robert C. “The Colonial Architecture of Minas Gerais in Brazil.” The Art Bulletin 21, no. 2 (1939): 110–59.

Research Project Blog Post

Education is extremely important to me as a future teacher; it creates opportunities but can also be easily manipulated to ruin lives. Educational policy plays a large role in national identity, culture, and society. Betsy DeVos is currently enacting her school choice initiative, saying that a person’s zip code should not determine their education. While that opens discussion over national issues like lower-income areas and the lack of education there, she is also continuing to favor elite families whose children are able to change schools and ignoring impoverished families whose children are less likely to be able to be accepted into and move to different schools, an obvious divide in U.S. national identity. Education also plays into the U.S.’s history: education determined who was a citizen and therefore who could vote and run in elections; slaves were not allowed to be educated for fear that they would realize their rights and revolt, and educated slaves often wrote novels depicting their lives, hoping to appeal to white abolitionists and the greater United States’ population. Therefore, my question is this: when have people earned the right to be educated, how are they educated, and how does this play into the culture and society of Brazil?

My research will then delve into two sections: history and culture. My history section will deal with Brazil only. Here, I am to research what education was like when the recognized country—before the Empire—began to form. In class, we have used the Constitution to look at race relations. I would like to use a full translation of the Constitution to look at laws and amendments to learn who had the vote and who could run as a candidate and if education had a role in those persons’ lives. I would again like to use this to learn who was a citizen.

My cultural aspect of research will investigate how the people of Brazil understand their own education. For this, I would like to do a comparative analysis. In the U.S., there is a competitiveness to our education: the government becomes outraged when what we believe to be a “lesser” country does better than us in testing. I think that learning how the government of Brazil and Brazilian citizens perceive education compared to other nations will allude to their feeling of national pride and identity. Education is a huge divide amongst class systems in the United States. Comparing this to Brazil will show how education can help or harm this system and show that this issue is not just the U.S.’s, but the world’s.

For primary sources, I intend to use famous educational leaders’ work—like Paulo Freire—to see how they have affected education in Brazil. Again, I will use the Brazilian Constitution to glean information about citizenship and voting rights. This will help my historical analysis of Brazilian educational policy. I will also use information from the Ministry of Education’s website and webpages of several educational groups in Brazil; for example, the Science without Borders program. For secondary sources, I intend to use analyses of Brazilian educational programs, like those done by Javier Luque, David Evans, and Barbara Bruns. Utopian Pedagogies and Cold War Politics of Literacy will also enlighten readers about how policies of the past have worked. These will help my cultural comparisons in the second element of the project.

Sources:

Utopian Pedagogy, edited by Richard J. F. Day, Mark Coté, Greig de Peuter

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire and the Cold War Politics of Literacy by Paulo Freire

The Science Without Borders program: http://www.cienciasemfronteiras.gov.br/web/csf-eng/faq

A Decade of Research on School Principals: http://consort.library.denison.edu/record=b4832655~S6

Ministry of Education: http://portal.mec.gov.br/index.php

Achieving World Class Education in Brazil: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/993851468014439962/pdf/656590REPLACEM0hieving0World0Class0.pdf

Research Project: The Development of Brazilian Cities – Jordan

I have always had a passion for cities and urbanism, and I find the urban environment in Brazil to be fascinating. Therefore, I wish to examine the historical development of Brazilian cities in some capacity to see what the development of Brazilian cities tells us about the culture and way of life. More specifically, I’m looking at two different Brazilian cities: Belo Horizonte and Salvador as they exemplify two distinct development patterns and urban layouts. For Belo Horizonte, I would look at the logic behind the planning of the city with an eye towards the specific purpose behind the planning of the city and how that planning affected the future development of the city. Alternatively, I would like to look at Salvador, which follows a very different model of development given its historic purpose. I would look at the creation and maintenance of the historic Portuguese old town and the more organic development plan of the rest of the city. Looking at a city’s development as a way for understanding more about Brazil would be a unique way to deepen our understanding of the country and involves some unique primary sources.

