Brazilian Anthropology as seen in ABA data for the Global Survey of Anthropological Practice. From an imaginary nation to a defense of rights

A antropologia brasileira vista nos dados da ABA coletados na Pesquisa Global de Práticas Antropológicas. De uma nação imaginária à defesa de direitos

Abstract

The article explores the characteristics of Brazilian anthropology identified by analyzing the response of more than 300 Brazilian anthropologists to the GSAP. Even if there is a movement towards internationalization, the data shows that majority of anthropologists in the country conduct research in Brazil and are employed by universities. The article argues that the thematic foci most often chosen are due to the anthropologist's public role in combining research with defense of rights since the 70’s. Social or cultural anthropology are the topical expertise of the majority of Brazilian anthropologists, followed by ethnology. The thematic foci most often cited are: ethnicity and social identity; urban anthropology; political anthropology; Indigenous peoples and colonialism; gender and sexuality. In a Brazilian society where democracy is not consolidated, an anthropological study rarely fails to raise a political debate, either among anthropologists, as it was the case for racial quotas or, either, confronting segments of society or government. In this sense, Brazilian anthropology’s focus on national social and political issues cannot be considered from the European or American point of view to be the same as “anthropology at home”. The voices of Anthropologists are present in the public arena and in many cases have influenced state practices.

Key Words:
Brazilian Anthropology; Public intellectual: Human Rights; Unconsolidated Democracy; Internationalization

Resumo

O artigo explora as características da antropologia brasileira identificadas ao analisar a resposta de mais de 300 antropólogos e antropólogas no Brasil ao GSAP. Mesmo que haja um movimento de internacionalização, os dados mostram que a maioria dos antropólogos e antropólogas realizam pesquisas no Brasil e trabalham em universidades. O artigo argumenta que os focos temáticos mais escolhidos se devem ao papel público da antropologia em aliar a pesquisa à defesa de direitos desde a década de 1970. A antropologia social ou cultural são as classificações por especialidade tópica identificadas pela maioria dos antropólogos brasileiros, seguidas pela etnologia. Os focos temáticos mais citados foram: etnia e identidade social; antropologia urbana; antropologia política; povos indígenas e colonialismo; gênero e sexualidade. Em uma sociedade brasileira onde a democracia não está consolidada, um estudo antropológico raramente deixa de suscitar um debate político, seja na Antropologia, como foi o caso das cotas raciais, seja, confrontando segmentos da sociedade ou do governo. Nesse sentido, o foco da antropologia brasileira nas questões sociais e políticas nacionais não pode ser considerado do ponto de vista europeu ou americano como o mesmo que “antropologia em casa”. As vozes dos antropólogos e antropólogas estão presentes na arena pública e, em muitos casos, influenciaram as práticas estatais.

Palavras Chave:
Antropologia Brasileira; Intelectual Público; Direitos Humanos; Democracia não consolidada; Internacionalização

The aim of The Global Survey (GSAP), proposed and realized in 2017 by the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA), was to compile information on the contemporary state of anthropology as an international profession. Differences and similarities between national anthropologies are also important to make them visible. The survey collected information about the demographic characteristics of anthropologists, their qualifications and employment status, the nature of their work, and the thematic and regional focus of their expertise. Because the survey was not a census (i.e. It did not include all anthropologists from all societies), the results are not representative. However, we consider, in view of the data for Brazil, that they are illustrative of how anthropologists work in the specific situations of our society, although some of the categories in the survey do not precisely fit anthropology in Brazil, while responses in other categories may have been misleading due to an overlapping of items. Additional categories that would provide a better image of our anthropology were absent in the GSAP. In Brazil, 324 members of the Brazilian Anthropology Association (ABA) responded to this survey. At the time, there were 1,305 active associates.¹

We will try to explore the significance of strong characteristics of Brazilian anthropology that we can identify by analyzing the GSAP data: the majority of anthropologists in the country are born and trained in Brazil and are conducting research in Brazil mostly concerned with Brazilian social, cultural and political issues. The data show how significant it is for Brazilian anthropologists to be able to offer superior quality anthropological education (undergraduate and graduate) in their own country, and combine theoretical concerns with political defense of the rights of various identity groups, ethnic rights and in support of gender and race equality.

However, in comparison with northern anthropologies, Brazilian anthropology’s focus on national social and political issues cannot be considered to be the same as an “anthropology at home” conducted in the central countries, which produced the ideal of an anthropology of otherness conducted “away from home” or “overseas”. The anthropologies of peripheral countries are anthropologies exercised in countries that were colonized by national states in past centuries by those now known as central countries.

We have produced an anthropology that authors from European and American metropolitan centers (or those rooted in them) have qualified as at home, an expression that only makes sense when there is the colony-metropolis (home) dichotomy of (neo)colonial-colonies empires. We believe that the situation of countries arising from European expansion in modernity is very different from the trajectories of those nation states that emerged from the anti-colonial struggle of the 19th and 20th centuries. Furthermore, if we consider the internal colonization of Brazil in light of the knowledge that contemporary Brazilian historiography brings us, little or nothing can be recognized about such labeled centers and peripheries: are we at home in relation to who and to what? (SOUZA LIMA e DIAS: 2022, p.9)

Based on these considerations, we must remember that, to a large extent, the Brazilian nation state was organized in subordination to the central countries, producing subordinate practices. These practices, although with modernizing effects, were to a great extent, internally reproducing colonial perceptions of the country’s most vulnerable segments. When making an international comparison, it is therefore necessary to remember that the challenges for anthropological practices in the southern regions, including Brazil, differ from the challenges posed by anthropological practices in the northern regions.

Yet Brazilian anthropology has not distanced itself from international social and political issues and has recognized the rich diversity of anthropological work in nations from the North and South. Undergraduate and graduate training in the country is based on national and international historical anthropological production, considering both the literature of anthropologists from the North and those from Latin American countries, as well as postcolonial and decolonial anthropological production.

In our undergraduate courses, we tend to assign texts in Portuguese, but sometimes use English-language texts as well. For graduate students, Spanish, English and French are also used fairly regularly. Many of the English-language texts are by United States or British anthropologists. At times we use English translations of French and German texts.

We understand that the GSAP data collected in 2017 reveals the central characteristic of Brazilian Anthropology: its long tradition of public engagement and intense participation in the field of national politics. Brazilian anthropology took up this work more vigorously with the country’s redemocratization movement of the seventies, although the path began in the 1950s.

In different ways and with distinct intensities, since the period of the military dictatorship (from 1964 to 1985), through the governments of the Workers' Party (2003 to 2016), Brazilian anthropologists had strong influence in the decision-making of public agents or have been present in the political arena in defense of new rights. Since 2016, under the governments of Presidents Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian anthropologists have lost their influence in decision-making about public policies, but are resisting in the political arena in defense of human rights and diversity of identities.

It should be remembered, however, that the characteristics of Brazilian anthropology in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century were very different from the period between the 1950s and ’70s, and especially different from the period after the 1970s.

