I think I finally understand…or at least I thought I did!

Sorry for leaving you all in the dark for the last couple of weeks. Since I’ve started my routine of going to UNICAMP to do my research I just haven’t been getting the urge to write. But I’ve gotten the urge back and I’ll update you on what’s been going on. I’ve been immersing myself in the subject of water resources and public participation in Brazil. Before arriving in Brazil I thought issues of race and inequality would be a rather straightforward concept. I’ve since realized that there are so many nuances here that I could hardly wrap my brain around. That coupled with my virtual ignorance of Brazilian water resources and public participation history has left me spinning my wheels for the last couple of weeks. The first step out of this black hole has bee acknowledging that I’ve been looking at the role of public involvement in Brazil through a set of American eyes. For one, issues of race and class are quite different here. Back in LA I’ve been looking at how to involve Latinos into environmental decision-making. The basic thought behind that is that as Latinos have grown in numbers and in political strength there have been movements on various sides to involve Latinos in the political process. This involvement is an attempt to better represent the interests of the community as a whole by having representatives that better reflect the community. Since Latinos have historically been under represented this movement has for the most part been viewed as a positive goal.

Here in Brazil issues of race are not seen as important. The national ideal is that Brazilians are a mixture of African, European and Amerindian heritage, in addition to the significant presence of Asians and people of middle-eastern heritage. Because of this mixing people don’t refer to issues of inequality in terms of race or ethnicity but rather on class. This complicates matters when you are trying to involve historically disadvantaged groups and their only common denominator is that they are poor, or that they live in a certain “barrio”.

Though for someone like me who has been well versed in the ideas of racial politics it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to ignore the effects that race has on issues of inequality. Additionally from my experience in Mexico which is supposed to be a Mestizo society of Indian and Spanish heritage we see plenty of instances of inequalities that result because of this false notion of total “Mestizaje” or pure mixture. This notion makes it easy to ignore the needs of Indigenous communities and other minorities such as the often overlooked African population leaving these groups vulnerable to exploitation and lacking in services.

But even the example of Mexico does little to shed light on the complexities that Brazil presents. In the brief time I’ve been here just walking around I’ve seen the stark contrast from many parts of this country where if you are in the “chique” parts of town you notice mostly European descendents walking around, yet when you go to the favellas or other more modest areas you see a much broader representation of people of color. I’ve also observed African descendents holding fewer positions of authority compared to their numbers in the total population. But again things get tricky in trying to show this through data since there is a very large mixed population where you would have to figure out how much African heritage leads to a disadvantaged group. This adds to complicate matter s for me here so I’ve decided to drop this for now. But I hope to come back and look at these issues more in depth in the near future.