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- Convenor:
-
Carmen Rial
(Federal University of Santa Catarina)
- Location:
- 301 A
- Start time:
- 16 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 0
Short Abstract:
By organizing this panel discussion, ABA would like to present what it is doing today, and indicate future trends in some of the fields of knowledge where Brazil’s diversified anthropology is inserted.
Long Abstract:
For more than 50 years the Brazilian Anthropology Association has played a fundamental role in the success of Brazilian Anthropology and in the defense of threatened populations. The first years of the 21st century witnessed a great expansion of Anthropology in Brazil, especially in the realm of universities, where the number of campuses and departments has doubled. In parallel to this recent growth and the rising presence of anthropologist as an occupational category in government entities, Brazilian anthropology is facing political issues that emerge from the populations studied. Quilombolas, indigenous peoples, demands for environmental protection, land ownership rights and museum policies are subjects upon which anthropologists have been constantly called on to provide guidance. This raises a dual challenge for anthropologists in the country: to continue to produce high quality research and publications, while simultaneously maintaining a reflexive agenda that can contribute to public policy in the country. By organizing this panel discussion, ABA would like to present what it is doing today, and indicate future trends in some of the fields of knowledge where Brazil’s diversified anthropology is inserted.
Accepted papers:
Paper short abstract:
The notion of human rights conveys a radical conception of equality, given that it makes reference to rights that should be equally shared by all human beings. As in Brazil there is a tension between two opposing conceptions of equality, there is a significant lack of clarity between rights and privileges that have currency in the public space.
Paper long abstract:
The notion of human rights conveys a radical conception of equality, given that it makes reference to rights that should be equally shared by all human beings. In Western democracies, where citizenship is the main symbol of equal treatment, it suggests the existence of universal rights that are not State bound. However, conceptions of equality vary a great deal among different polities, and are actually dependent on local civic sensibilities. As in Brazil there is a tension between two opposing conceptions of equality, there is a significant lack of clarity between rights and privileges, or about who has legitimate claims to rights and privileges in the public space. As the literature has shown and I will argue, such a situation indicates that the exercise of citizenship and the observation of human rights gain very specific contours and face complex dilemmas.
Paper short abstract:
The State as a theme has played a constitutive role for anthropology in Brazil. The discipline has long been engaged in studying social impacts of State policies and nation building. It is important to conduct a deep theoretical reflection on state formation processes which help to form us and which we help form in daily life and on a micro-scale.
Paper long abstract:
The State has been a constant presence in Anthropological investigation. Anthropologists working in different national contexts have developed research which seeks to reveal the “impacts” and “effects” of Nation-Sates government actions on social groups (which are anthropology's declared objects of scientific analysis). They have also developed studies which investigate the construction of nations and nationalisms. The anthropology of “complex societies” has often left unanalyzed, however, the day-to-day operation of power relations and strategies of struggle, the component parts of forms of domination that emanate from and flow through this hierarchic apparatus made up of circumscribed spaces and concentrated resources we call “the State”. In the present paper, I reflect upon the constitutive role this theme has played for anthropology in Brazil (although I will pay less attention to the “construction of the nation” side of things, as this has already been dealt with by several authors). I propose that Brazilian anthropology needs to advance beyond engaging with the populations it studies and looking at the historical process of nation formation. We need to conduct a deep theoretical reflection, in dialogue with the other social sciences and sustained by ethnographic study, of the formation of the apparatuses which form us and which we help form in daily life and on a micro-scale.
Paper short abstract:
We propose to reflect on the "dynamics of ethnic status," in view of the questions raised by studies of national identity, by analyzing the social relations of Japanese immigrants who came to Pernambuco.
Paper long abstract:
We propose to reflect on the " dynamics of ethnic status," in view of the questions raised by studies of national identity. Thus, the main focus will be the social relations of Japanese immigrants who came to Pernambuco. In Brazil, the issue of national identity has always sought the path of what we might call a search of " homogeneity ". Surely prepared from the understandings that have to do with each time and each historical moment and, above all, the interests of the ruling elites. Search for a "homogeneity" in a population consisting of Indians, blacks, immigrants and many mestizos was undoubtedly an activity that sparked major debate in various political platforms, mainly based on the notion of a "scientific racism ", which actually tried to hide deep social inequalities. In this case, the Japanese presence in Pernambuco becomes a paradigmatic case of contrast and responsiveness of the actors in this dialogue, thus opening an agreement on a permanent identity of contrasts, central focus on the dynamics of interethnic relations.
Paper short abstract:
We will take as examples of analysis, in this paper, two fields of political struggle in gender and sexuality in which Brazilian anthropology had an important contribution.
Paper long abstract:
Brazil has strong Anthropological research in gender and sexuality. This theoretical production is closely linked to the development of feminism as a political ideology and as a reflection theory that emerged in Brazil in the 1970s. Unlike other intellectual traditions, in which gender and sexuality belong to different thematic and disciplinary fields, in Brazil these two themes constitute a single field of study, usually composed of researchers who defend feminist theories and queer theory and activists of feminist and LGBTTT movements within the same framework for analysis. Add to this another feature of this field of study, which is the strong relationship of the academic field with the production of public policies from the demands of the state. We will take as examples of analysis, in this paper, two fields of political struggle in which Brazilian Anthropology had an important contribution. The first relates to studies of violence against women, which had a significant contribution in the establishment of one of the first laws passed in the world of defense of women in situations of violence, known as “Lei Maria da Penha” (Maria da Penha Law). The second is related to the recent legislation in the field of university and education; of respect for transgender identities, the political recognition of the "Social Name". From these two examples we will reflect on the Brazilian Anthropological contribution to transformation of social relations in contemporary times.