The anthropologies of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century were born in imperial or colonizing nation states. Marks of colonizing thought shaped anthropological theories and concepts not only in the central countries but also in the new nation-states. Rethinking and moving away from colonizing theories and concepts was a task that began in the central anthropologies of the 1920s and 30s, and required constant and intense efforts by anthropologies of the central nations and anthropologies of the ex-colonial nations throughout the twentieth century. These efforts intensified in the twenty-first century, given the persistence of globalized inequalities.

Only in the nineteenth century did Brazil gain independence (1822), abolish slavery (1888) and establish a Republic (1889). Only in the 1920s and 30s was there a departure from evolutionary anthropological theories, an assertion of respect for cultural diversity, and emphasis on the study of alterity and a methodology to transform the familiar into alterity.

To highlight differences between these periods we will present some characteristics of Brazilian Anthropology before the 1950s, and then those of the 1950s and ’70s. We will then present the results from the GSAP in 2017, begining with demographic issues.

While presenting the GSAP data about choice of thematic social foci and countries of expertise, we will conduct a simultaneous historical reconstitution since the 1970s to give context to the main quantitative characteristics. Considering the broad period since the 1970s, we will examine the main political differences that have changed how anthropologists’defense of rights and public policies have been heard by governments.

It was also in the 1970s that the new university system was created and consolidated including a new model for graduate studies, which is still in operation². This new system allowed the integration of research, teaching and extension, establishing the foundation for the growth of anthropological research and education in universities.

Brazilian Anthropology before the 1970s:

Brazilian anthropology began with the ambiguous challenge of trying to imagine the future of Brazil as a modern society, as sculpted in the molds of developed Western nation states with majority white populations. The most striking societal differences between Brazil and developed modern societies were the magnitude of Indigenous peoples, their traditional modes of social organization, and the magnitude of the rural and urban Black population.

There was strong interest among foreign and Brazilian anthropologists in the Indigenous groups and racial types that compose Brazilian society. On one hand, French and American anthropologists came to Brazil and contributed to the institutionalization of Brazilian anthropology. On the other hand, physical anthropology as it was practiced in the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century, influenced Brazilian studies of racial types.

Brazilian anthropology's relations with central anthropologies³ have a long past. Our protohistory includes German naturalist Teodor Koch-Grünberg, one of the first travelers to explore the Amazon (1906). Another German, Curt Unkel (known as, Nimuendajú - who was regarded as the first anthropologist to study Brazil and “make house”, which is the meaning of the name he adopted when he became a naturalized Brazilian) - not only traveled widely but did ethnographic studies of Amerindians, following the same route taken by Grünberg. We could go even farther and quote the Frenchman Jean de Leris, who in the Introduction to Tristes Tropiques, Lévi-Strauss credits as being an important inspiration.

Brazilian anthropologists studying racial types in Brazil were influenced by “Physical Anthropology, which, in the 19th century, was defined as the branch of Natural History dealing with man and human races, with the objective of discovering the permanent characteristics that would allow them to be distinguished as 'biological types'. (...) Techniques for measuring the human body are included and the phenotypic characteristics (are) identified as relevant for racial classifications”. (Seyferth, 1995 and 2020, p.94) The physician and anthropologist Raimundo Nina Rodrigues (1862-1906), in his studies published in 1894 and 1898, presented miscegenation in Brazil as a degeneration according to the then-current Lombrosian European understanding of the mental inferiority of “inferior” races.

However, Brazilian anthropologist João Batista Lacerda, who was director of the National Museum from 1895 to 1915, affirmed, as Seyferth discusses (1985), that the development of Brazil as a civilized nation would take place through miscegenation among whites, Blacks and Indigenous peoples. This, marked a change from racist European theories: which had considered miscegenation a path to degeneration. The assumption and condition of this civilization for Lacerda, however, was that miscegenation would involve “whitening”.

Lacerda by adapting European theory to his thought, modified it. Miscegenation could only lead to the evolutionary path of civilization through whitening, indicating that he maintained a racist theory that affirmed a Black inferiority and the danger (not determination) of degeneration. His intent was translated, in our view, only into a mythological narrative of the nation. At the time, nothing was proposed for the effective process of nation-building, citizenship or racial equality.

Gilberto Freyre, from Brazil’s Northeast, had already studied in the United States, where, with a scholarship from the Baptist Church, he went at the age of eighteen for undergraduate studies at Baylor University. He did not complete a PhD, but he holds a bachelor's degree in liberal arts, from this school in Texas. Freyre then went on to study at Columbia University where he met Franz Boas, who remained an intellectual reference throughout his life. In 1922, Freyre published his M.A. thesis Social Life in Brazil in the Middle of the 19th Century in the Hispanic American Historical Review.

The impact of his main work “Casa Grande e Senzala” (1977 [1933]), according to Seyferth (1989; 2020): “(…) was considerable, even abroad, but, if on one hand it can be considered as the predominant reaction to racism in our academic environment, on the other hand, the way that he interpreted race relations also became the origin of the illusory idea that Brazilian society is a racial democracy - although he was not an isolated spokesman for this position in the decade in which it was published”.(2020, p. 54)

For Freyre, miscegenation is the proof of racial democracy, when, in fact, the illusion of racial democracy served to hide racism and affirm that prejudice based on color was derived exclusively from class inequality and not from racial discrimination. It was thus a narrative of the nation different from Lacerda’s, but equally mythological and imaginary.

Lévi-Strauss was part of the French mission head by Roger Bastide (1934) that led to the founding of the University of São Paulo (1934), where Levi-Strauss would become a professor between 1935 and 1938.

Herskovits came to Brazil, visiting Recife in 1941, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, where he stayed for six months. He “had a certain impact, due to his view of possession in Afro-Brazilian cults as a cultural fact and not a pathological one. This approach changed the orientation of studies carried out so far and attracted the attention of René Ribeiro” (Maio, 1999).

Some political events mark the change in trends in Brazilian anthropology in the 1950s and 60s.

The first Congress of the Brazilian Black People took place in 1950, with the presence of black activists and scientists. Guerreiro Ramos (1950) and Abdias do Nascimento (1982) stood out for unmasking racial discrimination and criticizing the fallacy of racial democracy, although many anthropologists continued to term the racial issue as color prejudice rather than racial discrimination⁴.

In 1951, a broad project on Black people was sponsored by UNESCO - and had the participation of Brazilian, North American and French social scientists including: Roger Bastide, Florestan Fernandes, Oracy Nogueira, Costa Pinto, René Ribeiro, Thales de Azevedo, Charles Wagley, and Marvin Harris. Fieldwork was carried out in Brazil’s Northeast, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

In 1953, the first meeting of the Brazilian Anthropology Association (ABA) was held, chaired by Roquete Pinto. ABA was formally created in 1955 during the second meeting, which was chaired by Luiz de Castro Faria, Darcy Ribeiro and Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira, who were all recognized Brazilian anthropologists and largely responsible for the institutionalization of anthropology in Brazil, at various museums and universities. In 1968, the first master's degree program in anthropology (stricto sensu graduate course) was created at the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Research on Indigenous groups became the main topic of anthropological research in the 1960s.

