Brazil Culture Post for 04/19

A current candidate in the Brazilian presidential race is being charged with inciting hatred and discrimination. Right-wing Congressman Jair Bolsonaro has officially been charged by Brazil’s attorney general with inciting hatred and discriminating against women, Afro-Brazilians, indigenous and LGBTQIA+ communities. Bolsanaro is polling second in upcoming Brazilian Presidential election in October. The conviction cites a list of comments that were made throughout various parts of the country by Bolsonaro. If this sentence is carried out Bolsanaro could face three years in prison and a fine of $117,000.

Jair Bolsonaro

Also in this incident, the son of Bolsanaro who is his largest supporter was also charged with threatening a journalist. Due to their status as congressmen, both cases are required to be tried by the Supreme Court which has a large backlog. Therefore, most likely the case will not be tried before the presidential election in October. This news comes shortly after former President ‘Lula’ turned himself in for a twelve year sentence in prison on corruption charges.

This article stays very neutral on the entire situation and its portrayals of Brazilians. It really focuses on including many direct quotes from Bolsonaro himself in order to remain as objective as possible on the issue. Overall, the tone of the article seemed quite worried about how the Brazilian election will turn out due to current polling of Bolsonaro and that these charges will most likely not be carried out until after the election.

This article relates to the course in many ways. The themes of discrimination and racism within this article speak to our discussions on the Afro-Brazilian movement and the current race relations within the country. This article also goes against the idea of Brazil as a “Racial Democracy” because it shows outright racist remarks being made from a well-supported presidential candidate in modern times. Learning about the current political situation within Brazil is very important in understanding modern happenings within the country.

Article Link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/world/americas/brazil-president-candidate-hate.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Famericas

Further Reading:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/leading-candidate-brazilian-election-charged-racism-54459412

(In Portuguese) https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/pgr-denuncia-deputado-jair-bolsonaro-por-racismo.ghtml

Class Notes April 12th

In class on Thursday, April 12th, Jack presented to the class his research on Brazilian prisons. He explained how citizens residing in favella’s are unfairly targeted and imprisoned for minor crimes, overcrowding the Brazilian prision system. It reflected the current issue of Lula’s imprisonment and how he’s being kept away from such conditions, and provided an introductions into the day’s major discussions about race in Brazil.

Nasua introduced her book Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil by Alexander Edmonds. She covered how Edmonds’ research focuses specifically on how beauty functions as its own factor in society, leaving widespread impacts on how Brazilian women identify themselves. There was an ideal body type, one that had black and white features, though predominantly European in the face. One’s body going through plastic surgery (plástica) was a form of therapy, as some surgeons such as Ivo Pitanguy describe. However, Nasua pointed out the dangerous implications of these practices, including how they directly contradict they ideal of a “racial democracy”. There is an idea that only portions of black bodies are truly acceptable, and for darker skinned women to be more socially accepted as “beautiful”, they must alleviate their “errors” of looking poor, and instead using surgery. This is crucial in understanding Brazilian society and the delusion of assuming that all races are equal when they are clearly divided.

Jackson was able to dive deeper into Brazilian perceptions on race in his presentation of Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America by Edward Telles. The book was more of a scientific report, explain how Brazilian’s identified themselves racially and how others perceived them. It included a history of how race has changed over time, altering how Brazilians have identified their race.  Though the book had some discrepancies, such as a small sample size, it still provides a personal look into the world of racial identify.

All these topics tie into the major theme of the reading; how has beauty standards and the growth of plástica emerged as a source of identification for Brazilians? Alexander Edmonds returns in today’s coverage of Brazilian bodies in this article ‘The Poor Have The Right to Be Beautiful’: Cosmetic Surgery in Neoliberal Brazil.  He explains how plastic surgery has been reinterpreted as a therapeutic practice and serves as a way to “normalize” citizens, especially the poor. Because of the free healthcare that allows anyone to get plastic surgery, it’s prominence has grown dramatically. It’s established a mindset of bodies serving as a representation of one’s entire identity, and can be seen as a way to alleviate citizens from poverty. This has serious historical implications for how Brazilians identify who they are, how people can use science to change their identities, and how Brazilians have begun to categorize themselves beyond race and class, and into bodies.

