Racial Justice in Rio de Janeiro's Carnival: To Think with Black Consciousness is to Hear the Voices of Samba Schools
Webinar
February 13, 2024
2:00 PM
Zoom
Event Info
In Brazil, marked by the attempted erasure of the Afro-Black historicity, Carnival is more than a parade--it is an important tool of recognition and identity. Samba schools ratified their Black origins mainly from the 1970s onwards, and in recent years, they have become powerful voices for advancing racial justice and equity. This live lecture will address the concept of empretecer o pensamento through a Global Studies lens, analyzing how Carnival has been reshaping connections between Brazil and Africa and paying special attention to religious groups that have been systematically persecuted throughout Brazilian history. This talk will explore the case of the Beija Flor Samba School, which was founded in Nilópolis, a peripheral city in Rio de Janeiro and also Vítor Antunes' hometown. He will analyze how Carnival became a tool for sociability and how this samba school preserved its Afro and Afro-Carioca roots.
Link to Webinar in Portuguese with simultaneous subtitle captions available in English:
https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/83465620860
Link to Article
Poster
Vítor Antunes is a journalist and researcher specializing in Carnival. He was part of the production team for the documentaries "Trinta" and "Bumbum Paticumbum Brugurundum." He has been working in several Brazilian sambaschools and is co-author of the 2023 theme for Unidos de Padre Miguel SambaSchool, which was runner-up in the Gold Series and winner of the Sambanet Prize that year. He obtained certification as a member of the first cohort formed at the Center for Global Studies (co-founded by the Orfalea Center) at the State University of Rio de Janeiro in June 2023.
Leonardo Vieira Silva is a PhD student in Anthropology at the Federal Fluminense University and a researcher at the Institute for Comparative Studies in Conflict Management at the same institution. His research interests are anthropology of Afro-Brazilian populations, social mobilizations, ethnic-racial relations, religious intolerance and racism, social technology and innovation.