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Identities and Imagined Homelands: Reinventing the Azores in Southern Brazil

2002; Oxford University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/dsp.2011.0065

1911-1568

João Leal,

Global Maritime and Colonial Histories

Identities and Imagined Homelands:Reinventing the Azores in Southern Brazil1 João Leal (bio) João Leal Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa João Leal João Leal is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, ISCTE, Lisbon, Portugal. He is the author, in Portuguese, of three books, including Etnografias portuguesas (1870-1970): cultura popular e identidade nacional (Lisbon 2000); A Festas do Espírito Santo nos Açores: um estudo de antropología social [Holy Ghost Festivals in the Azores: A Study in Social Anthropology] (Lisbon 1994). His many articles include "Metamorfoses da arte popular," Etnograficá (2002), which deals with changing views of folk art in Portuguese anthropology; and "Las Tesis lusitanistas: antropología y arqueología en Portugal [The Lusitanian Theses: Anthropology and Archeology in Portugal]", Complutum 2001. Notes 1. This paper is part of an ongoing research project, generously funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Fundação Luso Americana para o Desenvolvimento (FLAD), and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (FCG). I want to thank Andrea Klimt, Ilka Boaventura Leite, Ruben Oliven, Eugénio Lacerda, Márcia Wolff, and the anonymous referee of Diaspora for criticism and suggestions. 2. The Azores are an archipelago of nine islands in the mid-Atlantic belonging to Portugal. Approximately 240,000 inhabitants live on the islands. For over two centuries, the islands have had a history of emigration. 3. The data presented here refer mainly to Florianópolis, where I conducted fieldwork in 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2001, for a total of six months in all. 4. For a general presentation of the Congress, see Flores 113-41. For further details, see also Falcão. 5. On the process of the colonization of Santa Catarina, see Piazza Colonização and Piazza Epopéia. 6. On Art Brut see Rhodes and Peiry. 7. The informants quoted in this paper are identified by their first names, followed by the first initial of their surname. 8. On the Marejada festival, see Severino. 9. On Argentinean tourism in Santa Catarina Island, see Schmeil. 10. The first meeting of the Congress took place in 1978 and was followed by three other meetings, in 1986, 1991, and 1995. 11. On the German imprint in Santa Catarina, see Seyferth "Representação" and Seyferth Nacionalismo. Besides German and Italian migrants, Santa Catarina was also settled by smaller groups of Austrian, Lebanese, Polish, and Ukrainian migrants. 12. See Lesser on this topic. 13. Gaúcho emigration outside Brazil is connected to the more general trends that characterize Brazilian emigration. Within Brazil, though, Gaúcho emigration has some particularities, since it is mostly an emigration of "entrepeneurs," linked to the so-called "expansion of the [Brazilian] agricultural frontier" and competing for scarce resources with local economic elites. On the Gaúcho diaspora, see Oliven and Kaiser. 14. For further details on the 1996 election, see Fantin 179-81. 15. These negative stereotypes are expressed, for instance, in the "Manuel and Joaquim jokes" about Portuguese immigrants (Rowland). These jokes developed in connection with nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Portuguese immigration to Brazilian towns such as Rio and São Paulo. Those immigrants, coming mainly from underdeveloped areas of rural Portugal, were seen, by virtue of their low social status, "lack of manners," and "weird" Portuguese accent (sic), as the local embodiment of the "dumb immigrant." This negative stereotyping of Portuguese immigrants can be seen as part of the ambivalent feelings towards Portugal prevailing among some Brazilian social groups. Recent developments, such as the integration of Portugal into the European Union, the growth of Portuguese tourism and investment in Brazil, and Brazilian emigration to Portugal, are changing this image. Works Cited Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso, 1991. Google Scholar Araújo, Adalice. Mito e magia na arte catarinense: Franklin Cascaes e Eli Heil. São Paulo: First Latin-American Biennal, 1978. Google Scholar Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage, 1995. Google Scholar Cabral, Oswaldo. "Os Açorianos: contribuição ao estudo do povoamento e da evolução económica e social de Santa Catarina." Anais do Primeiro Congresso de História Catarinense. Vol. 2...