Afro-Brazilian Studies From Psychoanalysis to Cultural Anthropology: An Intellectual Portrait of Arthur Ramos (original) (raw)
The Journal of Pan African Studies, 2012
This article explores the works of writers who are innovative and traditional at the same time with a keen eye on the "universal" to reach towards humanism via Paulo Colina, Salgado Maranhão, and Márcio Barbosa. Hence, their comparative commonality within the trope of "interfacial archetypes" is conceived since all these cultural producers choose the urban setting for their imaginative works even when their subject matter transcends a fixed setting and includes a traditional or rural setting. The choice between the urban and the rural is a false option for the exigency of modernity and postmodernity demands that even the "rural" become subject to the critique of "primitivism" and "exoticism" that is usually associated with subaltern and indigenous societies. The very urban nature of slavery in Brazil especially in the geo-economics and politics of Coffee in São Paulo, Sugarcane in the Northeast, and Gold in Minas Gerais, ensured the post-emancipation location of African descendants in the urban areas. Even with the effects of labor migration from "arid" to "greener" pastures, such as from the Northeast to the South, did not have a significant economic reconfiguration or betterment of life as these "migrant populations" were contained within a space that is now known as favela [Slum]-a space that may be seen as both private and public. Within this shifting space and location, African cultures and religions survived in Brazil to the extent that the relics take on their own identity with universal ethos-hence the interfacial connections between the ancestral, the urban, and the human condition. This essay was originally part of the book, Afro-Brazilians: Cultural Production in a Racial Democracy (2009) which partly explains the 1987-2003 references, the period wherein Afro-Brazilian cultural production was at its best due to the centennial celebration of the abolition of slavery (1888) in Brazil in 1988 that allowed Afro-Brazilian artistic and cultural production to flourish.
Demands of an Afro-Brazilian Thought: Philosophical Aspects
2019
The main objective of this paper is to discuss the role of African philosophy, in view of the links between Africa and Brazil, at a time marked by a reorganization of social life on the planet. This, of course, is a qualitative research. Our investigation will focus on the current situation of these two regions, the historical elements that draw them together. One of the conclusions of this paper affirms that Brazil should give due attention to the philosophical production in the African continent.
The objective of this article is to analyze the background of the historiography of psychoanalysis in Rio de Janeiro. Three different phases and approaches are analyzed, based on the viewpoints of different groups of authors. The first group features authors who displayed an early interest in the subject, in the 1920´s-1930´s. The second refers to psychiatrists/ psychoanalysts who worked with mental health institutes and societies between the 1940´s and 1970´s, while the third perspective comes from the academic/university environment, from the end of the 70´s to the present. This distinction was made not only to better define the timeframe of the arrival and dissemination of psychoanalysis in Rio de Janeiro, but also to provide a better understanding of the relation between the specific professional and intellectual interests of each group and the respective historical context.
The historiography of psychoanalysis in Brazil: the case of Rio de Janeiro
The objective of this article is to analyze the background of the historiography of psychoanalysis in Rio de Janeiro. Three different phases and approaches are analyzed, based on the viewpoints of different groups of authors. The first group features authors who displayed an early interest in the subject, in the 1920´s-1930´s. The second refers to psychiatrists/ psychoanalysts who worked with mental health institutes and societies between the 1940´s and 1970´s, while the third perspective comes from the academic/university environment, from the end of the 70´s to the present. This distinction was made not only to better define the timeframe of the arrival and dissemination of psychoanalysis in Rio de Janeiro, but also to provide a better understanding of the relation between the specific professional and intellectual interests of each group and the respective historical context.
Arthur Ramos and Rüdiger Bilden were central figures in the creation and consolidation of Afro-Brazilian studies, taking part in a collaborative network that involved several other Brazilian and American researchers, such as Gilberto Freyre, Edison Carneiro, Melville Herskovits, Donald Pierson, and Ruth Landes. The two researchers were positioned differently in the academic field; while Arthur Ramos was a professor of anthropology in Brazil, Bilden encountered many difficulties in his efforts to secure a permanent position in the United States but was close to some of the main figures in anthropology, such as Franz Boas (1858-1942). Despite this asymmetry, they developed an important partnership that was decisive for the debate on Afro-Brazilian studies between the 1930s and 1940s. In this article, I reconstitute the networks of relationships established between Ramos and Bilden, using as a source the correspondence exchanged between them, available at the Arthur Ramos Archive at the National Library (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). This reconstitution allows us to understand, on the one hand, the power relations and alliances that were being established at the time in the field of Afro-Brazilian studies and, on the other hand, the selfrepresentation that these agents were producing about themselves.
