Race and the Brazilian Body: Blackness, Whiteness, and Everyday Language in Rio de Janeiro

by Jennifer Roth-Gordon

Overview

Based on spontaneous conversations of shantytown youth hanging out on the streets of their neighborhoods and interviews from the comfortable living rooms of the middle class, Jennifer Roth-Gordon shows how racial ideas permeate the daily lives of Rio de Janeiro’s residents across race and class lines. Race and the Brazilian Body weaves together the experiences of these two groups to explore what the author calls Brazil’s “comfortable racial contradiction,” where embedded structural racism that privileges whiteness exists alongside a deeply held pride in the country’s history of racial mixture and lack of overt racial conflict. This linguistic and ethnographic account describes how cariocas (people who live in Rio de Janeiro) “read” the body for racial signs. The amount of whiteness or blackness a body displays is determined not only through observations of phenotypical features—including skin color, hair texture, and facial features—but also through careful attention paid to cultural and linguistic practices, including the use of nonstandard speech commonly described as gíria (slang).
 
Vivid scenes from daily interactions illustrate how implicit social and racial imperatives encourage individuals to invest in and display whiteness (by demonstrating a “good appearance”), avoid blackness (a preference challenged by rappers and hip-hop fans), and “be cordial” (by not noticing racial differences). Roth-Gordon suggests that it is through this unspoken racial etiquette that Rio residents determine who belongs on the world famous beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon; who deserves to shop in privatized, carefully guarded, air conditioned shopping malls; and who merits the rights of citizenship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520293809
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	12/20/2016
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jennifer Roth-Gordon is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

1 Brazil's "Comfortable Racial Contradiction" 1

2 "Good" Appearances: Race, Language, and Citizenship 42

3 Investing In Whiteness: Middle-Class Practices of Linguistic Discipline 69

4 Fears of Racial Contact: Crime, Violence, and the Struggle Over Urban Stace 95

5 Avoiding Blackness: The Flip Side of Boa Aparencta 128

6 Making the Mano: The Uncomfortable Visibility of Blackness in Politically Conscious Brazilian Hip-Hop 161

Conclusion: "Seeing" Race 185

Notes 195

References 203

Index 223

Editorial Reviews

"Roth-Gordon offers important in-sights in fewer than two hundred pages of clearly articulated text. . .the book is a rare pedagogical gem."

General Anthropology

"[Roth-Gordon] presents [her findings] in an accessible narrative that would provide compelling reading for an undergraduate course on race or Brazil and might help us all better understand why famously 'cordial' Brazilians recently elected an uncordially racist president."

Latin American Research Review

"A remarkably accessible book that will be of great interest to scholars of race in Latin America who wish to incorporate an attention to language and practice to theirown work. The book’ s clear explanations of how the research was organized and executed likewise make it an excellent teaching tool for undergraduates and graduate students."

Journal of Latin American Studies

"By highlighting new challenges and forms of resistance to racist ideologies, Roth-Gordon makes an outstanding contribution to a global dialogue on race that illustrates the hegemonic forces at play that maintain racial inequalities."

American Ethnologist

" A must-read for scholars studying race and politics in Brazil."

Journal of Anthropological Research

"Although decades of ink have already been spilled on the still contentious issue of racism in Brazil (and Latin America more broadly), Roth-
Gordon’s book points to fruitful areas for future research."

Anthropological Quarterly