Claiming Brazil: Performances of Citizenship in the Centenary of Independence
by Gregg Bocketti
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022 Cloth: 978-0-8229-4721-9 | eISBN: 978-0-8229-8893-9 Library of Congress Classification F2510.B594 2022 Dewey Decimal Classification 981
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Brazil marked its centennial as an independent country in 1922. Claiming Brazil explores how Brazilians from different walks of life commemorated the event, and how this led to conflicting ideas of national identity. Civic rituals hold enormous significance, and Brazilian citizens, immigrants, and visitors employed them to articulate and perform their sense of what Brazil was, stood for, and could be. Gregg Bocketti argues that these celebrations, rather than uniting the country, highlighted tensions between modernity and tradition, over race and ethnicity, and between nation and region. Further, the rituals contributed to the collapse of the country’s social and political status quo and gave substance to the debates and ideas that characterized Brazilian life in the 1920s and then under the transformative rule of Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945). Now, at the bicentennial of Brazil’s independence, which itself unfolds in a period of political crisis and economic dislocation, and in the aftermath of several large civic events, it is an opportune moment to consider how Brazilians used civic rituals to engage with questions of identity, belonging, and citizenship one hundred years ago.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Gregg Bocketti is professor of history at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He is the author of The Invention of the Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil.
REVIEWS
“Gregg Bocketti’s new book offers a fresh examination of a key moment in the history of modern Brazil, the hundredth anniversary of the country’s declaration of independence from Portugal. All the more exciting, it does so just in time for another Brazilian centennial and, perhaps, another inflection point in the trajectory of the South American giant. Not for these reasons alone, Claiming Brazil should find a wide readership among scholars and students of Latin American history and memory.” —James Woodard, Montclair State University
“Brazil’s 1922 Centenary was marked by marches and monuments. Claiming Brazil asks why elites believed their own unifying rhetoric about public displays even as the events emphasized long-term fractures. Skillfully analyzing bifurcations like modernity/tradition, nation/region, citizenship/foreignness, and whiteness/Blackness, Gregg Bocketti shows how the Centenary contributed to the rise of the Vargas dictatorship and seeks lessons for the 2022 bicentenary.” —Jeffrey Lesser, Emory University
“Claiming Brazil is an excellent contribution to scholarship investigating Brazilian history from multilayered perspectives. Chapters clearly demonstrate the complexity of the analytical task undertaken by Bocketti. Alongside the official Centenary of Independence festivities, Bocketti discusses displays of immigrant identity and regional performances of citizenship, rarely acknowledged yet crucial dimensions of this history. The book is timely: in 2022, Brazil celebrates its bicentenary while facing history-defining federal elections. By shedding light on the history of racial, cultural, generational, and regional fissures in Brazil, Claiming Brazil offers solid ground for our understanding of the country’s contemporary challenges.” —Livia Rezende, the University of New South Wales
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Fishermen and Aviators: Time, Race, and Region in the Raids of the Centenary
Chapter 2: A Nation of Parts: The Centenary Exposition and Centenary Sports
Chapter 3: The Uses of Independence and Other Histories
Chapter 4: Citizens of the Patria(s): Immigrants and the Centenary
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
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Claiming Brazil: Performances of Citizenship in the Centenary of Independence
by Gregg Bocketti
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022 Cloth: 978-0-8229-4721-9 eISBN: 978-0-8229-8893-9
Brazil marked its centennial as an independent country in 1922. Claiming Brazil explores how Brazilians from different walks of life commemorated the event, and how this led to conflicting ideas of national identity. Civic rituals hold enormous significance, and Brazilian citizens, immigrants, and visitors employed them to articulate and perform their sense of what Brazil was, stood for, and could be. Gregg Bocketti argues that these celebrations, rather than uniting the country, highlighted tensions between modernity and tradition, over race and ethnicity, and between nation and region. Further, the rituals contributed to the collapse of the country’s social and political status quo and gave substance to the debates and ideas that characterized Brazilian life in the 1920s and then under the transformative rule of Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945). Now, at the bicentennial of Brazil’s independence, which itself unfolds in a period of political crisis and economic dislocation, and in the aftermath of several large civic events, it is an opportune moment to consider how Brazilians used civic rituals to engage with questions of identity, belonging, and citizenship one hundred years ago.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Gregg Bocketti is professor of history at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He is the author of The Invention of the Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil.
REVIEWS
“Gregg Bocketti’s new book offers a fresh examination of a key moment in the history of modern Brazil, the hundredth anniversary of the country’s declaration of independence from Portugal. All the more exciting, it does so just in time for another Brazilian centennial and, perhaps, another inflection point in the trajectory of the South American giant. Not for these reasons alone, Claiming Brazil should find a wide readership among scholars and students of Latin American history and memory.” —James Woodard, Montclair State University
“Brazil’s 1922 Centenary was marked by marches and monuments. Claiming Brazil asks why elites believed their own unifying rhetoric about public displays even as the events emphasized long-term fractures. Skillfully analyzing bifurcations like modernity/tradition, nation/region, citizenship/foreignness, and whiteness/Blackness, Gregg Bocketti shows how the Centenary contributed to the rise of the Vargas dictatorship and seeks lessons for the 2022 bicentenary.” —Jeffrey Lesser, Emory University
“Claiming Brazil is an excellent contribution to scholarship investigating Brazilian history from multilayered perspectives. Chapters clearly demonstrate the complexity of the analytical task undertaken by Bocketti. Alongside the official Centenary of Independence festivities, Bocketti discusses displays of immigrant identity and regional performances of citizenship, rarely acknowledged yet crucial dimensions of this history. The book is timely: in 2022, Brazil celebrates its bicentenary while facing history-defining federal elections. By shedding light on the history of racial, cultural, generational, and regional fissures in Brazil, Claiming Brazil offers solid ground for our understanding of the country’s contemporary challenges.” —Livia Rezende, the University of New South Wales
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Fishermen and Aviators: Time, Race, and Region in the Raids of the Centenary
Chapter 2: A Nation of Parts: The Centenary Exposition and Centenary Sports
Chapter 3: The Uses of Independence and Other Histories
Chapter 4: Citizens of the Patria(s): Immigrants and the Centenary
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE