Developing the Race

Saturday, January 7, 2012: 2:30 PM
Huron Room (Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers)
Anadelia A. Romo, Texas State University at San Marcos
“Developing the Race”
Abstract:
Brazil’s push for modernization and development in the 1950s and 1960s ushered in new projects for national renewal.  This paper proposes to look at the intersection of developmental projects and ideas of race.  How did ideas of progress, modernity, and development influence thinking on race during this time?  And alternately, how did conceptions of race by intellectuals and social scientists reflect the modernizing anxieties of the era?  The optimistic years before the dictatorship prove a fascinating moment to examine the changing nature of racial thought in Brazil.