Spotlight on Brazil
A Four-Event Series Presented by Dr. Pedro dos Santos
Written by: Lizbet Martinez-Port
The McCarthy Center is proud to have co-sponsored the “Spotlight on Brazil” series, a four-event series presented by Dr. Pedro dos Santos, assistant professor of political science. Each event featured a Brazilian guest speaker and highlighted a different topic related to social justice issues in Brazil. Our first guest speaker for the series, Xavier Vatin, is an ethnomusicologist and associate professor of anthropology at Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia (UFRB), Brazil. His talk on “Brazil under U.S. influence between 1964-2021” was incredibly informative and put into perspective how the U.S. can have an impact on a country across the world. For example, in the 1990’s there were efforts to stabilize Brazilian currency by matching it to the U.S. dollar. Vatin’s vast knowledge of Brazilian history was impressive, especially considering that he was teaching over 50 years of history in about an hour. The second guest speaker, Dr. Clarice Mota, spoke on social inequalities in Brazil and the effects they have on life and health conditions. Dr. Mota is a professor of anthropology at the Institute for Collective Health at the Federal University of Bahia.Her lecture spoke to the role of the state in creating and maintaining those policies, the legal right to universal healthcare access, and the need to promote social justice. When policymakers neglect these factors, we are contributing to a racist system. 22 McCarthy Magazine
The previous talk connected well with that of our third speaker, Jamir Garcez, a former professional basketball player and writer who now works in the engineering field. This event was an informal conversation with Garcez on racial issues in connection to basketball in Brazil. Garcez offered a lot of insight and personal experience with racism in the sports industry in Brazil. He also highlighted how basketball offered him hope for the future and presented many opportunities that he otherwise wouldn’t have received. For some, a career in basketball can bring people out of poverty. For Garcez, it inspired education. Our last speaker, Dr. Fernando Costa da Conceição, is a visiting researcher at Columbia University and communications professor at the Federal University of Bahia. Dr. Conceição focuses on cultural studies, politics, comparative race relationships in Brazil and the U.S., and media and ethnicity. As a Black activist, he has participated in the struggle for quotas and reparations for Afro-Brazilians for almost 25 years. In his talk, he explained that international corporations were giving money to social organizations in Brazil, yet the situation of those that the organizations claimed to help wasn’t changing. He asked us to be critical of those organizations and question their intentions to help marginalized communities. The talk was insightful and gave us a different perspective to the work of international corporations. The “Spotlight on Brazil” series offered our community an opportunity to learn from different people in a country all the way on the other side of the world. These experts and scholars were open in sharing their knowledge and experience. We are grateful for these opportunities presented by Dr. Pedro dos Santos and all parties involved in sponsoring these events alongside the McCarthy Center.