 

Some key terms to remember from this seminar are:

  • Favella: Low income slums surrounding major Brazilian cities
  • Mestiçagem: Mixing and variety of races in Brazil
  •  Ethically Ambiguous: Being able to pass as different races, which can be both a hindrance and an advantage.
  • Plástica: Slang for plastic surgery, reflects how common it is in Brazilian society. Widely used term.

 

To learn more about these topics, feel free to explore the following sources

  • Machado-Borges, Thaïs, Stockholms universitet, Latinamerika-institutet, Humanistiska fakulteten, and Institutionen för spanska, portugisiska och latinamerikastudier. 2009. Producing beauty in brazil: Vanity, visibility and social inequality. Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology 6 (1): 208.
  • Finger, C. 2003. Brazilian beauty – brazil’s cosmetic surgery industry is thriving, but why is beauty so important? Lancet 362 (9395): 1560-.
  • “Impact: Promises to Reform Brazil’s Overcrowded Prisons” Human Rights Watch, December, 22, 2015.

Questions to Consider:

  • How might the easy access of DNA testing alter Brazilian identity?
  • How might the desire of plastic surgery alter if it became an entirely privatized industry, leaving some with no access to it at all?
  • What role to prisons play in maintaining Brazilian class structure?

Feminist (im)mobilities and Liquid Fractures: Migration and Mobility in North America and the Mediterranean

I write to share an announcement for an exciting lecture next Thursday, April 19 at 7:30.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are excited to host a multidisciplinary panel on “Feminist (im)mobilities and Liquid Fractures: Migration and Mobility in North America and the Mediterranean” on April 19th, 2018 in Lean Lecture Hall at 7:30pm.

Amy Lind will speak about Feminist (Im)mobilities, NAFTA, and the post-9/11 US-Mexico Border and Maurizio Albahari, will talk about migration via the Mediterranean route.

Speaker Bios

Amy Lind is Mary Ellen Heintz Professor and Head of the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of Gendered Paradoxes: Women’s Movements, State Restructuring, and Global Development in Ecuador (Penn State University Press, 2005), and editor of four volumes, including Development, Sexual Rights and Global Governance (Routledge, 2010) and Feminist (Im)mobilities in Fortress(ing) North America: Rights, Citizenships and Identities in Transnational Perspective (Ashgate Publishing, 2013). Her new book, From Nation to Plurination: Resignifying State, Economy and Family in Ecuador (with Christine Keating), addresses the cultural, economic, and affective politics of Ecuador’s postneoliberal Citizen Revolution.

Maurizio Albahari is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also concurrent Associate Professor in the Keough School of Global Affairs. He is the author of Crimes of Peace: Mediterranean Migrations at the World’s Deadliest Border (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). His articles and editorials on refugee mobility and related civic engagement in the Euro-Mediterranean context have appeared in interdisciplinary and news media venues including the Journal on Migration and Human Security, Social Research, Humanity, Anthropology Today, Anthropology News, Anthropological Quarterly, History News Network, openDemocracy, Perspektif Magazine, Fox News, and CNN.

Brazil History and Culture: Prison Break

Attempted Prison Break Leaves 21 Dead in Brazil’s Amazon Region

Image result for santa izabel prison complex

This article, published in the Rio Times, discusses a recent incident in which the Santa Izabel Prison Complex, a Brazilian prison, was assaulted from the outside. The attackers, described only as “a heavily armed group,” used an explosive device to blast through a wall and “facilitate the escape of inmates” (Alves 2018). In a subsequent investigation by the Para state Department of Security and Social Defense, an indeterminate number of the prisoners themselves were found to have been in possession of weapons at the time of the offensive. A total of twenty-one people ultimately lost their lives over the course of this event, including a prison guard, five inmates attempting to escape, and fifteen individuals working to free the prisoners (Ibid.).