If looking at Belo Horizonte, I would hope to discover more about the effect that the more industrial and resource extraction foundational purpose had on the development of the city. This would be analyzed through a look at the original plan for the city and the relation of the future developments to the initial plan for the city. Inherently I think this research would have to involve a look at class or racial distribution throughout the city in light of the initial plan of the city, and thus the city plan itself and the history of development could be a way for understanding the patterns of settlement and stratification in the modern city. An urban-based analysis could also reveal additional elements of race relations and attitudes in Brazil

I believe my aims would be fairly similar if looking at Salvador, but the method of inquiry would be different by nature of the city. As one of the oldest cities in the Americas, Salvador has a longer and more organic history than Belo Horizonte. Furthermore, it has a distinct and unique old town in the Pelourinho that contrasts with the more organic growth of the rest of the modern city. Furthermore, the city’s historic division into the high and low town also allow for an analysis of class relations, and its site as a major city of the Transatlantic slave trade makes it very diverse today and thus an interesting place to look at transculturation in city layout and design as a way of understanding how cultures interact to produce new culture. Again, I would have to look at race and class distribution as part of this analysis too as part of the look at the built environment, and I think Salvador would be an excellent place to look for this analysis.

As we have learned in class so far, Brazil is a remarkably diverse country that is the result of a variety of factors throughout its history. This history has led to the unique country we see today, and one way of understanding how this country came to be and some of the results of this historic diversity is by looking at the cities and tracing their unique development patterns. Despite their incredible importance to the history and economy of Brazil, my limited research into the subject has not revealed much research on cities in relation to the unique country that Brazil is today. Therefore, analyzing the development of one of Brazil’s cities could reveal new information about how and why Brazil is the way it is.

 

Secondary Sources

BARBIER, M. B., and Michel ANTONELLI. “Salvador de Bahia. Evolution Du Centre Ville.” Cahiers Du Monde Hispanique et Luso-Brésilien, no. 37 (1981): 269–71.

Cintra, Antônio Octávio. “Urban Development in Brazil: A Study of Policies and Unpolicies.” Luso-Brazilian Review 17, no. 2 (1980): 213–32.

Friendly, Abigail. “Urban Policy, Social Movements, and the Right to the City in Brazil.” Latin American Perspectives 44, no. 2 (March 2017): 132–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X16675572.

“Historic Centre of Salvador de Bahia – UNESCO World Heritage Centre.” Accessed February 10, 2018. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/309.

Levine, Robert M. “The Singular Brazilian City of Salvador.” Luso-Brazilian Review 30, no. 2 (1993): 59–69.

Lima, Zeuler. “Preservation as Confrontation: The Work of Lina Bo Bardi.” Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and Criticism 2, no. 2 (2005): 24–33.

Rezende, Vera F. “Brazilian City Planners, American City Planning? New Perspectives on Urban Planning in Rio de Janeiro, 1930–1945: Research from the Field.” Planning Perspectives 25, no. 4 (October 2010): 505–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2010.505071.

Rio, Vicente del, and William Siembieda. Contemporary Urbanism Brazil: Beyond Brasília. University Press of Florida, 2009. http://0-muse.jhu.edu.dewey2.library.denison.edu/book/17466/.

Smith, Harry, and Emilio José Luque-Azcona. “The Historical Development of Built Heritage Awareness and Conservation Policies: A Comparison of Two World Heritage Sites: Edinburgh and Salvador Do Bahia.” GeoJournal 77, no. 3 (2012): 399–415.

Violich, Francis. “URBAN GROWTH AND PLANNING IN BRAZIL.” Ekistics 7, no. 42 (1959): 320–24.

Primary Sources

Grant (M.D.), Andrew. History of Brazil: Comprising a Geographical Account of That Country, Together with a Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Have Occurred There Since Its Discovery … H. Colburn, 1809.