British scholar David Maybury-Lewis - professor at Harvard for many years- who came to Brazil for the XXXI Congress of Americanists, helped to found the Graduate Program of Anthropology at the National Museum and coordinated the Harvard Central Brazil Project, to study the Gê groups, financed by the Ford Foundation, in the 1960s (Garcia, 2009). Some students of the National Museum went to the United States, which was the main foreign destination for PhD students at the time. In the 1970s, more anthropologists turned to Europe, especially England and France.

In the fifties and sixties, Arthur Ramos (1956, 1962), René Ribeiro, Manuel Querino, Edison Carneiro, Manuel Dieguez Jr. and others, analyzed and described aspects of Black cultures introduced in Brazil through slavery. Their theoretical references included the concepts of culture and acculturation, and they were no longer seeking to interpret the Brazilian nation.

However, the problem of Black people for Arthur Ramos was the problem of the poor classes, and the color line did not exist or was attenuated by the widescale intermarriage. For Ramos, “the formation of a mulatto people collaborated with Blacks and Whites in the common work of creating our nationality” (Ramos, 1956, p. 184).

Wagley had an important role in the project on race relations undertaken in Bahia, in the Bahia State - Columbia University Community Study Project (1951-52) in collaboration with Bahian anthropologist Thales de Azevedo. This comparative research project resulted in Wagley's book Race and Class in Rural Brazil (1952), and in Minorities in the New World: Six Case Studies (1958), which he wrote with US anthropologist Marvin Harris.

Questions and criticisms about the notion of “racial democracy” and research on racial discrimination in the 1950s paved the way for the recognition of racial prejudice in Brazilian society in later years. (Nogueira, 1985 e 2006)

Studies after the 1950s by anthropologists and sociologists established bases for questioning the supposed Brazilian racial democracy, including work by Roger Bastide (1898-1974), Thales de Azevedo (1904-1995), Charles Wagley (1913-1991), Oracy Nogueira (1917-1996), René Ribeiro (1914-1990), Florestan Fernandes (1920-1995), Luiz Costa Pinto (1920-2002), and Marvin Harris (1927-2001) (Seyferth, 1985)

Thus, we can say that the first generations of Brazilian anthropologists turned to the North to dialogue with theories and mainly to understand our specificity as a nation. But, unlike the Europeans and North Americans who came to Latin America to meet Indigenous groups or study race, we also looked to the North for theories and ethnographies that would contribute to the analysis of various issues in our complex urban and rural societies. By going North to study and by receiving foreign scholars, Brazilian and foreign anthropologists achieved a cooperation in institutionalizing anthropology in universities.

It is important to note that the international training of Brazilian anthropologists took place simultaneously with the professionalization of the field, that is, students trained abroad found jobs on their return to Brazil, given the expansion of graduate studies that began in the 1970s.

We will now examine the GSAP data on Brazil, discover what the data shows and, to offer meaning to the quantitative characteristics, review the historical path taken by Brazilian anthropology since the 70s.

Brazilian Anthropology as shown by the GSAP 2017 data on Brazil.

Most anthropologists working in Brazil were born, lived in and obtained their highest degree in anthropology in Brazil. Brazil is the country of birth for 86.92% of the Brazilian GSAP survey respondents (figure 1), and is the country of residence for 91.56% of respondents (figure 2).

Figure 1:
Country of Birth

Outside Brazil, the next most common countries of birth and residence vary. Brazil’s neighbor, Argentina, is the second leading place of birth of anthropologists in Brazil (2,80%), followed by countries of the North, considered central western countries: the United Kingdom (1.87%), Portugal, Germany, the United States and France, and only then by a second South American country, Colombia (Figure 1). The countries of residence of Brazilian respondents outside Brazil include three countries of the North, considered central western countries: France (2.50%), Portugal (0.94%) and Germany, and then a Latin American country, Mexico. (Figure 2).

Figure 2:
Country of Residence

Brazil is the country of expertise (Figure 3) for those working in universities and in government and international institutions, as well as those working as consultants.

Figure 3:
Country of expertise

Brazil is the main country of expertise for the majority of Brazilian anthropologists, but not the only one. We will be back to this subject, when analyzing the movement towards internationalization.

Brazil is also the country where most respondents received their highest degree in anthropology, or 83.93%. Countries from the global North are responsible for most of the highest degrees earned outside Brazil: they include the central western countries France (5.90%), the United States (4.26%), the United Kingdom (1.63%), Germany and Portugal. The decision to study in these central western countries represents long-term relations in Brazilian anthropological production. Only one Latin American country, Mexico, is among those where Brazilian anthropologists received their highest degree (Figure 4).

Figure 4:
Country of qualification

The GSAP data show that universities and other educational institutes employ most of the anthropologists: 73.21%. Another substantive share (21.18%) is employed by government, including federal, state, municipal and international agencies. But here we located a possible error due to the overlapping of two categories: since many teach at federal public universities, they may have responded that they are government employees and not employees of educational institutions. Research institutes and museums employ 5.29%, slightly less than commercial consultancies, which account for 6.54% (Figure 5).

Figure 5:
Employer

Most Brazilian respondents, 73.04%, said that they had permanent full-time

employment and 18% said that they had permanent part-time employment. 72% considered themselves to be working as much as they wanted and 28% indicated that they did not work as much as they wanted and considered themselves to be underemployed. (Figure 6).

Figure 6:
Employment

Let us examine the issue of gender and age in the survey. The gender gap in favor of women in Brazil (52%), is lower than in other countries as a group (62%). A higher proportion of the women are over 50 (23%), compared to 16.5% of the men, among the 321 Brazilian respondents.

Figure 7:
Gender Distributions: ABA vs.

Figure 8:
Global Sample

It is important to note that Brazilian anthropology is institutionally strong at graduate level research and teaching.

Since the 1970s, there has been a systematic increase in the number of graduate degree programs in anthropology at Brazilian universities, and especially during the Worker’s Party governments from (2003-2016).

In 2016, there were 32 graduate degree programs (Programas de Pós-Graduação) that, according to recent CAPES data, will produce 900 new PhDs in anthropology in the next four years. CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), the Coordinating Agency for Personnel Improvement in Higher Educational, is linked to the Ministry of Education and administers the expansion and consolidation of graduate studies (masters and doctorates) throughout Brazil. Most anthropologists are employed in graduate studies departments at universities, although some hold government positions (as in the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), the Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), the National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN), and the Public Ministry [federal prosecutor’s office]) and in non-governmental agencies. Others work as independent professionals. Anthropologists who work in governmental and non-governmental bodies complain of the lack of regulations for the profession in Brazil, something which has long existed for sociologists and recently implemented for archaeologists (Sprandel e Barretto Filho, 2018).

While anthropological research can be and is conducted outside universities, it is particularly within them that research and the range of themes that it covers are growing and attaining high quality, but always in interaction with anthropologists in government institutions.

