Quaese pretos de tao pobres? Race and Social Discrimination in Rio de Janeiro's Twentieth-Century Criminal Courts

Fischer, Brodwyn

doi:10.1353/lar.2004.0008

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Poor U.S. whites have long been described as white “trash”—a social category that marks the failure of some white people to live up to the social class standards associated with whiteness (Hartigan , ; Wray ). Along similar lines in Brazil, Fischer () finds that poor whites attempting to legally defend themselves in court in the mid‐20th century, who did not possess state documents, legal employment, decent housing, or strong character witnesses, could also “sink” to the level of black people, becoming “ quase pretos de tão pobres ” (almost black because they were so poor)—a phrase first coined by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil () in the song “Haití.”…”

Section: “Diploma Of Whiteness”: Racial Malleability In and Beyond Brmentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial Malleability and the Sensory Regime of Politically Conscious Brazilian Hip Hop

Roth‐Gordon

2013

J Latin Amer Carib Anth

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Resumo Ao examinar as práticas corporais de jovens pobres do sexo masculino afiliados ao hip hop politicamente consciente no Brasil na virada do Século XXI, esse artigo revisa os conhecimentos atuais sobre a “flexibilidade racial” no Brasil. Primeiro, discuto uma variedade de exemplos globais e históricos que mostram como o corpo é percebido como racialmente flexível, incluindo teorias eugênicas do Século XX e estudos dos contextos coloniais, nos quais as populações brancas e de cor foram submetidas a regimes sensoriais que potencialmente tiveram o poder de alterar sua aparência física. Logo, sugiro que os rappers brasileiros demonstram flexibilidade racial à medida que eles alteram a estética dos seus corpos, seus padrões de consumo e práticas linguísticas. Em uma era de alto intercâmbio comercial com os Estados Unidos e influência cultural norte americana jovens brasileiros pobres do sexo masculino utilizam da construção de conexões (contestadas) com os Estados Unidos e com a modernidade global para mudar sua aparência racial em uma escala onde a branquitude e a falta de branquitude se encontram em posições relativas entre si.

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Section: “Diploma Of Whiteness”: Racial Malleability In and Beyond Brmentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial Malleability and the Sensory Regime of Politically Conscious Brazilian Hip Hop

Roth‐Gordon

2013

J Latin Amer Carib Anth

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“…Fundamentally, we argue that literary critics' assumptions about the racial identities of the characters in "Pai contra mãe" are not direct textual readings but rather proof that a naturalized category of whiteness has fi rmly embedded itself into the Brazilian imagination of hierarchy. 7 The inextricability of racial categories from other social classifi catory systems such as class and prestige is an obvious corollary (DaMatta 1991;Fischer 2004;McCallum 2005), and in recognition of this we develop below an anthropological reading of whiteness that demonstrates how such schemes of binary confi guration have not only historically infl uenced the Brazilian public sphere but continue to do so. 6.…”

Section: Figure 2 the Happy Couple Cândido Neves And His Wife Claramentioning

confidence: 99%

Whiter Shades of Pale: “Coloring In” Machado de Assis and Race in Contemporary Brazil

Flynn¹,

Calvo-González²,

Souza³

2013

Latin American Research Review

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Debates surrounding race in Brazil have become increasingly fraught in recent years as the once hegemonic concept of racial democracy (democracia racial) continues to be subject to an ever more agnostic scrutiny. Parallel to these debates, and yet ultimately inseparable from them, is the question of what it is to be "white." In this interdisciplinary paper, we argue that whiteness has become increasingly established in Brazilian public discourse as a naturalized category. Seeking a fresh perspective on what we perceive to have become a sterile debate, we examine Machado de Assis and his work to illustrate how assumptions surrounding his short story "Pai contra mãe," and indeed comments on the author's very body, reveal the extent to which whiteness has come to be seen as nonnegotiable and fi xed. Placing a close reading of Machado's text at the heart of the article, we explain its implications for the scholarly debates now unfolding in Brazil concerning the construction of whiteness. The article then develops an anthropological reading of whiteness by pointing to the inherent differences between perspectives of race as a process and perspectives of race as a fi xed and naturalized given.

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“…The former has a higher proportion of white and middle-class members and the latter includes a greater proportion of black and lower-class members. (It is important to keep in mind that race in Brazil is a complex issue, with tensions less sharply defined than in other areas of Latin America [Lovell and Wood 1998;Hoffman and Centeno 2003;Fischer 2004]) On the other hand, there are important ritual similarities between the two religions, including the predominance of women as participants (though of men in leadership roles), the passe or laying on of hands (more common in Kardecism), and the blessing of items such as T-shirts and medallions, given to infants and the sick for the purposes of protection and cure (more common in Umbanda).…”

Section: Spirit Possession and Social Relations In Kardecism And Umbandamentioning

confidence: 99%

Ritual Theory and Attitudes to Agency in Brazilian Spirit Possession

Engler

2009

Method Theory Study Religion

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This article works with theory of ritual in order to begin addressing a series of questions raised by Brazilian spirit possession rituals (in Kardecism and Umbanda). Four contributions to theory of ritual highlight relevant conceptual issues: Humphrey and Laidlaw on non-intentionality; Bloch on deference; Houseman and Severi on social relations; and Kapferer on virtuality. Strawson's philosophical distinction between objective and reactive attitudes toward intentionality is used to make a case (i) that certain formal aspects of ritual (indexicals) serve to (ii) mark culturally-variable attitudes to agency within rituals, which are related to, but fundamentally distinct from, non-ritual attitudes to agency. KeywordsRitual, theory of ritual, agency, indexicality, Umbanda, Kardecism, social relations, Brazil Recent theory of ritual has been moving past linguistic communication models that emphasize the symbolism of rituals and that attempt to read their syntax and semantics. This article makes a specific theoretical contribution that draws together themes from recent work on theorizing rituals. The first section of the article offers a brief overview of two Brazilian religions, Umbanda and Kardecism. Highlighting the interrelations between spirit possession and social relations raises a series of questions. The theoretical perspective set out in the following sections suggests a means of answering these questions. The second section sketches four contributions to theory of ritual: Humphrey and Laidlaw on non-intentionality; Bloch on deference; Houseman and Severi on social relations; and Kapferer on virtuality. The third section draws on the work of philosopher Peter Strawson to distinguish two distinct attitudes toward agency, reactive and objective. This article's most significant contribution is to argue that rituals help to reframe the relation between these attitudes in a manner distinct from their relation in non-ritual contexts. By focusing on this relational tension we turn our attention from reading the meaning of ritual to the structure and dynamics of ritual practice and how these reframe agency. I illustrate the ramifications of this distinct by examining its relations with the four contributions to theory of ritual discussed in the previous section. The fourth section draws critically on the work of Alfred Gell to argue that the Peircean concept of indexicality is invaluable in analyzing which elements and aspects of ritualized action achieve these attitudinal effects. The resulting theoretical frame emphasizes agency, virtuality and indexicality in ritual within specific social contexts. This will be illustrated, in the fifth and final section, by an analysis of spirit possession in Kardecism and Umbanda.

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Quaese pretos de tao pobres? Race and Social Discrimination in Rio de Janeiro's Twentieth-Century Criminal Courts

Cited by 16 publications

References 23 publications

Racial Malleability and the Sensory Regime of Politically Conscious Brazilian Hip Hop

Racial Malleability and the Sensory Regime of Politically Conscious Brazilian Hip Hop

Whiter Shades of Pale: “Coloring In” Machado de Assis and Race in Contemporary Brazil

Ritual Theory and Attitudes to Agency in Brazilian Spirit Possession

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