“Salvador (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil) – Population Statistics, Charts, Map, Location, Weather and Web Information.” Accessed February 12, 2018. https://www.citypopulation.de/php/brazil-bahia.php%3Fcityid%3D292740805.

“The City of Salvador – World Digital Library.” Accessed February 12, 2018. https://www.wdl.org/en/item/219/#q=salvador%2C+bahia&qla=en.

“Ville de Saint Salvador, Capitale Du Bresil. – David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.” Accessed February 12, 2018. https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~232921~5509492:Ville-de-Saint-Salvador,-capitale-d?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=w4s:/where%2FSalvador%2B%252528Brazil%252529;q:salvador;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=4&trs=5.

Wells, James William. Exploring and Travelling Three Thousand Miles Through Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to Maranhão: With an Appendix Containing Statistics and Observations on Climate, Railways Central Sugar Factories, Mining, Commerce, and Finance … S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1887

Google-Books-ID: Kuq_AAAAIAAJ

Research Project Tongtong Wu

Brazil is a country with diverse racial groups like Europeans, Africans, indigenous people and Asian immigrants. Miscegenation was common in Brazil since colonial era under the ideology of white supremacy, and the white Brazilians believed that Brazil would eventually become a white society as a result of mixing races. Even though Brazil stresses racial democracy, there are discriminations, certain racial dominations and socioeconomic difference among different racial groups.
During the period of slavery abolition, Brazilian slave masters gradually lost those Afro-Brazilians who were their main source of labor. To compensate for the labor loss, the Brazilian slave owners to lower their overall cost, they tried to hire cheap Chinese laborers in Latin America, the US and Guangdong Province. The Brazilian slave masters took advantage of Chinese immigrants were distant from their home country with little protection from the Chinese government and had lower status as a new group of settlers. The Chinese government negotiated with the Brazilian government reluctantly on sending Chinese laborers to Brazil temporarily under a five-year contract while granting the Chinese the freedom to entry and exit Brazil.
Brazilians reacted to Chinese immigration with different attitudes. Some regarded hiring Chinese laborers, as a transitory move for the abolition of slavery, while others were fear of Chinese immigration would worsen the existing racial problems. There were stereotypes about Chinese immigrants with compliments and dislike simultaneously. There were compliments that the Chinese were hard-working, tough and resistant to hardships, while others said that Chinese were unwilling to fit into the society. Unlike the Indians and Africans who Christianized themselves after arriving at Brazil, Chinese with their unique cultural heritage made them unable to assimilate into a western society. As an isolated group in Brazil, the Chinese Brazilians were neglected. Similar situation also happened to the Brazilian Japanese, which they were living in Brazil as a unique group with some level of discrimination. As unique racial and ethnic groups in Brazil, they struggled to live in Brazil and build connections with their home country.
As a Chinese international student in the US, I would like to explore the life of Asian immigrants in Brazil because their struggles would make me better understand discrimination and the hardships they have. To incorporate my projected major Psychology, I would like to explore how does the Brazilian society impact the mental health of Asian immigrants. As the Asian immigrants were placed in the middle of Brazilian society and parted from their home country, I would like to investigate the challenge to blend into a different westernized culture and separation from their cultural heritage impact their philosophy, education, career development and mental health in Brazil. I am also interested in exploring the social dynamics between Asian immigrants and other racial groups. I have started reading books like Negotiating National Identity by Lesser on Japanese and Chinese immigrants history in Brazil and Racism in a Racial Democracy, which I am currently reading for the Book Presentation, as I have learned about how Euro-Brazilians and Afro-Brazilians interacted with each other, and racism in a smaller Brazilian community. Therefore, I could draw comparisons among racial groups and identify the discrimination Asian Brazilians experience. I would find more primary sources on Asian Brazilians talking about their immigration experience either from documentaries or journals, but I might need assistance on those primary resources. I would also find more secondary resources on psychological health of those immigrants.