The degree programs of Anthropology and Archeology are placed under the same coordination area of​​ evaluation in CAPES. According to data collected by CAPES in the fields of anthropology and archeology degree programs, nine of our graduate programs encompass only archeology, 24 only social anthropology and 4 include both lines of study. Among the social anthropology programs, 20 work exclusively with social anthropology; 4 others include social anthropology and archeology together, and another involves the four fields of anthropology, social anthropology, archeology, bioanthropology and linguistic anthropology in an integrated approach. In the past four-year period, three more programs have been approved and are in the initial process of opening, thus reaching a total of 32 programs. In summary, at the end of 2016, there were 21 master’s programs and 12 doctoral programs in anthropology; and 5 master’s and 4 doctoral programs in archeology⁵. At the end of the four-year period that concluded in 2016, there were 444 anthropologists and archeologists working as tenured professors and teaching in the universities evaluated. This represented an increase of some 2% per year, rising from 416 in 2013 to 444 in 2016, due to the opening of three new programs. All of these programs are at federal and state universities, none at a private university. The field also has a significant and oscillating number of collaborating and visiting professors, coming from these and other institutions. In late 2016 there were 1,212 matriculating master’s students and 993 doctoral students, with an average of 41.8 master’s students per program and 47.3 doctoral students per program. From 2013 to 2016, 1,226 master’s dissertations and 432 doctoral theses were defended in these Brazilian anthropology and archeology programs, 92% of which were supervised by permanent professors in the programs.

According to GSAP data, anthropologists with PhDs account for 68% of the anthropologists surveyed, 25% are masters and 4.7% have degrees from another field, which in Brazil is frequent among older anthropologists. Those with a certificate or diploma and those who said they were graduate students total 1.9%.

Figure 9:
Highest Qualification in Anthropology

Figure 10 and 11
Age By Gender

The age distribution of the anthropologists surveyed shows that 6.54% are younger than 29 and 31.46% are from 30 to 39. The incidence of low age respondents is one reason that there are not more PhDs in the group. The other reason is that in non-university forms of employment, it is often not necessary to have a doctorate. Employment as a university professor accounts for 69.78% of the respondents, which is very close to the percent of those with PhDs: 68%.

Brazilian Anthropology: Topical Expertise and Thematic Foci

The classification by topical expertise (Figure 12) identifies social and cultural anthropology as the focus of the majority of Brazilian anthropologists, followed by ethnology and applied anthropology. In Brazil, ethnology and applied anthropology are normally considered to be encompassed by social and cultural anthropology. Few references are made to archaeology and bioanthropology. This is explained by the history of anthropology in Brazilian universities, which began, developed and expanded as social anthropology, without the idea of ​​the four fields, and without incorporating physical anthropology, biological anthropology or linguistics. Linguistics and archaeology developed autonomously in Brazil, organized as autonomous disciplinary fields at universities and within independent scientific societies. Biological anthropology has developed in strong relation to archaeology. Both the idea of "four fields" and of joint formation between anthropology and archeology are very recent - after 2000.

Figure 12:
Topical Expertise

As we have already said, Brazil is the country of expertise for most Brazilian anthropologists, both those working at universities and at government and international institutions, as well as those working as consultants. Cultural diversity and social problems within Brazil are the main subjects of research and concern as data showed on thematic foci.

The thematic foci (figure 13) most often cited by the Brazilian respondents of the GSAP survey are: ethnicity and social identity; urban anthropology; political anthropology; Indigenous peoples and colonialism; gender and sexuality; religion and ritual; and human rights. All of these themes are widely discussed in the public sphere and by social movements. They all refer to cultural diversity and relate to political and anthropological debates about fundamental rights. Other issues raised corroborate an explicit concern for politics and rights including: state and society, native land rights, race (rights to racial equality) and anthropology of the environment. We cannot forget that all thematic foci have Brazil as the main country of expertise.

Figure 13:
Thematic Foci

We must connect the choice of thematic foci with the role as public intellectuals played by many Brazilian anthropologists. Social problems and cultural diversity within Brazil are considered research subjects and this research is used to defend an expansion of rights for vulnerable social groups.

Brazilian Anthropology after the 1970s: combining research with a defense of rights

To understand these choices of research subjects and of Brazil as the main country of expertise, as the GSAP data reveal, we must explain some historical and current data about the development of anthropology in Brazil. As Machado and Motta affirm:

The world’s first anthropologists set out to encounter distant alterities in order to understand and commit to the groups they studied. In the Brazilian context, however, these alterities were often not distant, but literally “right next door” - making up, in fact, the body of the nation that Brazilian national elites sought to construct. In other words, from the beginning of anthropology in Brazil, the understanding, incorporation, and protection of the “Other” has been a political and national question. (Machado and Motta, 2019:3)

However, anthropology focused on national construction and state formation in Brazil cannot be understood to be equivalent to the “doing anthropology at home” found in central countries, considering the different positions of nations and states in relation to the history of colonization processes. (See Souza Lima and Dias, 2022).

In a Brazilian society where democracy is not consolidated⁶, an anthropological study rarely fails to raise a political debate about rights or public policies concerning the people studied, either among anthropologists, or with segments of society or government. We understand that democracy is not consolidated in Brazil considering that civil society organizations do not find guarantees to compete and be heard in the public policy arena. The political elites present the greatest challenges to a deeper acceptance of commitments to democratic institutions and to democratic mechanisms for conflict resolution.

In the context of anthropological practices in Brazil, the social issues perceived and chosen for study often respond to questions raised by social movements, approaching them, or moving away from them. The studies may also be affected by government actions, either through support, or confrontation.

There are both agreements and disagreements among anthropologists about how to deal with issues, rights and public policies that affect the populations studied. Some themes are the object of greater agreement among anthropologists engaged in the defense of rights, while other issues are more controversial.

There is greater agreement among anthropologists about the importance of defending the rights to ethnicity associated with the traditional ways of life of Indigenous peoples, quilombolas (maroons) and riverine communities and rubber tappers, among other groups.

In our view, traditional ways of life consciously or unconsciously invoke what we call the “primal ethics” of anthropology in relation to respect for “otherness”. Traditional ways of life are perceived as if they were “full otherness” or “radical otherness”, whose right to be (as they are) is directly recognized by an anthropological perspective and anthropological ethics. However, while it is easier to unite anthropologists around the defense of Indigenous rights, quilombolas, traditional communities and environmental rights, there are constant confrontations with the executive and legislative powers over development proposals that threaten the environment and over interests that hinder the demarcation of Indigenous lands and quilombola territories.

Black, mestizo, or immigrant ethnicity may not be linked to clearly traditional ways of life. Likewise, studies of gender identities or identities constructed around sexual diversities in modern societies are not associated with traditional community modes. They generate new lifestyles, but can be perceived as having nothing to do with the assumptions of “cultural relativism” learned from research in Indigenous studies.

