{"id":16699,"date":"2013-10-23T01:10:33","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T01:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=16699"},"modified":"2013-10-23T01:11:24","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T01:11:24","slug":"%e2%80%98longing-for-oneself%e2%80%99-hybridism-and-miscegenation-in-colonial-and-postcolonial-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=16699","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Longing for Oneself\u2019: Hybridism and Miscegenation in Colonial and Postcolonial Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Longing for Oneself\u2019: Hybridism and Miscegenation in Colonial and Postcolonial Portugal<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Etnogr\u00e1fica<\/a>
\nVolume VI, Number 1<\/a> (2002)
\npages 181-200<\/p>\n

Miguel Vale de Almeida<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Anthropology
\nInstituto Superior de Ci\u00eancias do Trabalho e da Empresa<\/em><\/p>\n

This essay acknowledges that hybridism, in a troubling reminiscence of the 19th century debate on race and the hybrids is a central issue of debate in the social sciences today. The Portuguese case is one of the most complex and intriguing: if Brazil has been systematically praised as the example of the humanistic and miscegenating characteristic of Portuguese expansion, it has also been used as an argument for the legitimization of later colonialism in Africa, as well as for the construction of a self-representation of Portuguese as non-racists. The Portuguese nation, however, has seldom been described as a miscigenated<\/a> nation and mesti\u00e7a itself. Contemporary rhetoric on hybridity \u2013 as part of globalization, transnationality, postcolonial diasporas, and multiculturalism \u2013 clashes with the reality of the return of \u2018race\u2019 within a cultural fundamentalism. This paper focuses on discourses and modes of classification as the starting point for discussing specific practices and processes of Miguel Vale de Almeida identity dispute in the \u2018Lusophone\u2019 space.<\/p>\n

This is an essay\u2013not a research paper\u2013that acknowledges that, in a troubling reminiscence of the 19th century debate on race and the hybrids, hybridism is a central issue of debate in the social sciences today. The term \u2018hybrid\u2019\u00a0 was applied from botany to anthropology and was associated with both political and scientific speculations on \u2018races\u2019 as species or subspecies. The acknowledgment of the common humanity of all \u2018races\u2019 strengthened the separation between culture and nature as part and parcel of the project of Modernity (cf. Latour 1994); but it also diverted attention from hybridism to the field of miscegenation and mesti\u00e7agem \u2013 i.e., \u2018racial\u2019 and cultural mixing. Hybridism \u2013 and mixing in general \u2013 was condemned by some for its impurity and praised by others for its humanism. The result of the century-long debate is, however, much more hybrid itself than a clear opposition. Discourses on miscegenation and mesti\u00e7agem tended to be used as ideological masks for relations of power and domination. They were also used as central elements in national, colonial and imperial narratives. The Brazilian case is well known. The Portuguese case is one of the most complex and intriguing: if Brazil has been systematically praised as the example of\u00a0 the humanistic and miscegenating characteristic of Portuguese expansion, it has also been used as an argument for the legitimization of later colonialism in Africa, as well as for the construction of a self-representation of the Portuguese as non-racists. The Portuguese nation, however, has seldom been described as a miscigenated nation and mesti\u00e7a itself. In the discourses of national identity, emphasis has been placed upon what the Portuguese have given to the others\u2013a gift of \u2018blood\u2019 and culture\u2013and not on what they have received from the others. Present rhetoric on hybridity \u2013 as part of globalization, transnationality, postcolonial diasporas, and multiculturalism \u2013 clashes with the reality of the return of \u2018race\u2019 in cultural fundamentalism, policies of nationality and citizenship, and in the politics of representation. This paper will focus on discourses and modes of classification as the starting point for discussing specific practices and processes of identity dispute in the \u2018Lusophone\u2019 space. Three periods in the Portuguese production around miscegenation and hybridism will be analysed: a period marked by racist theories; a period marked by luso-tropicalism; and the present period marked by discussions of multiculturalism. Finally, the acknowledgment of creolized social formations as both the outcome of colonialism and the possible examples for thinking of new, less racist societies, closes this exploratory essay…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Longing for Oneself\u2019: Hybridism and Miscegenation in Colonial and Postcolonial Portugal Etnogr\u00e1fica Volume VI, Number 1 (2002) pages 181-200 Miguel Vale de Almeida, Professor of Anthropology Instituto Superior de Ci\u00eancias do Trabalho e da Empresa This essay acknowledges that hybridism, in a troubling reminiscence of the 19th century debate on race and the hybrids is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,1649,12,83,21,28,459,8],"tags":[7720,7721,6011],"class_list":["post-16699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-brazil","category-latincarib","category-europe","category-history","category-media-archive","tag-etnografica","tag-miguel-vale-de-almeida","tag-portugal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}