Santa Izabel is located near Belem, Para, a state capital in the Amazon river basin. In February, the National Council of Justice had warned both state and prison officials of the high probability that there would be a large-scale escape effort in the near future. Moreover, the agency had recommended the construction of an additional wall and an enhanced security presence around the particular compound which would be breached two months later. This facility, the Center for Recovery of Penitentiary Para III, was found by the Superintendence of the Penitentiary System to be capable of housing no more than 432 prisoners. However, at the time of the jailbreak its cells were well over capacity, holding “a total of 605 inmates” (Ibid.).

Brazil, Pará,Pará state officials during a press conference on Tuesday to announce an attempted mass escape at the CRPP III unit at the Santa Izabel Prison Complex

Upon observing the broader Brazilian prison system, one finds that this instance of violence, overcrowding, and apparent negligence by public servants is not unique to the complex in Para. Writing for the American University International Law Review, Layla Medina finds that the country regularly fails to enforce its own laws on the treatment of inmates, in addition to passively condoning actions which violate the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Through her research, the author also determines one of the key factors behind all of these problems to be the criminal justice system’s pervasive failure “to grant detainees a prompt custody hearing,” which in turn leads to overcrowding and leaves prisoners vulnerable to abuse by guards and other inmates (Medina 2016, 627). These problems are further exacerbated by significant political pressure to impose harsher punishments for relatively minor offenses, which disproportionately impacts poor communities and ensures that prison populations expand faster than the facilities accommodating them (Ibid., 612-27). It can then be stated that the problems highlighted in these articles are deeply connected to the social and economic divisions that have plagued Brazil since its independence, and will likely persist until such inequalities are recognized and properly addressed.

Inmates stand in their cell in the Pedrinhas Prison Complex, the largest penitentiary in Maranhao state

Works Cited:

Alves, Lise. “Attempted Prison Break Leaves 21 Dead in Brazilian Amazon Region.” Rio Times, April 11, 2018. http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/attempted-prison-break-leaves-21-dead-in-brazils-amazon-region/.

Medina, Layla. “Indefinite Detention, Deadly Conditions: How Brazil’s Notorious Criminal Justice System Violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.” American University International Law Review 31, No. 4 (July 2016): 593-627. http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/auilr/vol31/iss4/3.

Class Notes, April 5

Assignment Reminders:

Due Friday, April 6: Post a complete draft of your iMovie script/storyboard to Moodle by noon. Be sure to upload your document as a pdf. If you finish the draft and have questions for reviewers, include that information at the top of the script. Please be sure to post on time!

Due Monday, April 9: Review two of your peer’s scripts and post comments on each by noon.

Class Announcements:

  1. Sunday 7pm in Scheide: Pop Opera performance (25-30 min) Spoon is catering the reception afterwards
  2. Saturday 3:30-5:30: Pride Fest in Babcock formal lounge, there will be a food and performers
  3. WGSS Edit-a-thon next Thursday

Historical Question of the Day:

How do historians use popular culture and artistic production to better understand a political moment?

Presentations and Class Discussion:

Class began today with a Brazil history and culture blog presentation about soccer and politics. The presentation was based on an ESPN article which focused on the political implications for low numbers of Brazilian players on the 2018 World Cup team. This article brought up discussions in class on playing style, the use of sport as a tool for social and political control, modernization, money, and notoriety. Class continued with a presentation on Andrew J. Kirkendall’s book, Paulo Freire & the Cold War Politics of Literacy (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2010). The book, broadly speaking, is about how literacy was an important political issue during the Cold War. It focused on Paulo Freire’s role in literacy programs in Central America with themes on consciousness raising (the need to teach political awareness) and the influence of the Cold War. Professor Holt expanded on the presentation by introducing Freire’s work Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This opened up discussion on the idea that a student should have ownership of what they learn as a vehicle for empowerment and links from literacy to suffrage. For the rest of class, Marina presented her IS on women’s political activism and Brazilians’ political expression through gender. The presentation began with the 1964 Military Coup, focusing on civilian support by Catholic, white, and middle-class women who were charged with protecting the country’s morals and values. This theme of protection continues after the establishment of the regime and AI-5 in the creation of martyr (Edson Luis) and Mother Courage to facilitate maternalist arguments for political amnesty. The mentality here follows the logic of “my child could get swept up in this,” and creates a political image of a woman trying to save her country by saving her son. The argument is ultimately that these women, while political activists, were not feminist because of the emphasis on highly masculine qualities. This presentation led to a discussion on populism and anxiety about who is being represented in the political sphere.