‘No memory, no desire’: Psychoanalysis in Brazil during Repressive Times
Psychoanalysis and History, 2016
Until recently, the growth and significance of Brazilian psychoanalysis has been neglected in histories of psychoanalysis. Not only is this history long and rich in its professional and cultural dimensions, but there was an especially important ‘event’ – the so-called ‘Cabernite-Lobo affair’ – that took place during the period of the military dictatorship, which can be seen as dramatizing some of the issues concerning the erasure of memory in psychoanalysis, especially in connection with political difficulties. In this paper, we provide an outline of the origins and dissemination of psychoanalysis in Brazil before looking again at the Cabernite-Lobo affair in order to examine in a situated way how psychoanalysis engages with political extremism, and particularly to explore the consequences of an unthinking generalization of the idea of ‘neutrality’ from the consulting room to the institutional setting. We draw especially on Brazilian papers in Portuguese, which have not been accessi...
Psicanálise Para Brasileiros: História De Sua Circulação E
2012
Psychoanalysis has been widely used in Brazil between the decades of 1920 and 1940 as a method for diagnosing the country’s reality. This analysis has frequently been based on the “repressed material” coming from habits and folklore of local traditions. Thus, psychoanalysis – a theory which intents to establish the subject of the unconscious, heterogeneous and singular in human sciences – has been moved of its history and singularity to the field of collective psychology, resulting in unusual interpretations about the developing national identity, and in consequent therapeutic proposals. In this article I intent do demonstrate some of the specific guidelines that tied the reception of psychoanalysis to the national identity’s construction and to modern Brazil. Therefore I present two legitimate representatives of Brazilian psychoanalysis of that period: a psychoanalyst who was a eugenics follower and a vanguard writer.
DOSSIER | Perspectives on Indigenous Psychology in Brazil: ethical and epistemological challenges, 2024
Objective Think about Psychology, as a field of knowledge and care practice, despite its rich polyphony, diversity, and multiplicity, kowing that it is originally linked to dualism, individualism, subjectivism, scientism, Eurocentrism, and professionalism. On the other hand, there are undeniable contributions of Brazilian indigenous peoples. With over three hundred surviving peoples, they offer a vast ethnosociobiodiversity. They bring forth knowledge and practices of care and health based on diverse yet convergent Cosmopolitical references, which are integral, integrative, relational, communal, collective, ritualistic, sacralized, ancestral, intuitive, reciprocal, and undisciplinary, as they do not recognize the fragmentation of knowledge into disciplines, nor do they serve the "disciplining of life". Method This is a scoping review based on the production of contemporary Brazilian indigenous thinkers, bringing their contributions that can and should be recognized by the field of psychology as significant interlocutors in the process of fertilizing and reframing the field towards a psychology that may be decolonial, anticolonial, and yet to come. Results These contributions to help us to think another psychology from the Cosmopolitical reference of Brazil's indigenous peoples. Conclusion We see a turning point, a shift within the psychological field itself, advancing from a decolonial Psychology, countercolonial Psychology, to a possible yet to come Psychology.
