Abstract
This chapter outlines the main areas of development characterising Brazilian anthropology, beginning with the late 1800s and ending with the present. The history of anthropology in Brazil has been significantly influenced by processes of national formation, particularly the entrenchment of slavery, oppression of the black population and destruction of indigenous peoples. The first anthropologists, predominantly men of European origin, focused on studying and racially classifying these groups framed as inferior in order to define their role within the nation. Starting in the 1930s, Brazil became the target of considerable interest on the part of foreign anthropologists, especially American and French scholars, as part of a process of disciplinary consolidation. The period of military dictatorship represented a major historical phase marked by violence and political persecution throughout the country, universities included. The end of the dictatorship brought the advent of new horizons and anthropologists reiterated their politically engaged role by contributing to struggles for a new, democratic and more inclusive society. Today, anthropological investigations of inequalities linked to class, race, gender and sexuality, of African and syncretic religious forms, and of indigenous cultures' traditions and transformations constitute both an academic project and an effort to integrate anthropology into the complex fabric of Brazilian society.
I would like to thank Patricia Pinho for her invaluable comments on an early draft of this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
The Nimuendajú Curt archives were destroyed in the 2018 fire.
- 2.
- 3.
The United States also went on to become a reference point for much research on racism—see Oracy Nogueira’s famous essay Preconceito racial de marca e preconceito racial de origem (1954), thus becoming “our privileged, almost civilizing Other” (Peirano, 2000, p. 227).
- 4.
Unlike Wagley, Landes had a very rocky academic trajectory. Fiercely attacked by Ramos and Herskovits to discredit her scientifically (“Their calumnies were symbolic rape on me,” in Corrêa, 1995), she remained outside the university for quite some time (Cole, 1995). Landes was anomalous as a field anthropologist in Brazil in that period in that she worked “alone,” that is, without having ventured into the field as the “wife of” someone (Corrêa, 2000). Her nationality and whiteness were resignified by her gender and independence.
- 5.
In addition to Lévi-Strauss, other foreign anthropologists also taught in Brazil in the 1930s and 1940s. They included the less-well-known Dina Dreyfus (Lévi-Strauss’ wife), who also conducted fieldwork, and Radcliffe-Brown (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1986). Roger Bastide taught at the University of São Paulo from 1938 to 1955.
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Carneiro was an indispensable companion in Landes’ research in Salvador, as she explained (1970).
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Torres’ unusual institutional trajectory is partly related to the fact that she was the daughter of a very important scholar of the time, Alberto Torres, and was viewed as a kind of mother figure by the young researchers of the Museu (Corrêa, 1995).
- 8.
In reality, an awareness of the existence of racism in Brazil was circulating among Brazilian researchers, as attested to by the results of many UNESCO studies (see Maio, 1999).
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The SPI was closed in 1967 following major corruption scandals and human rights violations.
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The 1964 coup put an end to institutional collaboration.
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Enacted in 1968, this decree—considered the harshest law passed by the military regime—also resulted in the forced retirement of professors, such as anthropologist Florestan Fernandes, classified as militant activists.
- 12.
The continuous availability of tailored funding has contributed to the development of this area of anthropological studies.
- 13.
This measure was designed to invalidate the land claims of indigenous groups who were not physically occupying their lands on the day the new constitution was signed in 1988. The measure has been defended by representatives of agrobusiness and large estate owners and supported by the Bolsonaro government. As of the end of 2021, the Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal) had still not ruled on this measure.
- 14.
See the ABA document at the following link: http://www.aba.abant.org.br/files/20201203_5fc963f23a347.pdf
- 15.
The first laws were enacted at the individual state level in 2002, leading to the approval of the federal law no. 12.711 in 2012.
- 16.
Indeed, there have always been black researchers and intellectuals both male and female, but they have faced resistance from hegemonic sectors of the Brazilian academy unwilling to recognise “the black subject—woman or man—as a producer of thought” (Ratts, 2006, p. 31).
- 17.
Beatriz Nascimento (1942–1995), a black professor, researcher, and activist, studied the concept of quilombo from a historic and anthropological perspective. Her work provides both an example of “forgetfulness,” that is, the tendency for white academics to overlook research carried out by black women, and a goldmine for current investigations into quilombos (in English, see the special issue of the journal Antipode, 2021).
- 18.
Debora Diniz, a professor of Anthropology at the University of Brasilia, left Brazil in 2018 following death threats trigged by her research on reproductive rights and abortion rights in particular. See Ribeiro Corossacz and Lenzi Grillini, 2021, for a wider discussion of the socio-political context that led to Bolsonaro’s election and its effects on research and academia.
- 19.
See, for example, the online LGBTI+ seminar Desafios e cidadania em tempos de pandemia organised by the ABA Gender and Sexuality Committee, held 30 June 2021.
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Corossacz, V.R. (2023). Trajectories and Subjects of Brazilian Anthropology. In: D'Agostino, G., Matera, V. (eds) Histories of Anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21258-1_13
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