This article examines why, beginning in 1946, the Brazilian government under President Eurico Dutra supplied arms to Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, fuelling a regional arms race and reshaping Caribbean Basin dynamics at the onset of the Cold War. It argues that these transfers bypassed conventional diplomatic channels, reflected radical anti-communist currents within Dutra’s inner circle and undercut US non-proliferation efforts. Far from a passive ally, Brazil emerged as a pivotal, if under-recognised, actor in the continental polarisation that led to democratic collapse in Venezuela (1948), Cuba (1952) and Guatemala (1954). The article challenges assumptions of Brazil’s limited Latin American engagement and repositions Dutra’s foreign policy within broader continental strategies of ideological alignment and regional influence. Drawing on Brazilian diplomatic and press sources, as well as archival and printed materials from across Latin America, Europe and the United States, it addresses historiographical gaps around Dutra’s agency and reveals the material underpinnings of Trujillo’s aggression, contributing to a revised understanding of Brazil’s Cold War trajectory.

This paper proposes constructing a new series of Brazilian sugar imports to Portugal between 1761 and 1807. The new customs data collected provides quantities, Brazilian origin, quality and taxes of the sugar. Based on the results of the empirical research, we demonstrate and corroborate the Brazilian sugar renaissance in the second half of the eighteenth century, a period of crisis in the colony’s mining industry and in the Portuguese trade balance. The growth of the sugar economy in the colony contributed to the adjustment of Portugal’s external accounts. The new information has allowed us to verify the increase in Brazilian sugar exports, especially after the early 1770s, despite the stagnation of the Portuguese economy.

The established economic historiography asserts that Brazil’s per-capita GDP stagnated in the 19th century and that it grew extremely slowly in the period of the monarchy (1822–1889). We argue that these conclusions are based on inadequate methods, insufficient statistical evidence, and disregard for available historical evidence. Building on the methodology followed by one of us in a previous article, with the use of new databases, and a reasoned exploration of alternatives, our best estimate is that over the 1820–1900 period, Brazil’s per-capita income grew at a trend rate of 0.9% per year, a performance like Western Europe and other Latin America countries. Only a sharp economic contraction at the end of the period dulled Brazil’s performance in the 19th century.

In this article, we argue that Brazilian tan lines constitute a new site of race and class struggle on and over women’s bodies. Popular in Rio’s socially and geographically marginalized periphery, fita (electrical tape) bikinis leave sharp and shocking tan lines that call attention to the contrast between lighter and darker skin. Brazil’s funk music sensation Anitta brings this aesthetic practice to the global stage as part of her brand, disrupting hegemonic beauty norms and attracting attention for herself and her fans. Through the public display of their bronzed sensuality, Brazilian women accrue “visibility capital” as they create new forms of bodily value and self-esteem in what we call a look economy. While global beauty hierarchies continue to promote and glorify whiteness, Anitta and fita tanners simultaneously turn heads (in person), attract eyeballs (online), and lay claim to the right to represent Brazil.

Marking the bicentennial of US-Brazil relations, this article assesses the fraught inception of the bilateral relationship and where it stands today. The United States, fueled by the ideals of its revolution, viewed itself in the nineteenth century as a beacon of democratic principles beset by powerful European discontents. Brazil’s position as an independent nation with deep ties to Portugal bred suspicion. The promulgation of Brazil’s 1824 Constitution offered a modicum of common ground, creating space for a political rapprochement culminating in formal recognition. The relationship thereafter was proper but distant. Brazil today is not a rival of the United States, but some worry that it has not done enough to distance itself from Washington’s antagonists. Indeed, while friendship and commonality have been common bywords of leaders in both nations, suspicion and ambivalence have been ever-present. If anything, the surprise is that both countries remain as close as they are today.

Public experiences with the law in some neighborhoods are marked by an overwhelming police presence alongside deep-seated beliefs that legal agents are disinterested in ensuring public safety. This mutual experience of intrusive policing and legal cynicism has important implications for people’s recognition of the legitimacy of legal authority. In the context of a global city in the Global South, this study provides a quantitative assessment of the dynamics of perceived police intrusion and cynicism about police protection and the implications of those experiences for beliefs about the legitimacy of legal institutions. Drawing on a three-wave longitudinal survey representative of adult residents of eight neighborhoods in São Paulo, Brazil (N = 1,200), I demonstrate that perceived police intrusion and cynicism about police protection (a) are two sides of the same coin, being produced by similar social forces and dynamically reproducing each other and (b) operate to undermine police legitimacy. Integrating the legal cynicism and procedural justice theoretical frameworks, this study shows that intrusive as well as unheeding and neglectful policing practices can contribute to delegitimizing legal authority. I conclude with a discussion about the distribution of repression and protection and highlight the urgency of exploring public–authority relations in the Global South.