Application of the Readings:

Marina’s presentation complemented the reading from the Brown online textbook on student movements. The Brown reading went into AI-5 and the establishment of the regime in 1986, providing a foundation for the student protests that was helpful for understanding the presentation. Marina expanded on the Brown reading, adding an example from the University of Brasilia, which was completely taken over with undercover soldiers planted in classrooms monitoring discussions and taking students who opposed the regime. In the Brazil history and culture blog, soccer was discussed as a political act. This connects to Dunn’s “The Tropicalist Movement” as it shows that not only music and art, but also sport can also be politicized. Expanding on the discussion of politicized acts, Dunn writes on the political implications of music written in and about struggles of urban citizens saying, “for artists and intellectuals situated on the periphery of global political and economic power, the dialectic between sense of place and cosmopolitan affinities is often simultaneously a source of anxiety and inspiration.”  In Dunn’s chapter, it is clear that people absorb inspiration and motivations from their experiences, which appears, albeit sometimes subtly, in their work. Today’s class showed some of the different ways that politics enter other social and cultural spheres. As historians, this means we can (and should) question why and in what contexts artists produce their craft, and what implications those answers have for politics and culture.

Key Terms:

  1. “Samba Soccer” is a focus on the skills of individual players.
  2. Mysticism has a complicated definition, but broadly speaking refers to an experience of uniting with a divinity and can be spiritual and/or material.
  3. Another complicated concept, maternalism centers around the normative conception of women’s concern for children, motherhood, and morality.

Potential exam questions:

  1. How is “cannibalism” used as a political statement in Brazil? Consider Patricia Seed’s chapter “Cannibals: Iberia’s Partial Truth” and Christopher Dunn’s “The Tropicalist Moment” in your answer.
  2. Why do the class, race, and gender matter for the “face” of a social movement?
  3. What are the social and political implications of a Brazilian soccer team that is predominantly comprised of players from non-Brazilian leagues?

Additional Reading:

  1. This is an NPR article from the 2014 World Cup on the Germany v. Brazil game that was mentioned in class. It also includes some ties to political themes and actors. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/07/09/330089942/brazil-reels-from-thrashing-that-bounced-it-from-world-cup
  2. For coverage of the game that is a bit more raw, here are the goals. Watch at your own risk.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sfRVyDHT30
  3. Below are two book reviews of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. For anyone interested in reading Freire directly, the book is available through the library. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3442883 ; http://www.jstor.org/stable/1187138
  4. There was a lecture series on mysticism this past fall at Wooster. Below is a pamphlet from the series and an interesting NYT article on mysticism and democratization in the United States. https://www.wooster.edu/_media/files/academics/areas/religious-studies/fallacademy.pdf ; https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/opinion/08douthat.html

Brazil Culture: Soccer and Politics

Brazil, with the record of winning five World Cup trophies, is known for their playing style in football. Usually referred to as a ‘Samba soccer’, Brazilian soccer was based on fantastic individual skills. That was what fascinated people and made Brazilian soccer ‘great’. In a report by ESPN Brazil, he expected that Brazil “could be sending the least Brazilian team of all time to the 2018 World Cup…” Manager Tite was newly elected as a manager for Brazilian squad in 2016. Although at the beginning of his call-ups for the national team, he picked eight players from the Brazilian league. ESPN expects that only two players from Brazilian League will go to Russia to play on the World Cup. When the Brazilian soccer shined the most, none of the ‘foreign’ players were on the team. Everyone from the national team was in Brazilian League and they were able to win two consecutive World Cups in 1958 and 1962.

