Webcast Archive

Jeffrey Hoelle - Cattle Culture and Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Cattle raising is the leading driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Most analyses focus on the economic and institutional structures contributing to the spread of cattle, but cultural beliefs, values, and practices also play a role in shaping Amazonian livelihoods and landscapes.  Across the frontiers of the Amazon, the growth of the cattle industry has been accompanied by belt buckles,  rodeos, country music, and deeply-held ideas of nature and development. Attention to this "cattle culture" provides a view of deforestation as part of broader cultural system structuring daily life, from the forest to the city. 

12p.m. – 1:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Marcelo Paixão - The Legend of Enchanted Modernity: Racial Injustice and Modernization in Brazil

Professor Paixão will analyze the status of the human race in the discourse of "racial democracy" and how this understanding is joined to the problem of social inequality and racial hierarchies in Brazil. The lecture will be based on the main ideas of the author’s book “A lenda da modernidade encantada: por uma crítica ao pensamento social brasileiro sobre relações raciais e projeto de Estado-Nação” (Ed. CRV, 2014).

12p.m. – 1:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Homenagem: Remembering the Life and Work of Abdias Nascimento

Political thinker, activist, educator, painter, playwright, human rights advocate, untiring warrior in the fight to end racial exclusion in Brazil and elsewhere, Abdias Nascimento (1914-2011) is a towering figure in the Africana world. Join us for a one-day event in which an international group of scholars/observers share their insights into his life, thought, and indelible contributions.

9a.m. – 5p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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John T. Karam - Manifold Destiny: Arabs at a South American Border Remaking the Hemisphere

How are Arabs at the tríplice fronteira (tri-border) between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina compromising and constitutive of these Americas? Their more than half-century-long presence at this border heralds a multipolar turn in the hemisphere. Settling on the Brazilian and Paraguayan sides of the tri-border since the 1950s, mostly Lebanese and Palestinians consolidated Brazil’s influence over Argentine-dominated Paraguay since the 1970s, bore security measures demanded by Argentina and the Mercosul trade bloc through the 1990s, and became a fulcrum in the U.S. war on terror during the 2000s. In signaling the twilight of “manifest destiny,” the doctrine that typified century-long U.S. impositions over Latin America, Arab traders and activists at the tri-border both animated and endured the increasingly myriad relations among Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and the U.S.. Their economic and political histories augur a new, manifold destiny for the hemisphere whereby no single power rules.

4p.m. – 5:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Oswaldo Truzzi - Lebanese and Syrian Immigration to São Paulo from 1880 to 1950

The saga of thousands of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants who moved to Brazil from the last two decades of the 19th century until the 1930s constitutes a great chapter in the immigration history of Brazil, and especially of São Paulo. This paper focuses on the main features of this pioneering saga, by exploring the characteristics of the flow, the socio-economic insertion, identity patterns, processes of differentiation of the group, as well as the massive entry of the first generation born in Brazil in the professions and in local politics. Finally, a comparative approach highlights the similarities and differences in the trajectories of Lebanese and Syrians in Brazil and the United States.

2p.m. – 3:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Insitute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Rahul Sirohi - Alternate Paths to Economic Development: Brazil and India

This paper compares and contrasts Brazilian and Indian strategies of development during the era of neo-liberalism. At the surface there are striking similarities between the development strategies of the two regions. Both economies have integrated themselves deeply into the world economy and they have emerged as major exporters of sophisticated goods and services. Both have embraced markets but far from limiting their government much of their economic success is attributable to active state intervention. But underlying all these similarities there are far reaching differences. In the case of Brazil, radical labour market interventions and welfare schemes have created an inclusive process of growth. On the other hand, in India the developmental approach has promoted an exclusionary form of growth where the very process of growth has become contingent on wage declines and low employment growth. My analysis seeks to understand the dynamics of economic change in the two economies and attempts to draw out the institutional and political factors that have influenced these approaches.

4p.m. – 5:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Paul Amar and Paulo Pinto -Value of Transregional/Transnational Comparative Scholarship

Paul Amar, Associate Professor, Global & International Studies Program, University of California, SantaBarbara, and Paulo Pinto, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the Fluminense Federal University, Niteroi, Brazil, will be speaking on the “Value of Transregional / Transnational Comparative Scholarship.”  Why does work that crosses between the Middle East and Latin America (specifically Brazil)  raise questions and develop methods that are uniquely productive and illuminating? Amar and Pinto will focus on how they began to develop this network in Rio in 2003 and how it has developed, as well as speaking to their specific fields of anthropology, political science and global studies.

