Thinking Brazil in Regions

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries residents of the Americas have described their nations as divided into regions. In Brazil, bureaucrats and intellectuals initially defined regions in terms of geography, climate, and goods produced, but, over time, regional disparities came to be understood in terms of economic and infrastructural development, race, and culture. The defining of Brazil’s regions was at times a carefully meditated elite project; at others, it came about through media expansion or cultural events with mass participation. The papers on this panel address what purpose thinking Brazil in regions serves within Brazilian notions of nationhood.

Sub Track

• History and Historiography

Session Organizer

• Courtney J Campbell, University of Birmingham

Chair

• Tiago Fernandes Albuquerque Maranhao, Vanderbilt University

Individual Presentations

• Fixing the Brazilian Northeast: The Movimento de Cultura Popular, SUDENE, the Alliance for Progress - Courtney J Campbell, University of Birmingham

• Region, Nation, and Mestiçagem in Brazil, 1930-1990 - Marshall C Eakin, Vanderbilt University

• The Morphology of the Northeastern Man: Race, Nation, and Physical Education in early 20th century Brazil - Tiago Fernandes Albuquerque Maranhao, Vanderbilt University

• The Search for a Primitive Sound: 1930s Brazilian Ethnography in the Strengthening of Regional and Racial Hierarchies - Micah J Oelze, Florida International University