Getty Images

When did Brazil start to ‘lose’ their own style of soccer? It was after the success of Brazilian soccer until the seventies. Up until 1970 World Cup, Brazil had won three World Cups out of four. However, the government at the time, under military control, did not like ‘samba soccer’. Individual skills were ignored under Captain Claudio Coutinho and instead, teamwork and physical attributes were praised. He defined dribble as “our specialty as ‘a waste of time and proof of our weakness” (122). Brazilian specialty and power were degraded by the military government to an extent of a waste of time and weakness.

 

Former President of Brazil

After Brazil won the World Cup in 1970, General Emilio Medici’s government declared a national holiday, rewarding each player with the equivalent amount of 18,500 U.S. dollars, tax-free. Medici declared “I identify this victory, achieved in the fraternity of sport, with the ascension of faith in our struggle for national development.” (122). Opinion Poll in 1970 stated that “90 percent of Brazil’s lower classes identified soccer with the nation.” (122) However, after the victory in 1970, Claudio Coutinho who was the manager of the national team was given a mission to modernize the Brazilian playing style. Instead of individual skills, teamwork and discipline were emphasized as Medici’s government made efforts to modernize the Brazilian economy.

After the ‘modernization’, Brazil started to lose their specialty. We see players like Neymar and fascinate because he plays Brazilian style of soccer. His dribbling skills and self-centeredness remind people of ‘samba soccer’ that people missed. Brazilian league, once considered one of the greatest, still produces great players but they no longer stay in the league like the past. What military government did in the past was not a modernization. Instead, it was ignorance of culture and style.

Work cited:

“Brazil Could Send ‘Least Brazilian’ Team of All Time to ’18 World Cup.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 21 Mar. 2018, www.espn.com/soccer/club/brazil/205/blog/post/3427421/brazil-could-send-least-brazilian-team-of-all-time-to-world-cup-in-russia.

Shirts, Matthew. “Playing Soccer in Brazil: Socrates, Corinthians, and Democracy.” The Wilson Quarterly (1976-) 13, no. 2 (1989): 119-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40257497

Benefit Dinner for Central American Clean Water Campaign April 11

Students, please consider supporting this important effort to help clean water projects in Central America by attending Soup & Bread next Wednesday, April 11 from 5-7pm in Kittredge.   I share Nate Addington’s message below:

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Soup and Bread, in collaboration with the Greenhouse Student Sustainability Group, is teaming up again to reach our pledge for the Companion Community Developmental Alternatives’ (CoCoDA) clean water projects in Central America. Our first dinner this semester kicked off our campaign and was a huge success! But we still have a little work to do! Join us in reaching our goal of $5,750 towards the total cost of these projects ($110,000).

This past October, students, staff, and faculty from The College of Wooster attended The Sun and Water Conference hosted by CoCoDA in Suchitoto, El Salvador. The conference focused on CoCoDA’s initiatives to install solar powered water filtration systems in three villages located in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Our pledge will go towards directly benefiting these projects in these villages.

We invite you to join us in The Soup and Bread Central American Clean Water Campaign! We’ll have soup and grilled cheese! It’s only one meal swipe or $5! All are welcome to attend!

*View this video from The Sun and Water Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G26CcoWNh6I&t=215s

The Guardian Publishes Activist Letter Calling for Justice for Marielle

As a follow-up to Thursday’s discussions of Marielle Franco’s assassination, I wanted to share this letter signed by international activists, artists, and writers calling for her death to be fully investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Signers of the letter include Ava DuVernay (director of Selma & A Wrinkle in Time), Angela Davis, Janelle Monáe, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi (founders of Black Lives Matter), and Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres (Beta Cáceres’ daughter).

3/29 Class Notes

Carmen Miranda “The Gang’s All Here”

We started class today watching a section of a musical with Carmen Miranda entitled “The Gang’s All Here.” In this section of the musical Miranda sings “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat”. This scene is representative of how Brazil is seen by America, as producing agricultural exports, beautiful sexually available women. The Brazil that is depicted in this scene is highly romanticized, and as stereotypical “island life.” As this movie scene allowing us as a class to see how Carmen Miranda was seen in America. That she is a not Brazilian just as an “exotic island woman.” There is nothing in the video that is strictly Brazilian, only things that could be applied to many different countries.