4p.m. – 5:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Political and Social Unrest: A Roundtable on the Current Brazilian Crisis

A roundtable of four–graduate students Moises Costa and Silvia Cabral Teresa, faculty member Roquinaldo Ferreira, and journalist Mila Burns-- will analyze the current political, economic and social crisis in Brazil. Will President Dilma Rousseff be impeached? Can Brazil return to high rates of growth? Is Brazilian democracy imperiled? This open forum will explore these and other pressing issues that are being hotly debated in Brazil in the media, in Congress, on social networks, and in daily life.

6p.m. – 8p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Vitor Izecksohn -War and Slavery in the Rio de La Plata Basin

My presentation will examine the emancipation of slaves to fight as soldiers in the Brazilian army in the Triple Alliance War (1864-1870). Since the beginning of the conflict, slaves were enrolled individually in the army. But after 1866, the war´s second year, Imperial officers tried to start a more aggressive policy of enrollment with indemnification. My lecture will explore three questions central to this process. How did the recruitment of the Brazilian slaves and their transformation into “free-soldiers” become a question of state? What was the response among the supporters of the monarchy, the planters? How did participation in the war affect the lives of those freed for service in the post-war years?

12p.m. – 1:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Marina Silva -Opportunities and Challenges For Sustainable Development in Brazil

5p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Seth Garfield -“A Third-Rate Musical Comedy, Except in the Deadly Seriousness of its Implications”: Brazil, the United States and the Amazon Rubber Campaign of World War II

Faced with the devastating loss of over ninety percent of its rubber supply in 1942, the United States invested millions of dollars to boost wild rubber production in the Amazon. A host of social actors, however, armed with competing visions of the Amazon’s future, would reshape public policies for regional development. This lecture explores the wartime history of the Amazon as a window onto the nature of a region, and the origins of contemporary environmental debates.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Watch webcast of "Brazil's Model of Low Carbon Sustainable Development" conference

We are proud to announce that the conference "Brazil's Model of Low Carbon Sustainable Development," held on April 17 and 18 was a success! At 900 views, the conference was the most viewed event of the semester at Watson Institute and was one of the top topics trending on Twitter in Providence this past week. We urge you to continue to learn more about Brazil through amazing events like these here at the Brazil Initiative. 

  Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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"Brazilian Environment(s)": Graduate Student Symposium

In this one-day student symposium, Brown graduate students and some advanced undergraduates will present work on Brazil and the environment. The schedule is included on the web page listing.

9a.m. – 3p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

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Jose Antonio Cheibub -Order in Chaos: Intra-party Coordination in Systems of Open-List-Proportional-Representation

Professor Cheibub's paper studies the role of political parties in composing candidate lists in a permissive electoral system. It argues that political parties play a central role in preventing the eruption of all-out competition among co-partisans, and provides evidence supporting the view that parties strategically limit the number of viable candidates competing under their label. Data is used from contemporary Brazil, which is, arguably, the worst case for finding evidence of intra-party coordination.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Jeffrey Lesser -Militant Ethnics and Ethnic Militancy in Brazil, 1940-1980

Brazil, like the United States, is often described as a country of immigrants.  Those of immigrant descent number in the many millions, are frequently in the higher echelons of Brazil’s economic, educational and residential spheres, and are often glossed as neither black nor white.  This lecture looks at two moments when ethnic Brazilians were put under particular state pressure (the dictatorships of Vargas and the military) and reacted by using their “foreign” ethnicity and Brazilian national identity to negotiate, often successfully, for expanded cultural and political spaces.

6:30p.m. – 8p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Bryan McCann -Favela Politics and Democratization in Rio de Janeiro

In the late 1970s, residents of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas—neighborhoods of self-built housing on disputed property—mobilized to end the practice of favela eradication and to secure a place for themselves in the city. Their struggle helped bring Brazil’s military dictatorship to an end. The complex legacy of their movement continues to shape life in the Marvelous City.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

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Gustavo Azenha - Media, Social Movements, and Citizenship in Brazil

Professor Gustavo Azenha's presentation explores the use of social media and mobile technologies in recent protests and contentious policy debates that have garnered widespread attention and been the focus of intensive new media advocacy activity. The presentation examines the links between “virtual” and “real” social mobilization around pressing socioeconomic issues, as well as the interrelations between emergent forms of asserting citizenship and mobilizing the third sector, with the changing socioeconomic and political landscape of Brazil.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

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Catching Up To the Future? Advances and Challenges in the Politics, Society, and Social Policies of Contemporary Brazil

In this two-day conference hosted by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, more than a dozen scholars will gather to discuss Brazil's gains and challenges in the areas of social policy, political reform, development, civil society and more.

  Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

November 14 Webcast
November 15 Webcast

Jan Hoffman French - From Honor to Dignity: Criminal Libel, Press Freedom, and Racist Speech in Brazil

This conceptual paper, presented by Professor Jan Hoffman French, emanates from a press freedom case in Brazil, and argues that honor crimes, such as criminal libel, have paved the way for regulating racist hate speech, which in many Western democracies is deemed to protect equality and dignity. Explaining that the United States is an outlier when it comes to absolute free speech, the paper also critiques the use by international NGOs of local examples to further their goals that are sometimes, and particularly in this case, normatively centered on free speech assumptions of the United States.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

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Timothy Power - Dilma's Year of Living Dangerously: The Brazilian Elections of 2014

Professor Power will perform an analysis of the government of Dilma Rousseff from 2011-2014, examine the impacts of the economic slowdown, protests, and mega-events, and look into outcomes of the 2014 general election.

7p.m. – 8:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

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Rogério Meireles Pinto - Brazil’s Unified Health Care System: Transdisciplinary Collaboration and Integration of Health and Social Services

This talk, by Dr. Rogério Meireles Pinto of Columbia's School of Social Work, will provide an overview of Brazil’s Unified Health System and its Family Health Strategy – with an emphasis on the role of transdisciplinary collaboration among community health workers, physicians and nurses. Dr. Pinto will discuss associations between transdisciplinary collaboration, evidence-based practice, and primary care, public health and social services; and how these associations may facilitate integration of different services in Brazil and other global contexts. 

12p.m. – 1:30p.m.   Case Study Room 270, Alpert Medical School, 222 Richmond Street

YouTube: Unified Health Care System, Brazil

Moises Lino e Silva - Employment, Marginality and Freedom on the Borders of a Brazilian Favela

In this talk, Professor Lino e Silva furthers the conversation on alternative forms of work that take place in the daily life of people living in a large Brazilian shantytown. He challenges taming narratives regarding the fundamental necessity of full-time employment for the life of the so-called “urban poor”.  Is there a necessary link between unemployment and marginality in favelas? What social fractures are exposed when favela dwellers refuse to engage in formal working relations with the upper classes? What is the liberating potential of alternative employment arrangements for a more sustainable urban future?

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

Webcast

A Roundtable on the 2014 Brazilian Elections

Brazil stands at a political crossroads, with a complex electoral reality shifting each day. A panel of esteemed Brown professors will discuss the 2014 Brazilian elections in order to shed light on the internal processes affecting voting and party politics in one of the world's largest democracies.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

Webcast

Netmundial, Marco Civil, and CGI.br: The Modern Brazilian Regulatory Environment for the Internet

The growing global dependence on the Internet increases the importance of its governance processes.  In this talk, Virgilio Almeida will  discuss several characteristics of the Brazilian regulatory environment for the Internet: the history of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (cgi.br), a multistakeholder committee responsible for  coordinating and integrating all Internet service initiatives in Brazil, the process of developing and approving the Marco Civil, which is the Brazilian law of civil rights for Internet users and service providers, and lessons learned from the process of preparing and running the NETmundial meeting, which discussed Internet governance principles and a roadmap for the future Internet ecosystem. He will then conclude by discussing plans for the evolution of the Internet in Brazil.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

Livestream

Brazil: From Dictatorship to Democracy

Brazil: From Dictatorship to Democracy will examine Brazil's recent past with a day-long conference where Brown students and alumni will present research on contemporary Brazil that will highlight ongoing research at Brown. It will be followed by an international symposium of leading U.S. and Brazilian scholars that will reassess the two decades of the military regime and its legacy, consider challenges and achievements since Brazil’s return to democracy, and discuss perspectives for the future.

  111 Thayer Street, Joukowsky Forum

April 10 Webcast
April 11 Webcast
April 12 Webcast