Studies on racial identities, as well as gender and sexuality, are highly 'delicate' and controversial topics in society at large, especially in recent periods when conservative sectors of society and the political world have gained prominence. These themes are those that diverge most from the different perspectives and places of enunciation of anthropologists. Gender and race thus seem to be subjects much more open to controversies and confrontations among anthropologists. They do not generate the same conformity among anthropologists as when it comes to defending indigenous rights.

When there are debates, they generally take place in the academic field where interpretations are disputed. Within the scope of the Brazilian Anthropology Association, there may be disputes over votes about motions in the biannual meetings. In rare cases they may become public. This was the difficult and tense case of the dispute over the introduction of racial quotas for entry into universities in undergraduate and graduate courses. We will return to this case.

One academic debate related to gender concerned the understanding of what is conceptually violence against women. Luis Cardoso de Oliveira (2005) and Daniel Simião (2005) referring to East Timor, discussed the concept of violence (against women): “In the absence of moral violence, the existence of physical violence would be an abstraction. (...) While hitting had a moral justification and the victim's suffering was essentially physical, the practice was accepted (Cardoso de Oliveira, 2005, p.12). Faced with this “provocation” (a word used by Cardoso) the debate is accepted and answered by Machado (2010): “(…) I do not consider it possible that physical aggressions do not form part of disputes around consideration/disconsideration, hierarchy and differentiated degrees of gender powers. Especially in family spaces. (…) How can the intentional act of physical aggression be rendered meaningless?” (Machado, 2010, p. 80).

Not all anthropologists take positions as individual public intellectuals in defense of rights, but many stand individually and collectively.

ABA's collective and public voice is increasingly defined by the defense of rights in various spheres. The guiding themes for ABA's biannual meetings have regularly been related to the defense of rights and respect for diversity.

In turn, the specialized committees of the Association are spaces where consensus is sought. The committees strive to immediately raise their voice publicly in response to an attack on the rights of social segments, groups or communities. It is up to the specific committees for thematic areas to pronounce themselves in favor of specific rights. We will only list the specific committees of thematic areas and related rights. Currently they are: the Indigenous Affairs Commission (CAI); the Human Rights Commission; the Committee on Education, Science and Technology; the Secularity and Democracy Commission; the Citizenship, Violence and State Management Committee; the Anthropology and Health Committee; the Committee of Black Anthropologists; the Committee of Indigenous Anthropologists; the Disability and Accessibility Committee; the Gender and Sexuality Committee; the Committee on the Professional Insertion of the Anthropologist; the Anthropological Reports Committee; the Migration and Displacement Committee; the Heritage and Museums Committee; the Traditional Peoples, Environment and Large Projects Committee; and the Quilombos Committee.

The academic debate among anthropologists about racial quotas in universities “began after the publication of the article “Politics of racial quotas, the 'eyes of society' and the uses of anthropology: the case of the entrance exam at the University of Brasília (UnB)”, written by sociologist Marcos Chor Maio and anthropologist Ricardo Ventura Santos (Maio, Santos, 2005). It was published by the journal Horizontes Antropológico, n. January 23-June 2005. The article was part of the Espaço Aberto section of the magazine, which invited researchers from different areas and universities to comment on the points raised by Maio and Santos. Eighteen comments were included and a rejoinder. (Lisboa, 2020, p. 121)

In 2006, the debate entered the public arena with anthropologists and other academics taking each of the opposing positions. The manifesto “All have equal rights in the Democratic Republic” was presented to the presidents of the national Chamber of Deputies and Senate on June 29, 2006, establishing a position against racial quotas signed by more than 100 people, most of them academics, at a time when the National Congress was discussing the Racial Equality Statute. Five days later, another manifesto was delivered and presented to the legislative bodies, the “Manifesto in favor of quotas and the Racial Equality Statute”. (Lisboa, 2020).

In 2008, a book on race was organized by Pinho and Sansone stimulated by the Committee of Racial and Ethnic Relations. In its preface, Sansone affirms that there is anti-racism on both sides - in the defense and the opposition to racial quotas (Sansone, 2008, p. 7).

Although each side based its positions on rights, the disagreement was because one of the sides did not agree that affirmative action is necessary to achieve rights. In the Brazilian case, from our perspective, the need is glaring: not only because of the history of slavery, but because of the understanding that racism and sexism are structural problems, producing inequality.

We understand that the position taken against quotas derives from the strength of the myth of “racial democracy” and from the non-acceptance that it is important to differentiate between “formal equality” and “material equality.” Affirmative action is fundamental to attaining “material equality”.

Since 2004, racial quotas⁷ have been combined with quotas based on economic and social criteria and each university has the autonomy to set them through approval by their university councils. With Law 12,711 of 2012, they became guaranteed and generalized.

In 2018, a group of Brazilian Black anthropologists proposed to the Brazilian Association of Anthropology the creation and organization of a Committee of Black Anthropologists. In 2019, the Committee was created. To a large extent, the increase in the number of Black anthropologists and anthropologists was due to racial quotas for entry not only in undergraduate degree programs, but also in graduate degree programs.

In its "Letter of Presentation" the Committee declares:

The Committee of Black Anthropologists was born in 2019 in the oldest of the national scientific associations in the field of the Social Sciences, the Brazilian Anthropology Association - ABA. Considering this history, this Committee can be understood as a new one that is linked to the anthropological work of Black researchers. The most general understanding is that Black bodies occupied the status of objects of study in the scientific tradition, but not of producers of knowledge. On the one hand, this reality began to change in public universities, with the advent of affirmative action and the entry of Black students. On the other hand, the presence of Black professors is still a challenge to be overcome, as well as the impact on the production of knowledge in a more plural and visible way. (http://www.portal.abant.org.br/2019/05/03/comite-de-antropologas-os-negras-os/).

Recognized names such as Kabengele Munanga (1985, 2004), Lilia Schwarcz, (1987, 2017), Giralda Seyferth (1985, 2020) Osmundo Pinho and Livio Sansone (2008), among many others, have been working on the study and defense of the rights to racial equality. Many others are dedicated to defending the rights of Black women. Lelia Gonzalez (1982) was a pioneer. Angela Figueiredo, Laura Moutinho, Maria Elvira Diaz and Ana Paula Silva, among many others, are studying and acting in defense of racial and gender rights. The creation of the Committee of Black Anthropologists will encourage the presence of Black anthropologists in multiple areas of activity. They are and will be fundamental to the expansion and innovation of anthropology.

Likewise, the increasing inclusion of Indigenous students and anthropologists will help to expand and innovate studies and expand rights, such as the work of Tonico Benites and Luiz Henrique Eloy Amado, among many others. The creation of the Committee of Indigenous Anthropologists will encourage innovation.

We can say, despite many difficulties, that anthropological practices in Brazil today are combining research with the defense of rights. This path that Brazilian Anthropology began in the 1950s has been solidified since the 1970s and continues until today.

Since its creation in 1955 the Brazilian Anthropology Association has played a prominent role in defending human rights in the public sphere and in maintaining the quality of anthropological science and gathering its associates in biannual scientific meetings. During the military regime (1964/1985), anthropologists studied ethnic groups and social minorities and played a role in the defense of these populations. In spite of the many restrictions placed on university activities by the military regime, the first graduate programs (masters and doctorates) in anthropology were created during these years: first at the National Museum in Rio in 1968, followed by USP in 1970, Unicamp in 1971, and UNB in 1972, and have since spread in different regions.

During the Constituent Assembly in 1986/1987, anthropologists representing the Brazilian Anthropology Association have been interlocutors in discussions about and in defense of Indigenous rights, quilombolas, traditional rural populations and cultural rights (Carneiro da Cunha, 2018).

Then, anthropologists’ presence in policy-making continued to grow (especially) under the progressive governments led by Lula (2002-2010) and Dilma (2011-2016), (…). During this time, the Brazilian Anthropological Association (ABA) was institutionally invited to reflect, formulate, and underwrite public policies in multiple fields of action (Rial; Grossi, 2017: 234-5).

It can be said that Brazilian anthropologists have turned to the study and research of the cultural diversity and social problems that permeate and present themselves within the Brazilian nation state. The defense of fundamental rights of Indigenous people, minorities and identity policies as well as racial and gender equality, and sexual and cultural diversity is a main objective. Brazilian anthropologists, through their research and political activity in defense of rights, have a strong presence in the public sphere. (Ramos, 2003; Machado, 2018; Tamaso, 2019). Their collective voice, through the Brazilian Anthropology Association (ABA) has had an important role.

Thus, it can also be said, that, within the typology used by Stocking (1982), and as Mariza Peirano (1981 and 1999) affirmed, Brazilian anthropology has examined the “nation-building” process in all its complexity. It has focused on understanding and criticizing the process of state formation and has consistently analyzed social movements. Moreover, it has defended human rights (cultural and social identities) and democracy in Brazilian society (Silva, 2002; Grossi et al. 2002; Trajano and Ribeiro, 2004; Grossi et al. 2006; Eckert and Godoi 2006; Scott et al. 2014; Oliveira 2016;; Simião and Feldman-Bianco, 2018; Souza Lima, 2018).

The public role of anthropologists in defending minorities and human rights in Brazil has influenced state practices, and even when their proposals are not implemented, their presence in the public arena is visible and their criticisms are registered in the national media. If the voices of anthropologists have not always been heeded by governments and the technobureaucracy, the qualification of anthropological knowledge has been recognized not only in the academic world but also in the political and legal world.

While the GSAP 2017 data show how Brazilian anthropologists have given emphasis to social and political issues, they do not reveal that in the years 2014 to 2017, conservative political movements had begun to increasingly censor and criticize the political performance of anthropologists. (Machado, 2020) Nevertheless, they continued to defend not only the rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples, but also rights to gender equality, sexual diversity and racial equality.

Since the parliamentary and corporate media coup d’état of 2016⁸, Brazilian anthropologists have faced new challenges. Certainly, in recent years, political support for basic rights has receded. The defense of basic rights by ABA and anthropologists, supported by their studies, has become increasingly vigorous, although their ability to be heard in political debates has decreased.

Challenges for internationalization of Brazilian anthropology at universities

Brazilian anthropology does not focus exclusively on Brazil as shown by the GSAP 2017 data about Country of Expertise (Figure 3). An internationalization of the research contexts of Brazilian anthropology began in the late 1980s. A group of anthropologists decided to change the focus and began to study societies outside Brazil. In fact, before that, Ruy Coelho (1920-1990), who had conducted fieldwork in Honduras for his doctoral thesis The Black Caribbean of Honduras, had inaugurated work in distant fields in America.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, within a movement that Peirano (2006) described as that of a “post-exotic anthropology,” Cornelia Eckert (1992) studied miners in the Grand-Combe; Rial studied fast foods in Europe (1985, 1992); and Clarice Peixoto (1993) old age in Paris. In the United States, Luis Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira (1989) studied small claims courts; Gustavo Lins Ribeiro (1988), a dam located in Argentina and Paraguay; Bela Feldman-Bianco the Portuguese from New Bedford, USA (1981); and Trajano (1998), musicians from Guinea-Bissau. These are some of the few theses based on fieldwork abroad. This profoundly changed and expanded in the twenty-first century.

In more recent years, efforts have been made to internationalize locations of field research and cooperate with researchers from other countries in their research and publications. An increased number of researchers have focused on the study of cultural diversity in other regions and countries. (Ribeiro, 2018; Machado, 2018).

Brazil, as the country of expertise, is followed by Argentina and then by countries of the Global North: Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany (Figure 3). These countries may have been where Brazilian anthropologists conducted graduate research or postdoctoral studies.

The subsequent countries identified as the country of expertise follow a different logic. With the exception of Italy and Norway, the countries of expertise are concentrated in South and Central America; Bolivia, Equator, Haiti, Guatemala and Costa Rica. The research in Latin American countries indicates efforts to deepen reciprocal relations. These countries of expertise are followed by those in Africa: Cape Verde, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Kenya, Sudan, and also by Australia and East Timor. This indicates efforts to establish South-South research relationships. The references to Asian countries indicate their incipient phase as countries of expertise. This allows us to speak both of South-South studies: from Brazil to Africa, and from Brazil to Latin American neighbors, and even some Asian countries, as well as South-North research and reflections, in particular about Portugal, the United States, France and England, countries where Brazilian anthropologists have often earned their degrees or conducted post-doctoral research.

The public system of evaluation of graduate programs is conducted by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), which is subordinate to the Ministry of Education. In recent years, CAPES included “internationalization” as an objective that a program must attain to reach the highest evaluation scores. Multiple meanings can be attributed to internationalization. In the evaluation of anthropology, an internationalization of research contexts is required, an international flow of professors and students between graduate programs, and the scientific recognition of academic production published in international academic journals of impact. South-North relationships were important for the Worker’s Party (PT) Governments as they are today (2021). South-South relationships were emphasized only by the PT governments (2003 to 2016). Nevertheless, South-South relationships continue to be a priority for Brazilian anthropologists.

During Lula’s period,

substantial investment in research, graduate fellowships, and post-doctoral positions in anthropology, guaranteed continued research training for doctoral students, which allowed many from that generation to take some time abroad (as doctoral students or as post-docs (or sabbaticals), expanding their linguistic and theoretical knowledge (Rial, Grossi, 2017).

CAPES and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) provided grants for doctoral research abroad (the sandwich grants) and for international postdoctoral research. The majority of the "sandwich scholarships" (which is a one-year study abroad period during the doctoral) and pos-doc scholarships (or sabbaticals) involve some research in a foreign country. These financing modalities grew a lot under the Workers Party governments, but they now suffer from the deep budget cuts that affect education and science in the country. CAPES continues to be guided by policy that proposes the internationalization of Brazilian sciences, but no longer provides the support academics need to conduct research abroad. Funding for these programs has been cut dramatically.

One main difficulty for the internationalization of Brazilian anthropology is the growing lack of resources and funding for studies outside Brazil as well as the fact that Portuguese is not considered an international language.

