Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Domestication Of Machismo In Brazil: Motivations, Reflexivity, And Consonance Of Religious Male Gender Roles, H. J. François Dengah Ii, William W. Dressler, Ana Falcão

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The relationship between culture and the individual is a central focus of social scientific research. This paper examines motivations that mediate between shared culture norms and individual actions. Inspired by the works of Leon Festinger and Melford Spiro, we posit that social network conformation (the perceived adherence of one’s social network with norms) and internalization of cultural norms (incorporation of cultural models with the self-schema) will differentially shape behavior (cultural consonance) depending on the domain and individual characteristics. For the domain of gender roles among Brazilian men, religious affiliation results in different configurations of the individual and culture. Our findings …

The Making And Silencing Of “Axé-Ocracy” In Brazil: Black Women Writers’ Spiritual, Political And Literary Movement In São Paulo, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

In this article, I will focus on two influential writers from the south of Brazil, Cristiane Sobral who currently lives in Brasília, from Rio de Janeiro, and Conceição Evaristo who currently lives in Rio de Janeiro state, from Minas Gerais. I got to know them in São Paulo in 2015 at a public event: the “Afroétnica Flink! Sampa Festival of Black Thought, Literature and Culture.” I will include references to some of their younger contemporaries such as Raquel Almeida, Jenyffer Nascimento, and Elizandra Souza, all of whom reside in São Paulo, in order to illustrate the Black Brazilian women writers’ …

Cultural Models Of Raça: The Calculus Of Brazilian Racial Identity Revisited, Henri J. François Dengah Ii, Jason A. Gilmore, Marcus Brasileiro, Anna S. Cohen, Elizabeth Bingham Thomas, Jenni Budge Blackburn, Mckayle Law, Jae Swainston, Richard Thomas

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Nearly 50 years ago, Marvin Harris published a seminal paper that examined how Brazilians create taxonomic categories of racial identity. In the intervening decades, new cognitive theories and analytical approaches have enabled researchers to investigate cultural domains with increased sophistication and nuance. In this paper, we revisit, replicate, and extend Harris’s research by utilizing modern cognitive anthropological approaches such as multidimensional scaling and cultural consensus analysis. Utilizing the same facial portraits as in the original study, we ask a contemporary sample of 34 Brazilians to identify and sort these images by racial identity. We then compare Harris’s original data, reanalyzed …

Rediscovering Brazil: The Marajoara Style In Modernist Art And Design, Alyson Brandes

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

During the Portuguese rule of Dom Pedro II until 1889, through the years of the First Brazilian Republic (1889-1930) and into the First Vargas Regime (1930-1945), Brazil struggled to solidify a strong national identity that would finally unify the country and legitimize its rich cultural heritage. The discovery and excavation of Marajó Island in the 1870s provided evidence of a great, ancient civilization, and inspired Brazilian Art Deco and early Modernist artists. Polychrome ceramic urns, vessels, and tangas (female pubic covers) were among the most abundant archaeological finds, many with zoomorphic and geometric motifs that show the cultural importance of …

Jenyffer Nascimento’S Epic Poetry Of Black Female Empowerment Jenyffer Nascimento: A Poesia Épica De Empoderamento Da Mulher Negra, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

This article presents results of auto-ethnography, literary analysis, and fieldwork research to answer an underlying, perhaps unresolved, concern, relevant to this dossier: how can we produce an ethical dialogue as transnational Black Feminists, among Black Brazilian women, and North American Black women, in an ethical manner, while realizing that one may (not ever) be a part of the “carnival without you in it.” Fertile Earth/ Terra Fertil tells a long overdue epic story to an audience within the poetry: Black women, family members, other times a Black man, Brazil, white women, or “you,” undefined. Joy to pain to chaos, sensuality, …

Prehistoric Pathoecology As Represented By Parasites Of A Mummy From The Peruaçu Valley, Brazil, Karl Reinhard, Adauto Araújo

Karl Reinhard Publications

Paleopathologists have begun exploring the pathoecology of parasitic diseases in relation to diet and environment. We are summarizing the parasitological findings from a mummy in the site of Lapa do Boquete, a Brazilian cave in the state of Minas Gerais. These findings in context of the archaeology of the site provided insights into the pathoecology of disease transmission in cave and rockshelter environments. We are presenting a description of the site followed by the evidence of hookworm, intestinal fluke, and Trypanosoma infection with resulting Chagas disease in the mummy discovered in the cave. These findings are used to reconstruct the …

The Symphony Of State: São Paulo's Department Of Culture, 1922-1938, Micah J. Oelze