This article identifies four frames of corruption in the discourse of three leaders of Operation Lava Jato, also known in English as Operation Car Wash, a large-scale Brazilian anticorruption operation (2014–2021). These frames are inequality, hidden pact, backwardness, and chronic disease. The frames were identified by analyzing a wide set of press interviews, opinion articles, and books by two prosecutors and one judge whose work has revealed scandals involving the state oil company Petrobras. The operation had a major impact on politics and the economy and left a controversial legacy. We noticed a contradiction between one frame invoking judicial activism (inequality) and three frames focusing on specific techniques that appeal to a more conventional view on the judiciary’s role (hidden pact, backwardness, and chronic disease). Furthermore, even when scholars were still largely positive about the operation, the discourse showed signs of judicial activism. This analysis contributes to the debate on Lava Jato and judicial activism by focusing on discourse rather than action.

The proliferating Sino-US peer competition is increasingly impacting Latin American states and triggering uncertainty. As China’s expanding influence in the region challenges longstanding US supremacy in the western hemisphere and reshapes the strategic calculus for regional states, hedging behaviour becomes increasingly opportune. This most notably includes Brazil, the largest state in Latin America both politically and economically, whose hedging behaviour oscillated between governments, a characteristic normally associated with states facing higher systemic pressures. As such, how does the Sino-US peer competition impact Brazil’s hedging strategy? And why do coping behaviours differ on various indices between different administrations, from Lula to Bolsonaro? Findings suggest that depending on whether the incumbent government was left- or right-wing, Brazil’s hedge was recalibrated as either pro- or anti-US regional supremacy.

This article examines the ways in which Brazil's African foreign policy during the Ernesto Geisel administration (1974–9) utilised notions of ‘racial democracy’ and the nation's Africanity in framing itself as an intrinsic partner to the continent across the Atlantic. It does this through an analysis of Brazil's involvement at the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC’77, 15 January–12 February 1977), hosted in Lagos, Nigeria. The international event celebrated past and present contributions of Black and African cultures to global civilisation. An assessment of the Brazilian government's delegation to FESTAC’77 shows how the Geisel administration attempted to depict Brazil as a harmoniously integrated society, where, through a historic process of mixing, the nation's racial identity was united into an equitable whole. In contrast, the propagation of these ideas at FESTAC’77 left the regime's racial ideology vulnerable to attack from international and domestic audiences.

This article proposes the concept of ‘memory script’ to analyse how, in the aftermath of political violence, memory activists narrate their lives in a way that is practised, repetitive and performative. Through a self-reflective life history of Aluízio Palmar, a Brazilian human rights activist and former political prisoner who suffered intense torture under military rule, this approach seeks to elucidates the personal and political contours of somebody's decision to transform their experiences into a public narrative. A close reading of Palmar's various platforms of memory-sharing reveals the complex moral reckoning of an activist's own trauma.

This article explores “religious racism,” or discrimination against devotees of African-derived religions in Brazil, as a broader pattern of structural racism rooted in racialized religious alterity, Afrophobia, and the epistemic divide between religion and nonreligion. The term religious racism has been proposed by some devotees and anti-racist activists to emphasize that Afro-Brazilian religions are uniquely targeted in ways other non-Christian religions are not. Unlike religious intolerance, the term religious racism explicitly connects discrimination against Afro-Brazilian religions to colonization, color or racial hierarchy, and anti-Black prejudice. This article clarifies the ideological groundings of religious racism that encourage Neo-Pentecostal extremists to pursue “order and progress,” as the national motto suggests, through physical violence.

Accessing and retaining adequate housing can be a major challenge for low-income city residents, particularly women trying to escape domestic abuse. Focusing on housing struggles amidst urban poverty, this article explores a specific kind of gender-based violence – violation of women's property rights – recognised by Latin American legal systems as ‘patrimonial violence against women’. Drawing on qualitative research in Brazil, this article shows how women are likely to experience gendered evictions and dispossession, and why patrimonial violence against women remains largely misunderstood and underreported, despite legal progress. The discussion expands current understandings of the interplay between gender, violence (explicit or otherwise) and the reproduction of asset inequalities.

Este artigo busca compreender o legado autoritário brasileiro e sua relação com os recentes episódios de censura às artes. Para tal, o estudo realiza um levantamento das produções culturais censuradas e/ou alvo de ataques de grupos conservadores no período entre junho de 2017 e março de 2020. Foram consideradas as produções que se enquadraram em três critérios: foram alvo de ação conservadora de julgamento ou criminalização da arte; tiveram repercussão nacional na mídia mainstream; envolveram reação e/ou mobilização em defesa das manifestações artísticas. Argumentamos que o atual cenário de ruptura democrática aflorou o passado autoritário do país, o que contribuiu por desencadear diversos episódios de censura. Partimos dos conceitos de autoritarismo, censura e liberdade de expressão aliados à análise de conteúdo para empreender tal reflexão.

