New release from BEROSE – Capone and Peixoto on “Anthropologies in Brazil”

HAR is happy to continue to draw readers’ attention to a remarkable and growing online source for History of Anthropology. BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology reflects the diversity of anthropological traditions and currents, whether hegemonic or pushed to the margins. BEROSE welcomes and fosters the pluralization of the history of anthropology and aims at recovering the dialogues or tensions between classical protagonists and forgotten, sometimes excluded and sometimes cursed figures.

Today, we are pleased to announce the latest release from BEROSE – an essay by Stafania Capone (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris) and Fernanda Peixoto (University of São Paulo) on the history of anthropology in Brazil. The article is available in both Portuguese and English.

Capone, Stefania & Fernanda Arêas Peixoto, 2020. “Anthropologies in Brazil: A Short Historical Introduction”, in BEROSE – International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris

Capone, Stefania & Fernanda Arêas Peixoto, 2020. “Antropologias no Brasil: uma breve introdução histórica”, in BEROSE – International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris.

In this introductory essay, Stefania Capone and Fernanda Arêas Peixoto point out that while Brazilian anthropology is best known for its studies of Amerindian populations and Afro-Brazilian religions, it is not limited to these great traditions of study. They emphasize the richness and diversity of practices, fieldworks, actors, institutions, and theoretical orientations in a country that currently has one of the largest professional communities of anthropologists in the world. Far from establishing a unique history of anthropology in Brazil, based on debatable chronological landmarks, this historical overview suggests rather the existence of ramifications that led to the consolidation of different research traditions, of plural matrices of thought, of divergent lines across space and time. The first challenge in accounting for this multiple weave is to allow this heterogeneity and complexity to emerge and to use these differences as a compass.