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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Anthropology

University of Richmond

Mocambo

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Ethnoracial Land Restitution: Finding Indians And Fugitive Slave Descendants In The Brazilian Northeast, Jan Hoffman French Jan 2009

Ethnoracial Land Restitution: Finding Indians And Fugitive Slave Descendants In The Brazilian Northeast, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This chapter considers how a desire for land and development can lead to a refashioning of ethnoracial identities and identifications. Debates in development studies have centered on culture as an impediment to development. I turn that debate on its head and argue that new assertions of cultural particularity have in certain settings advanced the equity goals of development. The chapter explores the contrasting responses of two neighbouring communities of related African descended, mixed race rural workers who over a 25-year period (1975- 2000), under new laws, were recognized and given land by the Brazilian government. One was identified as an …


Making Identity: Law, Memory, And Race In Comparative Perspective, Jan Hoffman French Jan 2005

Making Identity: Law, Memory, And Race In Comparative Perspective, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In this essay, I would like to focus on identity formation with respect to one of these groups-the Xoco community-especially the relationship between law, identity, and race. I hope to bring to light, if only in a tentative and suggestive way, the broader significance of such an inquiry by narrating the story of the Xoco in dialogue with some discussions of similar issues in the United States. In particular, I will compare the successful struggle for recognition of the Xoco with similar struggles for recognition in the U.S. by the Lumbee and Mashpee Indians, who have not achieved full legal …