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1920s-30s São Paulo, Brazil, leaders of the vanguard artistic movement known as “modernism” began to argue that national identity came not from shared values or even cultural practices but rather by a shared way of thinking, which they variously designated as Brazil’s “racial psychology,” “folkloric unconscious,” and “national psychology.” Building on turn-of-the-century psychological and anthropological theories, the group diagnosed Brazil’s national mind as characterized by “primitivity” and in need of a program of psychological development. The group rose to political power in the 1930s, placing the artists in a position to undertake such a project. The Symphony of State …

Establishing Tobacco Origin From Pollen Identification: An Approach To Resolving The Debate, Shane Williams, Shelby Hubbard, Karl Reinhard, Sérgio Augusto De Miranda Chaves

Karl Reinhard Publications

Previous research into pollen content of tobacco resulted in a debate. We address this debate and determine that pollen analysis may be able to assist with identifying geographical origin of tobacco. However, the value of any results should be assessed on a case-by-case regional basis until sufficient database information is available for an objective interpretation to be undertaken on a global basis. As a first step toward developing comparative data for South America, we analyzed a tobacco sample from Brazil in an effort to identify signature taxa from the state of Minas Gerais. We also assessed the role of honey …

'The Earth Is Crying Out In Pains Of Childbirth': Bauxite Mining And Sustainable Rural Development In The Brazilian Atlantic Forest, Lena R. Connor

Environmental Analysis Program Mellon Student Summer Research Reports

In 2003, residents of the Serra do Brigadeiro Territory, a rural region of Southeastern Brazil in one of the few remaining patches of the Atlantic Forest, learned of a large number of bauxite concessions in their territory given by the federal government to the prominent Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio (CBA), Brazil’s largest aluminum producer. Because the region prides itself on its small-scale agriculture and its lush natural environment, the mining has been the source of much contention in the community. Introduced to the topic by the international conservation non-profit and research center, Iracambi, I spent two months in the territory …

A New Paradigm: Brazilian Catholic Eco-Justice Activism In The Neoliberal Age, Lena R. Connor

Environmental Analysis Program Mellon Student Summer Research Reports

This paper analyzes how traditional liberation theology in Brazil has been adapted in the neoliberal age to encompass ecological goals and rhetoric. In this research report, I first examine the work of prominent Brazilian ecotheologians, Ivone Gebara and Leonardo Boff. I then look into the applications of such ecological liberation theology in Catholic activism in Brazil, focusing on the role of religious advocacy in dam controversies, land reform, and mining.

Brazilians In The United States 1980—2007, Laird Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines demographic and socioeconomic factors concerning Brazilians in the United States between 1980 and 2007.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The wave of migration from Brazil which began in the 1990s in all likelihood will continue into the future, economic fluctuations in the U.S. notwithstanding. In part this is due to the relatively high rates of educational attainment …

Cosmopolitan Theory And Anthropological Practice In Brazil, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In relation to the theme of this volume - to inquire into transformations marked by knowledge-making projects and the role played by intellectuals - in this chapter I will focus on Brazilian anthropologists. In considering how impoverished or marginalized communities become integrated into global claims about the human condition, I analyze the efforts of Brazilian anthropologists on behalf of rural black communities in the northeastern backlands in light of cosmopolitan theory.

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 …

Lifestyle Of Shellmound Builders In Brazil (Galley Proofs), Sabine Eggers, C. C. Petronilho, K. Brandt, J. Filippini, Karl J. Reinhard

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The contact of inland and coastal prehistoric groups in Brazil is believed to have been restricted to regions with no geographical barrier, as is the case in the Ribeira de Iguape valley. The inland osteological collection from the riverine shellmound Moraes (5800–4500 BP) represents a unique opportunity to test this assumption for this region. Despite cultural similarities between riverine and coastal shellmounds, important ecological and site distribution differences are expected to impact on lifestyle. The purpose of this study is thus to document and interpret health and lifestyle indicators in Moraes in comparison to coastal shellmound groups. Specifically we test …

A Tale Of Two Priests And Two Struggles: Liberation Theology From Dictatorship To Democracy In The Brazilian Northeast, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Land for the landless, food for the hungry, literacy for the uneducated— not through charitable works, but by forcing the state to take seriously its responsibilities to its poorest citizens. This was integral to the theology of liberation as it was practiced by bishops, priests, and nuns in Brazil beginning shortly after the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Important sectors of the Brazilian Catholic Church were “opting for the poor” at a time when economic development, modernization, and democracy were not considered appropriate or meaningful partners in the repressive environment characterized by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985).

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 …