From 2016 to 2019, the backlash in Brazil against so-called gender ideology framed gender dissidence as a reason for the country’s perceived decline, playing a central role in the rise of Bolsonarismo, a movement increasingly identified as fascist. In this gender-hostile environment, I examine Brazil’s first trans men’s soccer team, the Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB), and its use of nudity as a response to the political shift rightward and to tell a story about the precarity of minoritized groups across the Americas. The team’s changing approach to trans representation exposes the period as a watershed in Brazilian politics. The MBB’s naked protest during this time of governmental change reveals resistance to the machinations of Brazilian fascism, including censorship, backlash, and shaming. By asserting that the MBB were never just about futebol, the team uses the national sport to enact trans politics and to claim belonging beyond the bounds of normative citizenship.

This article explores the impact conservative criticism has had on companies’ behaviour in Brazil. We investigate whether Natura and Boticário − the two largest Brazilian cosmetics companies − have maintained or reversed LGBTQ-oriented marketing and advertising when confronted with criticism from conservative groups. We draw on interviews with stakeholders, company investors and LGBTQ activists, in addition to complaints filed with the Conselho Nacional de Autorregulamentação Publicitária (National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation, CONAR), and companies’ documents on finance and social responsibility. Overall, even when faced with a negative backlash from conservative opinion, companies have persisted in their commitment to diversity issues and LGBTQ inclusion in marketing. However, firms have also employed evasive strategies, such as targeted communication and less controversial forms of retail design, signalling compromises with conservative stakeholders and customers.

Shark remains are common in coastal archaeological sites in southern Brazil. Here we present an analysis of microwear visible on shark teeth found at the Rio do Meio site in Florianópolis, Brazil. It demonstrates that hafted shark teeth were used to work soft materials such as leather, as well as semihard materials such as wood and bone, whereas others probably functioned as arrowheads. The results also show a possible preference for tiger shark teeth use for woodworking. The identified technical motions include piercing, cutting, and scraping, as well as scaling and sawing. These findings allow us to question the common interpretation of shark teeth use as ornaments and as having symbolic value. Instead, shark teeth seem to have been used as tools and weapons in daily life.

Este artigo analisa o malogro da cooperação econômica e técnica entre a Companhia Industrial de Rochas Betuminosas (CIRB) e a União Soviética no setor de gás de xisto. Em 1959, a CIRB assinou um contrato preliminar que previa o fornecimento de equipamento soviético e a montagem de uma usina piloto para a produção de gás e materiais de construção a partir do xisto do Vale do Paraíba, Estado de São Paulo (SP). Argumenta-se que a Petrobras, ao defender de maneira contínua a inclusão da lavra e industrialização do xisto no monopólio estatal, teve influência decisiva para que a CIRB não obtivesse o aval governamental para o financiamento soviético. A empresa paulista entraria com pedido de falência em 1973. Utilizando, em sua maior parte, fontes primárias brasileiras, o artigo conclui que a Petrobras temia o impacto que a quebra do monopólio estatal do xisto pudesse ter em seus interesses, os quais considerava basicamente equivalentes ao interesse nacional.

O artigo examina a ascensão e a queda da empresa Engesa-Engenheiros Especializados, especialmente entre 1974 e 1990. O artigo é resultado de pesquisa com fontes documentais recentemente desclassificadas pelo Arquivo Nacional. A documentação consultada sugere que, na fase de ascensão, a Engesa foi impulsionada por uma eficiente vinculação entre indústria de defesa, exportação de armamento e política externa brasileira, principalmente durante os governos burocrático-autoritários de Ernesto Geisel e João Figueiredo. Entretanto, fragilidades financeiras e administrativas, junto a uma infrutuosa e dispendiosa tentativa de salto tecnológico, acabaram colocando a empresa em uma situação insustentável, conduzindo finalmente à sua queda e falência no início da década de 1990. A experiência da Engesa constitui um exemplo significativo nas pesquisas sobre inovação tecnológica, estudos estratégicos e relações internacionais.

This article examines the emergence of a synergy that allowed the early development of what was once considered the best anti-AIDS program in the developing world. Initial responses to AIDS in Brazil during the 1980s and early 1990s were marked by a confrontation between activists concerned with human rights, and a government focusing on biomedical management of the epidemic. After 1992, activists, medical researchers, government officials, international donors like the Ford Foundation, health officers, and multilateral agencies like the World Bank were galvanized to cooperate. This was a complex process of braiding knowledge and practices related to activism, science, public health, governance and philanthropy in which each constituency maintained its independence. The result was a complex, holistic, and nuanced AIDS program. The process helped bridge the gap between knowledge and advocacy, generated public awareness, and was instrumental to reducing AIDS mortality developing local human resources and comprehensive policies.