Diversity | Rune Kier

Hi From my fieldwork about race in Brazil I came to see the importance of a positive african homeland for afro-brazilian youth. And in exploring it, I also found that they shared this fascination with black US youth. Indeed there was a root tourisme going on, but it happened from the US… to Brazil, not Africa! If you want to know more, I wrote an article about it called Brazil’s Two Africas for Dialogos Latinoamericanos. Brazil’s Two Africas, or which Africa to find in what Brazil? Abstract The article investigates the idea of Africa as central to the imagining of the Brazilian nation. It agues that the popular beliefs and the black movement differ significantly in their views of Brazil as well as the images of Africa they each use to explain the place of black people in the New World. Thereby the meaning of both Brazil and Africa are a matter of conflict depending on...

Hi When I did my Masters Degree in Cultural Anthropology, I also wrote my thesis about the Brazilian Black Movement. It was a forming experience for me and it proved to be the sheer meaning of ‘serendipity’ – or going with the flow. In some cases it also meant being thrown out of the flow – on my hands and knees. But that too is part of fieldwork. In Brazil I listened to the stories people told me about what it means to be black and how they came to see the racism in Brazil. And I listened to speeches at seminars and protest marches – and impromptu hip hop lyrics on busses. At some point I saw the connection. The same stories told in speeches made it into the foundation of peoples identities! It transformed them. And I started dreaming of writing speeches that would do just that: transform. If you want to read the thesis, you can. It is called Race for...

The idea of Africa in Brazil

Trading the stigma of race for a sense of agency