Our highly qualified studies published in Portuguese cannot be read by anthropologists throughout the world. From a global point of view, most of the anthropologists from different countries surveyed by WCAA report a preference for English, followed at a large distance by Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Italian.

GSAP data show that the languages ​​used by Brazilian anthropologists for publications are, in order, Portuguese, followed at a certain distance by English, Spanish and French. Numerically insignificant, German, Italian, and Indonesian are also cited (Figure 14). The responses allowed multiple choices.

It is important to recognize that the cost of good translations or editing is necessary yet extremely high if we Brazilians want to expand our publications in English.

Figure 14:
Language of Publication

Figure 15:
Language of Publication ABA

Figure 16:
Language of Publication Global Sample

In conclusion, we would like to offer some reflections about the future of internationalization, as a goal for Brazilian anthropology, Although the international circulation of Brazilian anthropological production is limited because in Brazil articles are most often published in Portuguese, this survey reveals that English has become the second language in which Brazilians publish.

From a global perspective, most of the anthropologists from different countries surveyed by WCAA have a preference for English, followed at a large distance by Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Italian. It is auspicious to find that Spanish and Portuguese are the second and third preferred languages in world anthropology, within WCAA. We are tempted to seek incentives and partnerships to broaden the circulation of publications in these languages.

Growing tensions in the anthropological field in times of authoritarianism

When Brazilian anthropologists speak with foreign colleagues, our colleagues

tend to show their admiration for Brazilian anthropology because of its political engagements.

In fact, we have often participated in roundtable discussions with state agents, prosecutors, ministers and ambassadors. And it is true that anthropologists in Brazil have been able to influence decisions made by public agents. We have been heard in important national issues such as the drafting of the current Constitution. But when Brazilian anthropologists speak among each other, we do not always share this optimistic view, we are more pessimistic and affirm that our expertise is not properly valued. This is more true in recent years, considering the country’s authoritarian government.

Indeed, for a few decades our anthropology was respected for its outreach, and highly regarded by our foreign colleagues. Obviously, it was recognized not only for its political commitment but also for its theoretical contributions, within a particular theoretical framework, related to certain empirical and theoretical issues.

Let’s return to political outreach. Since the coup d’état of 2016, Brazilian anthropologists have faced new challenges. For example, we can consider pressure from ideologies that support national development, such as those used to justify construction of large hydroelectric dams, the accelerated advance of mining companies in the Amazon, and other projects that threaten Indigenous and neighboring populations.

Dam construction policies in Brazil date back to the 1970s during the military dictatorship when the official concept of ​​"development" had priority over the environmental dangers posed. We now know the process was rife with kickback schemes involving all the major political parties and construction companies. Belo Monte (the largest dam constructed in the country) as well as the accelerated advance of mining companies in the Amazon and other development projects that threaten Indigenous and traditional populations have been monitored by anthropologists. At times, development projects have been fought by the Brazilian Anthropological Association (ABA), which although it is an academic association, has a history of political action in defense of the population studied by its members. This is not because the ABA is naively opposed to development. But because we believe that it must be sustainable in terms of biodiversity and have the effective consent of the people potentially affected. Biodiversity was also not a central concern of the Workers Party governments of Lula and Dilma, which promoted “social development” (desenvolvimentismo social), based on alliances with the leading capitalist financial and industrial corporations. So even under governments self-defined as promoters of “social justice”, the consent of Indigenous people was not always a priority. Today the situation is even worse.

Not surprisingly, there have been many Indigenous uprisings in Brazil recently. More than a thousand erupted in 2016, a record high since 1985 when the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) began maintaining records. Land is at the center of important political conflicts and not only in Brazil. Capitalist mega-companies are buying territories the size of countries throughout the global South. The territories recognized as the native lands of Amerindians and descendants of traditional communities are considered by the Brazilian Constitution to be outside the real estate market and, precisely for this reason, are especially coveted by capital. Agribusiness, particularly involving soybeans and cattle, has demanded ever increasing space. Landowners are seeking the abolition by Congress of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), which is responsible for protecting Indian rights. There is also intense pressure from the agricultural lobby to reduce areas protected for environmental conservation and to relax environmental regulations.

Events in 2014 and 2015 marked the strengthening of two large and extremely conservative caucuses in the national congress: the Frente Parlamentar Agropecuária [the Agricultural Front] and the Frente Parlamentar Evangélica [the Evangelical Front]. The Agricultural Front was responsible for the creation of two congressional investigative commissions (CPIs) that focused on the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) and on the National Institute for Agrarian Reform and Settlement (INCRA) in 2015 and 2017, as part of efforts to block demarcation of Indigenous lands and quilombos. Meanwhile, the Evangelical Front sought to prevent use of the word gender and education policies opposing discrimination by gender and sexuality in the National Education Plan for 2014-2024 (Machado, 2020).

While these two conservative fronts had applied pressure during the Lula and Dilma governments, and contributed strongly to Dilma’s impeachment, they attained extraordinary power with the installation of the Temer Government in 2016⁹, given that their political interests were deeply linked and they had the same perspective on the future of the nation and the Brazilian state.

Independent of each representatives’ party affiliation (or religion), the Agricultural Front votes in bloc on certain legislative proposals. Known as the "ruralist front", it had a leading role in the impeachment of Dilma, accounting for more than 80% of the votes in favor of the coup d’état. The "ruralist front" has three other powerful congressional allies: a block that advocates the right to bear arms (the “security front”, known as the “bullet caucus”, bancada da bala), neo-Pentecostal deputies (Almeida, 2020) and, last but not least, the “football front” (bancada da bola), which is composed of conservative deputies from the world of football. It is a sinister pact. Their actions suppress social gains and support a moralist policy. Finally, while the situation was already difficult under the Dilma government, it was much more serious under the highly unpopular government of Mr. “Fora" Temer¹⁰ and the extreme right won catastrophic gains with the election of Bolsonaro in 2018 (Machado, 2020; Miguel, 2018).

The "ruralist front" and its allies created a parliamentary inquiry commission (CPI) which approved a report of more than 3,000 pages, calling for the prosecution of 67 people, including anthropologists, missionaries, Amerindians, employees of FUNAI and INCRA, federal prosecutors and even the former Minister of Justice Eduardo Cardozo - a ministry that had often called on ABA to hear anthropologists’ opinions about projects involving Amerindians and traditional populations (Rial, 2018a).

Anthropologists were accused of lacking objectivity when providing evidence about demarcation of Indigenous lands, and serving as activists in support of Amerindian causes because the anthropologists have prior knowledge of communities. However, when anthropologists are accused of having prolonged contact with the groups they study, the very methodology of our discipline is a target. Agribusiness interests not only threaten the anthropologists directly named by the CPI, but threaten the work of anthropology, which is based on close intersubjective relations with its interlocutors, who are often precisely those at the margin of society. Anthropology as a whole has also been attacked through questioning of a study on the sociability of gays, and when public research agencies have been criticized for funding research on topics of sexuality, as was recently the case in Rio de Janeiro, where a study on homosexual sociality had its funding terminated.

