The literary representation of "mestizo" in Brazil and Goa during the 16th and 19th century

• Grant number: 06/05925-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: January 03, 2007
• End date: March 02, 2007
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Comparative Literature
• Principal Investigator: Helder Garmes
• Grantee: Helder Garmes
• Host Investigator: Maria de Fátima Rodrigues de Freitas Morna
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

Abstract

This essay aims at reflecting about the possibility of understanding the positive literary representation of “mestizo” present in the 19th and 20th century Brazilian literature as a result, or partial result, of the practice of religious syncretism which characterized the Catholic missionarism of the previous centuries. I suggest that it was the Catholic indoctrination that first legitimated the positive literary representation of “mestizo” (religious, cultural, racial, etc) in the ideas of Brazilian society and some of the Portuguese colonies. This would be the foundation of the exaltation of “mestizo” as the element of symbolic representation of the conflict of colonizer and colonized, between different races and cultures which gained strength in the 19th and 20th century a resolution that, nevertheless, never occurred in the social practice. To justify the Brazilian peculiarity, I will relate this to what happened in Goa, India, with the aim of legitimating or not the hypothesis here presented. (AU)