Samba

Hello everyone,
I'm nearing the end of my MA in Urban Studies program. During this past summer, I realized that the classes I had taken cultivated a better understanding of my concentration, globalization and the city. I decided to take a Latin American Studies course to help me better understand how people from Latin America and their culture fit into American culture and the study of cities.

Last night, in my Latin America and Latino Cultures class, our country of discussion was beautiful Brazil. The name itself conjures images of vibrancy, euphoria and many of the cultural traditions highlighted in Alma Guillermoprieto's Samba.                 

Sociopolitical analysis of 1930s/1940s Brazil, on the other hand, conjures images of dictatorship, oppression and class stratification, which were implicitly expressed in our other book for the week Clarise Lispector's An Apprenticeship or the Book of Delights.

This blog entry is not a book review, however. I left the class wrapping my simple mind around how a class discussion initiatially based on the the sensual and passionate movement of samba morphed into talking about trauma. Guillermoprieto immersed herself into Brazilian culture, paying close attention to the evolution and consumption of samba. (Yes, I am extremely intentional in using the word consumption.) Samba was started by Afro-Brazilians. Over time, samba became more mainstream and huge (and lucrative) national fairs showcased the dancers. In this book, Guillermoprieto documents the dedication and pride that the Afro-Brazilians have for the samba art, costumes, makeup, and performers. Samba literally consumes their lives. Conversely, Brazil completely consumes samba. The samba dancers and teachers have so much joy for the art. Simultaneously, Brazil is under the leadership of a military dictatorship. These same people are living in grave poverty. Essentially, the colorful, fun and traditional dance that helps Afro-Brazilians preserve their history, is the same dance that their aristocrats commodify and exploit.

As a young urbanist/sociologist/over-analyzer, I often assert that in order to sustainably "develop" or "modernize" a country, we must study that country's culture. Studying the culture and social networks will enable developers to avoid providing economic development prescriptions that work on an anomaly (such as the United States), and instead, empower the people to reconstruct their own structures for more productivity. In the 1930s and 1940s, the people of Brazil were using their power to perform samba to fuel Brazil's tourist economy. At some point, and I don't know when, the performances became a commercial product. As we dove deeper into dialogue about the costumes and makeup, we juxtaposed the samba community to the inhumane power structures in Brazil; I was appalled. Frankly, the bright makeup of samba performances reminded me of the black faces in minstrel shows here in the United States.

Then, the problem got deeper and hurt my core. As a naive urbanist/sociologist/over-analyzer that advocates to put culture atop the list of considerations in a development project, I struggle with the question of

"How do we incorporate culture into a modernization process?"

As conflicting thoughts filled my mind, the next logical question was "who is this 'we'" The colonized, colonizers and their respective descendants each have a different perception of "we." Each group has an intricate history that must be considered. Additionally, in all perceptions of the history, we must acknowledge the trauma of slavery and colonization in Brazil, other developing countries and, honestly, in the United States. Essentially I realized, as Professor Benavides brilliantly said, we are all just trying to make sense of something, but [our conclusion] is culturally specific.

That's my issue today. How can we incorporate the trauma? Furthermore, do we (ALL OF US) even acknowledge the trauma and how it still affect us today? I'll pray on that and write again soon.