Race in Translation: Culture Wars around the Postcolonial Atlantic

9 The Transnational Traffic of Ideas

270  The Transnational Traffic of Ideas in this chapter, we theorize the multidirectional traffic of ideas concerning race/coloniality across the three zones through an analysis of a quadrille of readings whereby intellectuals from one country engage with intellectuals from a second country who make claims about a third country. We also sketch out the history of U.S. and French academic studies of Brazil, while intervening in the debates about the dissemination of French theory in the Americas. As part of our transnational and translational approach, we analyze Bourdieu/ Wacquant’s critique of Michael Hanchard’s work on the black consciousness movement in Brazil, including a discussion of that critique’s reception in Brazil, in order to explore the literal and metaphorical translation of ideas around the Atlantic. France, the United States, and Brazil Studies A thoroughgoing analysis of the triangular traffic of ideas requires contextualization regarding the history of academic writing on Brazil by both France-based and U.S.-based scholars. Whereas in the French case this writing traces its longterm origins to the 16th-century beginnings of the Franco-Brazilian relationship , in the U.S. case such writing is much more recent. In the postwar period, a number of factors—the surge of area studies in the United States, the Brazilian dictatorship’s desire to improve higher education, and the Gaullist desire for alliances with the Third World—all led to a major expansion of scholarly exchange between the three countries. In Brazil, the military regime created scholarships for study abroad, with the United States being the most popular destination, followed by France. Historian Edward A. Riedinger notes in his overview of Brazil-related research in France that from the time of the first doctoral dissertation on Brazil in 1823 up until 1999, 1,344 theses or dissertations about Brazil had been written in French universities, over 98 percent of them in the postwar period.1 A cursory overview of the dissertations reveals certain patterns: First, the majority are by Brazilians working under French professors (such as Raymond Cantel and Guy Martinière) knowledgeable about Brazil or with Brazilian scholars based in France (such as Katia de Queirós Mattoso) or with celebrated scholars (such as Cornelius Castoriadis , Maurice Godelier, Pierre Bourdieu, and Alain Touraine) known more for 271 The Transnational Traffic of Ideas their innovative social theories than for their knowledge of Brazil. Second, a prestigious gallery of Brazilian scholars on African, Afro-Brazilian, and indigenous culture and history—Luiz Felipe de Alencastro (the South Atlantic slave trade); Juana Elbein dos Santos (Afro-Brazilian religion); Renato Ortiz (Umbanda and popular culture), and anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (indigenous philosophy)—did their graduate work in France. Third, the relatively rare comparative and cross-national dissertations tend to concern Brazil-Africa (Jean-Paul Coleyn on possession cults in Mali, Brazil, and Haiti) or France-Brazil (Gabriel Colo on French versus Brazilian images of the Brazilian; Claudia Andrade dos Santos on French travelers and the Brazilian slavery debates). Many dissertations treat Afro-Brazilian religion, and one treats black Brazilian activism (Luiz Alberto Oliveira Gonçalves’s 1994 thesis “The Black Movement in Brazil”). While the theme of comparative race has been ubiquitous in scholarship by Brazilians and North Americans, little comparative race work has been done by French scholars, partly because the category of“race” is itself suspect.2 Riedinger notes in his comparison that (1) the French scholarship is largely in the sciences or the social sciences, while the U.S. work is in both the sciences and the humanities; (2) the French work is more inflected by Marxism; (3) the Annales School wields considerable influence, partially because of its focus on a Franco-Mediterranean sharing of certain cultural features with Brazil; (4) in geopolitical terms, French studies envision Brazil as a regional power in alliance with France and in opposition to the United States, while American studies see Brazil as complementary to the United States; and (5) in the United States, Brazilian studies research has been conducted largely by North Americans linked to Brazil, while Brazilian scholars in the United States tend to work with American experts for whom Brazil, or at least the “Third World,” is an area of expertise.3 (Some of this is changing as “Brazilian Brazilianists” enter the U.S. academy in greater numbers.)4 In any case, Brazilian studies has been a growing field in North America. BRASA (Brazilian Studies Association), founded in 1992, today...