References

Conrad, Robert. “The Planter Class and the Debate over Chinese Immigration to Brazil,
1850- 1893.” International Migration Review 9, no. 1 (1975): 41.
Dantas, Sylvia Duarte. “An Intercultural Psychodynamic Counselling Model: A Preventive
Work Proposition for Plural Societies.” Counselling Psychology Quarterly 24, no. 1 (March 2011): 1–14.
France Winddance Twine. Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White
Supermacy in Brazil. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1998.
Jeffrey Lesser. Negotiating National Identity : Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for
Ethnicity in Brazil. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 1999.
Twine, France Winddance. 1998. Racism in a Racial Democracy : The Maintenance of White
Supremacy in Brazil. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

Research Project Blog Post

A potential research project topic that I am heavily considering is the role of soccer in Brazilian national identity. In my research, I would like to discover why soccer is so important to Brazilians and how it shapes national identity.  In order to tackle this question, I would look at how soccer started in Brazil in the first place and examine how its importance began to rise. This is significant as soccer still plays a huge role in Brazilian national identity today. The current basic knowledge I have on the topic is that immigrants from Europe brought soccer to Brazil and that soccer was largely played by elites initially. This interests me as it possibly adds a racial element to the topic, which is significant as it questions the racial democracy that Brazil claims to be.

If I choose to examine the role of race within soccer, it would be interesting to see if there were any racial conflicts within the team or if soccer served as a unifying force within Brazilian society. Another possible avenue I can take within this research topic is how big losses in Brazilian soccer impacted national identity. Tying it back to race, it would be interesting to see if specific players were used as a scapegoat because of their race during these losses. Also, since soccer did begin as an elite sport, it would be interesting to discover more on how more racial groups gained their right to play.

In order to examine this topic, secondary sources are important to look at when thinking of how the national identity of Brazilians has been shaped over time. Specifically, since European immigrants brought the sport of soccer to Brazil, it would be interesting to see how Brazilians made soccer Brazilian instead of European. One secondary source I have found specifically looks at the role of Italian immigrants in developing Brazilian soccer. I have also found a primary source that compliments this secondary source very well. This primary source comes from a newspaper article, in which an Italian immigrant living in Brazil reacts to the loss of the Brazilian team to the Italian team during the World Cup in 1982.

This research topic is important for understanding Brazil as it explores a factor that plays a huge role in national identity. It is especially interesting to examine how losses in the World Cup hurt national identity, specifically by looking at the reactions of Brazilians. This research topic is also important when examining race in Brazil. Past classes and the readings for class tomorrow (2/13) address the issue of race in Brazil, specifically whether Brazil is racist or not. Seeing how players of different races regarding soccer more than likely shows how they were treated during specific times throughout Brazilian history, since soccer plays such a huge role to Brazilian identity. Overall, this research topic is relevant as soccer and the race question is still play an important when thinking about Brazilian society today.

Primary Sources

8 SOCCER FANS DIE AS URUGUAY SCORES. New York Times (1923-Current file); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]18 July 1950: 26.

URUGUAY ANNEXES TITLE: Upsets Favored Brazil, 2-1, in World Soccer–Sweden 3d. New York Times (1923-Current file); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]17 July 1950: 27.

120 million Brazilians plunge into gloom. The Times of India (1861-current); Mumbai, India [Mumbai, India]07 July 1982: 9.

Secondary Sources

Bocketti, Gregg P. “Italian immigrants, Brazilian football, and the dilemma of national identity.” Journal of Latin American Studies 40, no. 2 (2008): 275-302.

da Silva, Ana Paula. “King Pele: Race, Professionalism And Football In Brazil.” Nat’l Black LJ 21 (2008): 1.

Lopes, José Sergio Leite. “Class, ethnicity, and color in the making of Brazilian football.” Daedalus 129, no. 2 (2000): 239-270.

Oliveira-Monte, Emanuelle. “Blacks Versus Whites Self-Denomination, Soccer, and Race Representations in Brazil.” Luso-Brazilian Review 50, no. 2 (2013): 76-92.