Anthropologists widely agree that identities--even ethnic and racial ones--are socially constructed. Less understood are the processes by which social identities are conceived and ...developed.Legalizing Identitiesshows how law can successfully serve as the impetus for the transformation of cultural practices and collective identity. Through ethnographic, historical, and legal analysis of successful claims to land by two neighboring black communities in the backlands of northeastern Brazil, Jan Hoffman French demonstrates how these two communities have come to distinguish themselves from each other while revising and retelling their histories and present-day stories.French argues that the invocation of laws by these related communities led to the emergence of two different identities: one indigenous (Xoco Indian) and the other quilombo (descendants of a fugitive African slave community). With the help of the Catholic Church, government officials, lawyers, anthropologists, and activists, each community won government recognition and land rights, and displaced elite landowners. This was accomplished even though anthropologists called upon to assess the validity of their claims recognized that their identities were "constructed." The positive outcome of their claims demonstrates that authenticity is not a prerequisite for identity. French draws from this insight a more sweeping conclusion that, far from being evidence of inauthenticity, processes of construction form the basis of all identities and may have important consequences for social justice.
This article analyzes a popular, folkloric dance drama in the small city, Laranjeiras, a thriving slave port for its first three centuries. Lambe‐sujo e Caboclinho, dating to the 19th century, ...depicts the practice of missionized Indigenous people engaged to capture and return fugitive slaves. Participants paint themselves either black or red and parade through the streets, leading to a mock battle, ending in defeat of the fugitive slaves. This article employs ethnographic data and historical research to consider the use of performance, which enhances heightened consciousness of racial oppression, reinforced by Afro‐Brazilian social movements, and makes the event serious fun. Residents of this overwhelmingly Black city are rethinking responses to racial oppression in today's Brazil through a cultural performance with the flexibility to serve as a window onto the past that opens onto the future. The article contributes to the fields of cultural anthropology, folklore studies, and critical race studies.
RESUMO
Este artigo analisa uma dança popular e folclórica na pequena cidade de Laranjeiras, SE, a qual, durante seus primeiros três séculos, foi um próspero porto no comércio de africanos escravizados. A dança “lambe‐sujos e caboclinhos”, que teve suas origens no século XIX, retrata uma prática de conversos indígenas recrutados para prender e devolver fugitivos. Os participantes se pintam ou de preto ou de vermelho enquanto se preparam para o evento e desfilam pelas ruas, culminando numa batalha simulada que termina na derrota dos escravos fugitivos. Este artigo usa métodos etnográficos e históricos para considerar o uso de performance para intensificar a consciência da história da escravidão na região e a opressão racial hoje em dia, reforçada pelo movimento negro, imbui esse evento com múltiplos sentidos – de seriedade, diversão e um pouco de perigo. Os moradores desta cidade de ampla maioria negra estão repensando as suas formas de responder à opressão racial no Brasil contemporâneo por meio de um performance cultural que possui a flexibilidade para servir como uma janela ao passado que abre ao futuro. Este artigo contribui à antropologia cultural, estudos folclóricos, e estudos críticos de raça.
In Brazilian cities, perhaps the most disturbing criminal activity is the violence perpetrated by police officers themselves. This article is an invitation and a provocation to reconsider social ...scientific thinking about police violence in Brazil. Illustrated by a court decision from a Northeastern city, in which a black man won a case against the state for being falsely arrested and abused by a black police officer on the grounds of racism, this article investigates three paradoxes: Brazilians fear both crime and the police; black police beat black civilians; and government officials disavow responsibility by stigmatizing the police on racial grounds. It then proposes an alternative reading of these paradoxes that opens the possibility for rethinking police reform and argues that democratization in Brazil is deeply intertwined with the future of its darkest-skinned citizens.
Nas cidades brasileiras, talvez a atividade criminosa mais per- turbadora seja a violência perpetrada pelos próprios agentes policiais. Este artigo é um convite e uma provocação à reconsi- derar o ...pensamento científico social sobre a violência policial no Brasil. Ilustrado pela decisão judicial de uma cidade nordestina, na qual um homem negro venceu um processo contra o Estado por ter sido ilegalmente preso e abusado por um policial negro devido a racismo, este artigo investiga três paradoxos: brasi- leiros temem tanto a polícia quanto a criminalidade; policiais negros atacam cidadãos negros; e oficiais do governo negam responsabilidade ao estigmatizar a polícia por motivos raciais. Então, o artigo propõe uma leitura alternativa desses parado- xos que abre a possibilidade de repensar a reforma da polícia e argumenta que a democratização no Brasil está profundamente entrelaçada com o futuro dos seus cidadãos de pele mais escura.
In this article, I explore issues of authenticity, legal discourse, and local requirements of belonging by considering the recent surge of indigenous recognitions in northeastern Brazil. I ...investigate how race and ethnicity are implicated in the recognition process in Brazil on the basis of an analysis of a successful struggle for indigenous identity and access to land by a group of mixed-race, visibly, African-descended rural workers. I propose that the debate over mestizaje (ethnoracial and cultural mixing) in the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America can be reconfigured and clarified by broadening it to include such Brazilian experiences. I argue that the interaction between two processes--law making and indigenous identity formation--is crucial to understanding how the notion of "mixed heritage" is both reinforced and disentangled. As such, this article is an illustration of the role of legal discourse in the constitution of indigenous identities and it introduces northeastern Brazil into the global discussion of law, indigenous rights, and claims to citizenship.
Many rural black communities in Brazil are currently petitioning for legal recognition as descendant communities of fugitive slaves (quilombos) under a provision in the 1988 Constitution of Brazil. ...In this article, I analyze the elaboration and transformation of a family story into a narrative about slavery in one such recognized quilombo. I then further analyze the narrative's transformation into a play performed regularly by adolescent members of the quilombo. Because quilombo identity took shape in tandem with changes in the story, elements of the narrative have become crucial to the production of new bases for self-identification, solidarity, and conflict. At the same time, those transformations have been guided by, and continue to be associated with, practices, beliefs, and worldviews about race, color, ethnicity, and religion that were salient prior to the invocation of the constitutional provision. In addition to illustrating how law can be instrumental in transforming local cultural practices and self-understandings, the story told in this article adds to reexaminations of community as an invocation of positive associations tied to an assumed communal past.
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