Meanwhile, the social situation in Brazil is worsening in various aspects: Brazil is back on the United Nation’s map of hunger and a proposal is circulating in Congress to change the Constitution to limit the right to access land by Amerindians and traditional populations - despite the fact that Brazil is signatory to international conventions that defend these rights. Congress has also weakened laws against slave labor and is discussing the prohibition of abortion in the few situations where it is now permitted (in cases of rape and when a pregnant women’s life is at risk). A bill that would criminalize homophobia has been dropped from consideration, and the law against domestic violence, to which feminist anthropology made important contributions, is being considered for "flexibilization". To complete setbacks in all three spheres of government, the judiciary has approved the possibility of "psychiatric treatment" to “cure” homosexuals, while it has censored art, theater and museums -and we will not discuss cases of judicial abuse in Brazil because that would take another 20 pages (Melo, 2020; Leite, 2019).

Finally, we want to mention serious threats to science and technology, most particularly those caused by the 20-year freeze on public spending approved soon after Temer replaced Dilma. It should be remembered that under the Lula government there was an expansion of the university system¹¹. Some anthropology departments doubled in size. Challenges and difficulties are increasing under the Bolsonaro government.

In 2021 some universities are facing closure. The threat is greatest at two universities that were formed through international partnerships. One is the Federal University for Latin American Integration (UNILA), located in Foz do Iguaçu on Brazil’s border with Argentina and Paraguay. The other involves partnerships with African countries, the University for Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (UNILAB), located in Ceará and Bahia. Despite this catastrophic situation, we do not believe that Brazilian anthropology will reach the position faced by other colleagues in the world, whose departments are dying out or are encompassed by departments of sociology, history or others.

It is not only in Brazil that the current political situation imposes the need to reconcile academic work with political work. Yet this has been a historical feature of Brazilian anthropology.

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• 1
  The Survey includes responses from 4,643 members of 50 associations from around the world. The largest number of respondents (1,103) were from the American Anthropological Association (AAA), followed by the Society for Applied Anthropology (605), the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) (462), the Associação Brasileira de Antropologia (ABA) (324) and the Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) (214).
• 2
  Sociologist Carlos Benedito Martins analyzes the impact of the National Guidelines and Bases Law (Law no. 5.540/1968) on university education. “The University Reform of 1968 produced paradoxical effects on Brazilian higher education. (...) Favorable conditions were created for certain institutions to start articulating teaching and research activities, which until then - with rare exceptions - were relatively disconnected. Lifetime professorships were abolished, the departmental regime was introduced, the academic career was institutionalized, the pertinent legislation coupled teaching admission and progression to academic degrees. (...) A national graduate policy was created, expressed in the national graduate plans and efficiently conducted by the development agencies of the federal government.” (Martins, 2009, p.1) And he adds: "With the establishment of the military regime, the repressive measures unleashed by the new governors, in relation to the student movement, and the strict surveillance of teachers were combined with proposals for modernization and expansion of higher education." (Martins, 2009, p.15)
• 3
  The following paragraphs related to historical international relations rely on Rial (2017a) and the next paragraphs concerning the historical path of the race studies rely on Seyferth (2020).
• 4
  While color prejudice and racial prejudice are generally understood to be synonymous in the American social context, Brazilian intellectuals, at that time, understood that color prejudice in Brazil was largely derived from social inequality and was weakened by miscegenation.
• 5
  See: Relatório da Pós graduação da área de Antropologia e Arqueologia, Capes, 2018 https://www.academia.edu/35853108/2018_Relat%C3%B3rio_da_Coordena%C3%A7%C3%A3o_da_%C3%81rea_de_Antropologia_e_Arqueologia_na_CAPES_sobre_a_Avalia%C3%A7%C3%A3o_Quadrienal_2013_2016
• 6
  According to Russell J. Dalton and Doh Chull Shin , in Reassessing The Civic Culture Model (2011), democratic consolidation is the process by which a new democracy matures, in such a way that it becomes unlikely to revert to authoritarianism without an external shock, and democracy is regarded as the only available system of government within a country. This is the case when: no significant political group seriously attempts to overthrow the democratic regime, the democratic system is regarded as the most appropriate way to govern by the vast majority of the public, and all political actors are accustomed to the fact that conflicts are resolved through established political and constitutional rules. Lorencini (2020) understands that in today's Brazil: “the masses maintain trust in the model for political interaction, although the players are not trusted. The optimistic interpretation that can be drawn from this scenario is that the popular feeling about democracy is not that it should be replaced but that it should be improved. (...) “The greatest risk is in the elite layer, no properly because its adherence to authoritarianism is proven, but rather due to the absence of data and elements that demonstrate the effectiveness of its democratic commitment”
• 7
  The exception was the state universities of Rio de Janeiro where racial quotas were implemented by state provincial law in 2001.
• 8
  On May 12, 2016, President Dilma was removed from the presidency by the Senate, and Vice President Michel Temer (PMDB) became interim president. Dilma Rousseff's impeachment began with the acceptance, on December 2, 2015, by the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, of a complaint that she was guilty of the crime of responsibility, which had been filed on October 15, 2015. The charges alleged she was responsible for “fiscal pedaling” (“pedaladas fiscais”), a term that refers to budget operations carried out by the National Treasury, not permitted by law, which consist of delaying the transfer of funds to public and private banks to alleviate the government's fiscal situation in a given month or year, presenting better economic indicators to the financial market, specialists in public accounts and Congress. The three previous presidents had conducted these maneuvers without being impeached, which was the result of political articulation against the Dilma presidency. That is why Dilma’s impeachment has been called a “coup d’état”. Conservative parliamentary fronts brought together the conservative interests of the elites of Christian religious organizations and the interests of the agricultural, industrial, and financial business elites who felt that their demands were no longer being met. We will return to this subject.
• 9
  On May 12, 2016, Vice President Michel Temer (PMDB Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro) became interim president. On August 31, 2016, he definitively took power as president of the republic. On January 1, 2019, elected candidate (PSL Partido Social Liberal), Jair Messias Bolsonaro became president. He has defended far-right policies, but is currently without a party affiliation.
• 10
  “Fora Temer”, which means “Out with Temer”, was the slogan used by demonstrators calling for the ouster of the new president, who left office with approval ratings under 5 percent. Due to the slogan’s widespread presence, it is at times used in place of his name, as did one Chinese businessman by mistake.
• 11
  From 1998 to 2017, the number of courses increased by 214% while the number of students enrolled grew 265%. In training, the increase in titles was in the order of 307%. Regional asymmetries in Brazilian postgraduate courses were reduced: there was an internalization of postgraduate programs (PPGs), even those considered of excellence. For an analysis of the challenges of the Financing and Evaluation Policies of Graduate Studies in Brazilian Anthropology, see Miranda, 2018.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  17 Feb 2023
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  16 Dec 2021
• Accepted
  31 Dec 2021