Anthropology, Nationalism and Colonialism, 2023
Presentation of the Topic, Its Pertinence and Context of the Research This introduction will place the research topic in context and justify the pertinence of an anthropological study on the life and work of Mendes Correia (1888-1960) and the Porto School of Anthropology in the first half of the twentieth century. One of the motivations for starting research on this subject was the realization that eighty-seven years (when I wrote the project in 2005) after the foundation of the Portuguese Society of Anthropology and Ethnology (SPAE) in 1918, no study had been carried out on this school-of which the main representative was Mendes Correia 1the works he produced or his relationship to the scientific knowledge and the political order in Portugal and its former colonies. As a matter of fact, he was the main figure not only of SPAE, but also of Portuguese anthropology up to the 1950s. It was therefore a timely moment for an in-depth study of the work produced by the actors connected to this school, a reflection on its purposes and an analysis of the initiatives it promoted, the works it carried out and also its legacy. Furthermore, I believe that one of the ways to carry out an anthropological study is to examine the evolution and development of anthropology itself. In that sense, this book contributes towards a better knowledge of the academic history of anthropology in Portugal. As mentioned by João Leal, the 'natural result of anthropology's recent history' led to it becoming a 'disciplinary subfield inside anthropology' (Leal 2006: 123). In this case, I intend to highlight one of the leading exponents of this discipline in Portugal, whose personal (academic, political and institutional) path and work were highly productive. However, I intend to go far beyond a mere biography and I am aware that the task of 'biographing', 2 although it should not be mistaken for the 'invention of facts', can also involve a process of 'fiction', 3 're-creation' and reconstitution (Oliveira 2003).
Latent Blackness: Afro-Brazilian People, History, and Culture in São Paulo, Brazil
Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 2022
This article examines the ways in which blackness operates in relation to São Paulo's identity as a city of modernity and progress. Drawing from participant observation during public events and projects directed toward the Black population, I introduce the term "latent blackness" as a way to understand Afro-Brazilians' perspectives on how Black history and culture are included in the city. Latent blackness moves beyond notions of the absence and erasure of blackness to make sense of Afro-Brazilian perspectives on their role in São Paulo's history and identity. The concept of latent blackness adds to understandings of how Black people articulate the shortcomings of their relationship to the city and how race and regionalism intersect in Brazil. [race, blackness, São Paulo] R e s u m o Este artigo examina as formas como a negritude opera em relação à identidade de São Paulo como uma cidade da modernidade e do progresso. A partir da observação participante durante eventos públicos e projetos voltados para a população negra, apresento o termo "negritude latente" como uma forma de entender perspectivas Afro-Brasileiras sobre como a história e a cultura negras estão inseridas na cidade. A negritude latente vai além das noções de ausência, invisibilidade e apagamento da negritude para dar sentido às perspectivas afro-brasileiras sobre seu papel na história e identidade de São Paulo. O conceito de negritude latente contribui para a compreensão de como os negros articulam as deficiências de sua relação com a cidade e como raça e regionalismo se cruzam no Brasil. [Brasil, raça, negritude, São Paulo, a cidade]
Course Syllabus AFRO 498/ANTHRO 499 University of Illinois, 2019
It is estimated that about 40% of the Africans sent to the Americas during the age of the Atlantic slave trade had Brazil as their final destination. For this reason, Brazil has the largest African-descent population outside the African continent and, consequently, a central importance for the study of the African diaspora. This course will focus on two major themes regarding the African experience in Brazil: 1-the role of slavery in the economic and social formation of Brazil and its lasting impact on the lives of African-Brazilian population, considering, thus, the racialization process that took place in the country during the last centuries; and 2-the origins and transformations of African cultures in Brazil. These issues will be addressed through historical and archaeological studies. Anthropological literature will be approached to discuss both the issues regarding race and the dynamics of African identities and their transformations in Brazil over the last centuries. Special attention will be given to anthropological theories of cultural exchange and identity formation, such as acculturation, creolization, and mestizage, and the ways that they have been applied to explain the process of formation of African diasporic communities in Brazil. Course Goals: It is expected that after taking this course students will be able to:-identify the societies and cultures of those African regions that furnished large numbers of enslaved people to Brazil and their impact on the formation of African-Brazilian cultures;-understand the ways in which the institution of slavery was articulated to the economy in Portuguese