Avoiding the Dark: Race and the Forging of National Culture in Modern Brazil

by Darién J. Davis

This text examines the process by which Brazilian nationalists forged and propagated an all-inclusive national identity which attempted to promote racial harmony in the first four decades of the 20th century. Specific emphasis is given to the rising patriotic feelings under the administration of President Getulio Vargas, which culminated in the creation of the Estado Novo in 1937. Vargas' generation succeeded in encouraging Brazilians to identify with "the nation" above other possible communities such as radical, ethnic or regional ones. In the process, nationalists created enduring national myths and symbols which successfully marginalized racial consciousness for the rest of the 20th century. Based on the ideas of Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" (1983), this work examines the "imagining of Brazil", by focusing on the state, intellectual, and popular conceptualizations of Brazil through important institutions such as the Ministry of Culture, and major media for national communication in the 1930s. In order to understand the formulation of Brazil's dominant national ideology in this period it is also crucial to examine the views and voices of black Brazilians and the climate within which they emerged.

260 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1999