Dilemmas of Modernity: Bolivian Encounters with Law and Liberalism (Book Review)

Recent scholarship on Bolivia has focused primarily on indigenous rights, multiculturalism, political and cultural issues surrounding the growing of coca, and the election of Evo Morales. Mark Goodale\u27s project is different. By taking a telescopic view, Goodale steps away from ethnographic detail in a remote district of Bolivia to examine the sweep of liberal legality since independence in 1825. Setting the stage, Goodale takes the position that neither neoliberal economic policies of the 1980s nor the election of Morales are breaks with the past. Rather, the patterns of intention initiated with the early constitutions of the new republic, the ethos of liberal legality or liberalism expressed through law, have remained the backdrop for Bolivia\u27s entire postcolonial history, including the revolution of 1952, often considered the most radically transformative moment in Bolivian history (p. 48). The book is structured as a series of illustrations, drawn from his fieldwork and documentary research in the province of Alonso de Ibafiez in the northern department of Potosi, as evidence that social practices at the \u27local\u27 level in Bolivia are always, in part, an articulation or dialogue with broader assemblages (p. 52)

Dancing for Land: Law-Making and Cultural Performance in Northeastern Brazil

In Mocambo, cultural practices and performances are being reconfigured and retained in new forms and surrounded by new discourses, revealing modes of local self-fashioning and political action. However, our inquiry should not end there. Thomas Abercrombie (1991:99) argues that whatever meanings might adhere to a certain traditional cultural form are today produced and interpreted, within the (semi-open) semiotic systems produced at locally or situationally specific intercultural loci..., which intersect with national and international systems as significantly as with neighboring town groups. In this essay, I suggest that the demands, interests, and desires of the larger society, as manifested in laws, discourses of lawmakers, academics, and the media, are integral to an understanding of processes of law-making and the resignification of cultural performances that are entwined with legal meanings. Thus, the reconfiguration of cultural practices in a distant, forgotten, desert-like region can lead us to inquire about, and even begin to understand, the larger societies, national and international, that find those cultural practices significant enough to report on the front page

The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families (Book Review)

Book review of the The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families by Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015

Religion and the Politics of Ethnic Identity in Bahia, Brazil (Book Review)

Stephen Selka investigates the role of religion in encouraging, or discouraging, the formation of black identity in Bahia, the Brazilian state that is regarded as the center of Afro-Brazilian culture, religion, and politics. As he strives to understand and theorize the crucial, but complex, relationship between religion and what he terms Afro-Brazilian identity, Selka describes how adherents of the three primary religious trends in Bahia (Catholicism, Candomble, and evangelical Protestantism) view the effects of their religious institutions on the construction of that identity. This question is addressed through selected quotes from leaders and members of the respective religious groups (and subgroups), interspersed with questions leading to a set of theoretical considerations and reflections on religious practice, technologies of the self, identity, ethnicity and race, and social mobilization

The Power of Definition: Brazil\u27s Contribution to Universal Concepts of Indigeneity

This article builds on discussions about the potential benefits and difficulties with developing a universal definition of indigenous peoples. It explores the spaces made available for theorizing indigeneity by the lack of a definition in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007. Specifically, this article addresses the challenge presented by the diversity of groups claiming indigenous status in Brazil. To what extent do distinct cosmologies and languages that mark Amazonian Indians as unquestionably indigenous affect newly recognized tribes in the rest of Brazil who share none of the indicia of authenticity? This article theorizes how to situate these newly recognized tribes within the context of the Declaration and addresses what the Brazilian experience has to offer in providing openings for claims that might have been made through alternative means, such as land reform and international cultural heritage rights. Human Rights and Legal Systems Across the Global South, Symposium, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana. 9-10 April 2010

From Honor to Dignity: Criminal Libel, Press Freedom, and Racist Speech in Brazil and the United States

Reports on violence against journalists in Brazil have captured media attention and the concern of international organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders. Short of violence, other concerns about press freedom have surfaced, such as the successful assertion by public figures of their right to keep unauthorized biographies out of print. The case presented in this article involves another such concern: the use of criminal defamation laws to punish journalists for criticizing public officials. At the same time, Brazilian media sources regularly report on crimes of racism, which most often involve derogatory name-calling and hate speech. By examining the intersection of these apparently contradictory concerns, this article sheds new light on speech rights in Brazil and the United States and argues that a comparative perspective is crucial to contextualizing and harmonizing free speech and its limitations under modern democratic constitutions

Cosmopolitan Theory and Anthropological Practice in Brazil

In relation to the theme of this volume - to inquire into transformations marked by knowledge-making projects and the role played by intellectuals - in this chapter I will focus on Brazilian anthropologists. In considering how impoverished or marginalized communities become integrated into global claims about the human condition, I analyze the efforts of Brazilian anthropologists on behalf of rural black communities in the northeastern backlands in light of cosmopolitan theory

Association for Political and Legal Anthropology

The Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) is a division of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) dedicated to studying and promoting anthropological approaches to law, political systems, and governmental authority. As anthropological subdisciplines, legal and political anthropology have promoted ethnographic research and theoretical contributions to understanding law\u27s relationship to culture and power. They are also concerned with the cultures of legal and political institutions

Brazil\u27s Profit Remittance Law: Reconciling Goals in Foreign Investments

Promoting foreign investment is a goal of many developing nations. Along with the benefits of that investment, however, foreign participation in development creates problems such as balance of payments deficits caused by the repatriation of profits earned by the foreign investor. Brazil\u27s profit remittance law is one effort to reconcile these problems. By providing for the registration of foreign investment and using a system of reinvestment incentives, the Profit Remittance Law seeks to promote foreign investment while avoiding the loss of capital which results when profits are remitted abroad. The author of this article describes and explains the Profit Remittance Law and considers its impact on foreign investment in Brazil. The author then assesses the effectiveness of the law in achieving its goals of encouraging investment and retaining the byproducts of such investment in Brazil

The Power of Definition: Brazil\u27s Contribution to Universal Concepts of Indigeneity

This article builds on discussions about the potential benefits and difficulties with developing a universal definition of indigenous peoples. It explores the spaces made available for theorizing indigeneity by the lack of a definition in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007. Specifically, this article addresses the challenge presented by the diversity of groups claiming indigenous status in Brazil. To what extent do distinct cosmologies and languages that mark Amazonian Indians as unquestionably indigenous affect newly recognized tribes in the rest of Brazil who share none of the indicia of authenticity? This article theorizes how to situate these newly recognized tribes within the context of the Declaration and addresses what the Brazilian experience has to offer in providing openings for claims that might have been made through alternative means, such as land reform and international cultural heritage rights