America and Imperial Brazil;-develop a critical understanding of the process of racialization of African-Brazilian populations, considering the ways in which skin color differences were rationalized and how racism still operates as a structuring principle in the reproduction of social inequalities;-recognize the basic assumptions behind the cultural exchange theories that have been applied to explain the cultural dynamics and the emergence of African Brazilian cultures;-appreciate the role of religiosity in the process of construction of identities in Afro-diasporic communities;-understand the major issues that have been addressed in the archaeology of African diasporas in Brazil. The course is organized around lectures, class presentations, and critical discussions, with the occasional addition of selected documentaries. The professor will introduce each subject through lectures, which will be followed by students' class presentations of assigned readings. Occasionally the professor will present the results of his own and of other Brazilians' archaeological research, opening the
Conference: African and African Diaspora Philosophy, identity, and Culture. Zimbabwe Open University, 26 - 28th August, 2021, 2021
In this presentation I discuss the concept of culturally distinct philosophy, with application to Afro-Brazilian philosophy, in view of a widespread limitation of the concept of 'philosophy' to the period since Enlightenment, and to the (vaguely defined) "West". I return to the Hellenistic discussion of 'philosophy', as comprising culturally and religiously distinct traditions, and of universalism, by reception and exchange. The Hellenistic inclusion of the religious and the spiritual into the concept of philosophy is noted. On this basis, the foundation of Afro-Brazilian Philosophy in African cultures, and its encodement in Afro-Brazilian religions are presented, as being acknowledged recently. The specifics of Afro-Brazilian philosophy, as having evolved in an environment of different cultures, with a fusion of diverse African traditions, of Christianity and of Esotericism, are noted. The distinct development of the African religious-philosophical tradition in Brazil is shown to be recognised, and to be reflected in recent research here. Its hermeneutics are determined by this culture, and by interest of retrieving Afro-Brazilian Philosophy as part of the common culture of the country. Preliminaries To speak of 'Afro-Brazilian philosophy' raises questions.
Afro-Brazilian Manifestations, An Urgent Recognition
Contemporary And, 2016
The image of afro-descendants always figured in the Brazilian national imaginary, since colonial times. But it was just during the early 20th early century, the modern period, that some artworks started to portray them differently, seeking to cherish the then freed slaves as a sociocultural symbolic element of a new era. These modern artworks embodied the popular and national, the heroic and prosaic in the construction of a new Brazilian identity, in a country that was seeking to be free from its past. In some extent, these images accomplished that without, however, addressing the social dramas that slavery, captivity and the consequent abolition caused. Contradictorily, this new imagery inaugurated an allegedly rich social imaginary (by being interbred) within a society that did not accepted itself as mixed. In the left, a wet nurse that worked for Tarsila do Amaral family, supposedly inspiring the painting 'A negra' from 1923. These visual representations functioned also as contrapositions to the social bleaching policies of the young Brazilian Republic, where the government would regulate the entrance of immigrants (...)
O Ilê Obá Ogunté: Patrimônio e Identidade Afro-Brasileira
Vivência: Revista de Antropologia, 2020
O objetivo deste trabalho é refletir sobre o processo de patrimonialização ocorrido nas religiões afro-brasileiras e a importância atribuída à musealização da sua cultura, tanto material quanto imaterial. Para tanto, tomamos como estudo o Ilê Obá Ogunté, localizado no Recife, Pernambuco. O terreiro conta com o reconhecimento não só dos adeptos, mas de estudiosos especializados uma vez que se constitui no espaço de culto mais antigo em funcionamento na cidade. A partir de nossas investigações, buscamos explicitar que os processos de patrimonialização lidam com a religião e com a identidade afro-brasileira no sentido de inserir seus praticantes na história das lutas por legitimidade.
Racism and Racial Surveillance. Modernity Matters, 2021
There is no physical violence that is not accompanied by symbolic violence. Studying the history of Afro-Brazilian art requires entangling yourself in centuries-old continuums of histories of symbolic and physical violence. It also provides a chance to clearly discern not only the “dialectic of coloni- zation,” which São Paulo playwright and theatre director José Fernando Peixoto de Azevedo mentions in the epigraph, but also the very “dialectic of enlightenment,” which Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer sought to describe as Europe burned in flames in the first half of the 1940s (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1986). The history of Brazilian Afro-descendant Black art is a history that involves traumatic repetitions of violence that were often glossed over as “conquests of civilisation.” In this history, science, aca- demia and the entire cultural field are presented as a structural part of the colonial system.