History and Culture post: Abby “Michel Temer”

Abby read and discussed an New York Times article discussing a recent interview with Brazil’s president Michel Temer. Temper has a very low approval rating and that the Brazilian public is portraying their disapproval. One way the public has done this is during carnival one of the floats depicted Temer as a vampire. Temer is going to run for president again even though he is being impeached. These efforts to run again could lead to leanly in the corruption charges against Temer. After Abby’s talk it lead to a discussion of how political campaigns occur in Brazil specifically that campaigns occur over a much shorter period of time and that adds can only be played on public TV stations and time is divided between parties and then by all the candidates. This is a stark contrast to the American system, with extremely long campaigns and number of ads being dependent on number of funds raised by candidates.

History and Culture post: Natalie “Three Killings”

Natalie informed the class about three killings that occurred over spring break in Brazil and their connection to a recent enacting of a constitutional provision by Temer. Temer gave the military the power to act against the people of Rio. Temer justifies this that it is to target gangs, however, it has been affecting more than just gang members it affects people in favelas, poor people of color. A councilwoman, Marielle Franco, who was responding to a recent death was killed along with her driver. It is believed that she was killed in relation the work she was doing in calling attention to the violence in Rio. There is some media attention that has reclassified this crime as some of the violence that Franco was fighting against. The government has used this to justify the increasing military presence in Rio, even though this is what Franco was fighting against her death is being spun by the media as such (see link below for more)

History and Culture post: Andrew “Yellow Fever”

Andrew discussed the current outbreak of yellow fever in Brazil. There has been a state of health emergency and a major effort to vaccinate the public. Once reason the outbreak is so large is because the health officials underestimated how much the virus would spread. The spread of mosquito borne diseases is greatly affected by transportation technology. The faster technology has allowed mosquitos to survive journeys to new areas which they would not survive the trip if the journey was longer.

“50 Years in 5: Brasilia” Dr. Holt

The study of the creation of Brasilia allows historians to raise the question how city planning can shape a society. Juscelino Kubitschek(JK) was the President of Brazil after Vargas he was a populist. JK created many developmental projects during his term which in order to fund he took out many IMF loans which in order to pay off lead to inflation. When JK was president there also was great fear around the spread of communism.

Book Presentation: Jordan The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia

Jordan gives an overview of James Holston’s book allowing us as a class to have a further understanding of Brasilia and the goals of creating it. Jordan discussed the goals of creating Brasilia, that it was a way to make Brazil what it could be and how it fell short of that goal. When designing Brasilia, the architects attempted to create a classless society where everyone lives in harmony. That is a fairly lofty goal and they did not even come close to reaching that goal. Brasilia was successful in marking the creation of a new Brazil. The modern architecture of Brasilia was an attempt to change how the citizens live and interact with the city. Jordan has also updated The Modernist City’s Wikipedia page if you are interested in learning more.

Definitions:

Ades aegypti: the species of mosquito that spreads yellow fever along with dengue fever, chikungunya, zika fever, and mayaro.

Further reading:

“The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLsTUN1wVrc 

“Neoliberal vampire” Paraíso de Tuiuti float: https://youtu.be/g8nj8hiTF4A?t=2m19s 

On Brazilian Campaign ads: https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21611070-political-airtime-tv-follows-strict-schedule-will-it-matter-tightly-scripted-telenovela 

Police Militarization: https://www.wola.org/analysis/police-militarization-similarities-between-ferguson-and-brazil/ 

Effects of Marielle Franco’s death: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/opinion/marielle-franco-brazil-activist-death.html 

WHO report on Yellow Fever outbreak: http://www.who.int/csr/don/27-february-2018-yellow-fever-brazil/en/ 

The Modernist City: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Modernist_City