Afro-Brazilians

Bringing together U.S. and Brazilian scholars, as well as Afro-Brazilian political activists, Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil represents a significant advance in understanding the complexities of racial difference in contemporary Brazilian society. While previous scholarship on this subject has been largely confined to quantitative and statistical research, editor Michael Hanchard presents a qualitative perspective from a variety of disciplines, including history, sociology, political science, and cultural theory.The contributors to Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil examine such topics as the legacy of slavery and its abolition, the historical impact of social movements, race-related violence, and the role of Afro-Brazilian activists in negotiating the cultural politics surrounding the issue of Brazilian national identity.With a focus on racialised constructions of class and gender and sexuality, Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil reorients the direction of Brazilian studies, providing new insights into Brazilian culture, politics, and race relations.This volume will be of importance to a wide cross section of scholars engaged with Brazil in particular, and Latin American studies in general. It will also appeal to all those invested in the larger issues of political and social movements centred on the issue of race.Contributors: Beneditt da Silva, Nelson do Valle Silva, Ivanir dos Santos, Richard Graham, Michael Hanchard, Carlos Hasenbalg, Peggy A. Lovell, Michael Mitchell, Tereza Santos, Edward Telles, Howard Winant

This collection of articles has as its focus the Afro-Brazilian culture of the state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil and its linkage to politics during the 19th century and up to today. A group of interdisciplinary and international scholars bring historical and contemporary perspectives to central issues facing Afro-Brazilians: their relationship to the state and the place of Afro-Brazilian culture in the larger Brazilian society. Topics addressed include the relationship between free and freed 19th century Afro-Brazilians and the state, the black militia, the candomble religion, land reform, and contemporary cultural movements.

From recent data on disparities between Brazilian whites and non-whites in areas of health, education, and welfare, it is clear that vast racial inequalities do exist in Brazil, contrary to earlier assertions in race relations scholarship that the country is a "racial democracy." Here Michael George Hanchard explores the implications of this increasingly evident racial inequality, highlighting Afro-Brazilian attempts at mobilizing for civil rights and the powerful efforts of white elites to neutralize such attempts. Within a neo-Gramscian framework, Hanchard shows how racial hegemony in Brazil has hampered ethnic and racial identification among non-whites by simultaneously promoting racial discrimination and false premises of racial equality.

Drawing from personal archives of and interviews with participants in the Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Hanchard presents a wealth of empirical evidence about Afro-Brazilian militants, comparing their effectiveness with their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa, the United States, and the Caribbean in the post-World War II period. He analyzes, in comprehensive detail, the extr

A provocative comparative study of issues of race, racism, & strategies to improve the status of people of African descent in Brazil, South Africa, & the United States.

Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora collects selected essays from the First and Second African Diaspora Institutes and other essays. This revised second edition, with broader geographical scope than the first edition, places greater emphasis on historical and sociopolitical analysis. New essays that examine the African experience and slavery in the Mediterranean, the black experience in Brazil, African religious retentions in Latin American countries, and essays by women that focus on the experience and contributions of African women of the diaspora address significant areas omitted in the first volume.