Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The multiple dimensions of racial mixture in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: from whitening to Brazilian negritude

2011; Routledge; Volume: 35; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01419870.2011.589524

1466-4356

Graziella Moraes Silva, Elisa Reis,

Race, History, and American Society

Abstract Abstract The notion that racial mixture is a central feature of Latin American societies has been interpreted in different, if not strictly opposite, ways. On the one hand, scholars have presented it as evidence of weaker racial boundaries. On the other, it has been denounced as an expression of the illusion of harmonic racial relations. Relying on 160 interviews with black Brazilians, we argue that the valorization of racial mixture is an important response to stigmatization, but one that has multiple dimensions and different consequences for the maintenance of racial boundaries. We map out these different dimensions – namely, 'whitening', 'Brazilian negritude', 'national identification' and 'non-essentialist racialism' – and discuss how these dimensions are combined in different ways by our interviewees according to various circumstances. Exploring these multiple dimensions, we question any simplistic understanding of racial mixture as the blessing or the curse of Latin American racial dynamics. Keywords: Brazilracial mixturemultiracialismracial identificationdestigmatizationracial boundaries Acknowledgements This study was funded by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) at Harvard University, the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) and the State of Rio de Janeiro Science Foundation (FAPERJ). We are grateful to Stan Bailey, Brenna Powell and the editors of this special edition, Michèle Lamont and Nissim Misrachi, for their suggestions. Our thanks also to David Williams, who commented on an earlier draft presented at the Conference on Responses to Discrimination and Racism: Comparative Perspectives. We also received insightful suggestions at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Successful Societies Program meeting. Finally, we thank the three ERS blind reviewers for their thoughtful comments and critiques. Of course, all shortcomings are our responsibility. Notes 1. Our definition of racial mixture follows that of the review provided in Telles and Sue (2009 Telles, E. E. and Sue, C. 2009. Race mixture: boundary crossing in comparative perspective. Annual Review of Sociology, 35: 129–46. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 2. We use Alba's (2005 Alba, R. 2005. Bright vs. blurred boundaries: second-generation assimilation and exclusion in France, Germany and the United States. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28(1): 20–49. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) definition of blurred versus bright boundaries to convey the idea that due to racial mixture, racial boundaries in Brazil are perceived as changing their characteristics contextually. We are not arguing that Brazilian racial boundaries are weaker or more permeable to individuals, but that their meaning and function can vary. 3. The Brazilian official colour/race census categories are preto (black), pardo (brown), branco (white), amarelo (yellow) and indígena (indigenous). 4. 2003 Datafolha on Brazilian Utopias, our tabulations. 5. 2008 Racismo Confrontado, tabulations provided by Datafolha. 6. Interestingly, similar questions about racial preferences for having a boss, as an employee and as a neighbour were not significant – and sometimes indicated preferences for blacks over whites and browns. 7. The idea of negritude can be attributed to Senghor (1964 Senghor, L. 1964. Négritude et Humanisme, Paris: Editions du Seuil. [Google Scholar]) as part of the transnational black consciousness movement, especially in the French-speaking African and Caribbean countries.