MELISSA NOBLES
▶ FIELDWORK LOCATION: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
I first became interested in the racial dimensions of Brazilian politics as an undergraduate student studying the comparative history of slavery. Brazil was one of the largest slave-holding societies in the Americas and the last to end slavery in 1888. Yet even with this history, Brazil had enjoyed the reputation, at least at the time I began my dissertation research, as a country without significant racial inequalities, animus, or violence. Not only had Brazilian slavery ended peacefully without a civil war, but postslavery Brazilian law and society did not institutionalize legally sanctioned racial discrimination or segregation, as was done in the United States. Like scholars before me, I wanted to better understand these historical trajectories and how they might help to explain the different meanings and consequences of racial identification in Brazil when compared to the United States. In contrast to conventional wisdom, I found that socioeconomic stratification by race was a significant feature of Brazilian society.1 I also discovered through personal experiences that race mattered in ways not dissimilar from those in the United States.
Before beginning my fieldwork in 1992, I had worked for the Ford Foundation as a summer intern in 1990 in their Rio de Janeiro office. This intern experience, as an assistant to the program officer, allowed me to do a number of things. First, and most practically, it allowed me to practice my Portuguese. I studied the language while an undergraduate and in graduate school, but this job was my first opportunity to live in the country. Second, it allowed me to become more knowledgeable about important political, economic, and social issues in Brazil. The Ford Foundation was well connected to a range of Brazilian institutions in government, private, and nonprofit sectors, and I was often invited to meetings and conferences. Indeed, it was through this internship that I was exposed to an activity that became part of my dissertation, and then my first book. Third, I became aware that my identity as an African American would probably affect my fieldwork experience in both negative and positive ways. While working at the Ford Foundation, my exchanges with Brazilians were filled with reminders of the privileged position I occupied, even as an intern. The people with whom I interacted were often seeking new or continued financial support from the Ford Foundation. Although conversations were engaging and productive, they were also stilted. People would typically shape the conversations in the ways they expected or hoped would be most advantageous to them. This was all quite predictable and understandable. My experiences changed when I was no longer the Ford Foundation intern but a young, African American woman living in Rio. There I learned that my identity mattered in ways often similar to my experiences in the United States, although sometimes not.
MY FIELDWORK EXPERIENCES
The idea for my dissertation stemmed from my internship experience at the Ford Foundation. That summer several organizations explicitly organized around a black racial identity were seeking support for a public campaign targeting the 2000 census. They intended to urge Brazilians to choose a darker identity on their census forms. As they saw it, their political claims would be better substantiated if they could convince Brazilians not to see themselves as “white” or “brown” but as “black.” A word of explanation: the terms used on the census were “white,” “brown,” and “black,” but the Brazilian term used for brown (pardo) is not used in common parlance. A much more commonly spoken term is moreno, but demographers considered moreno too capacious and ideological for the social scientific and official process of census taking. Similarly, the census term for black (preto) is also a complicated word. It is often used to describe objects, not persons. Nonetheless, an alternative term (negro), preferred by black organizations, was viewed by demographers as too ideological and therefore unsuitable for the census.
My internship at the Ford Foundation prompted me to think more deeply not only about the campaign itself but also about why its organizers chose the census, of all institutions, to target. I realized that the campaign provided me with a way to think about how state institution and identity were linked. This connection proved especially important in thinking about a comparative study of racial politics because other institutions (such as the law) were not nearly as instructive or conceptually rich. Black organizations had long existed in Brazil—dating back to the early twentieth century—but they were historically limited in their reach and efficacy. Also important, they could not properly be called “mass movements” because the presumed constituency of black people did not see themselves as such.2 Hence, according to the organizations approaching the Ford Foundation, the campaign was needed to influence the way Brazilians viewed their racial (or color) identity and how they reported that identification to census takers.
There is serendipity in fieldwork. I knew I wanted to study the racial dimensions of Brazilian politics and society, but I was unsure about choosing a specific topic. My work with the Ford Foundation provided an idea that I was able to marshal and use. My dissertation prospectus was based on my thinking backward and forward about the census campaign. Two years later, in 1992, I returned to Brazil, this time by way of a travel grant from the Institute for World Politics. I conducted archival research at the National Library of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, the libraries of Brazil’s Census Institute (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística—IBGE), and Getúlio Vargas Foundation (Fundação Getúlio Vargas), one of Brazil’s most influential think tanks. This archival research allowed me to reconstruct the history of color categorization in the Brazilian census, and I used this history as a case for probing the larger question of how official categorization on the census (such as race or color categories) can both reflect and shape politics. Drawing on several archives, not just that of the Brazilian Census Institute, proved especially fruitful. Several informative but unpublished academic manuscripts were kept at the National Library and at the Getúlio Vargas archives. In conversations with two former IBGE officials, I also learned that missing and relevant documents were held in the private libraries of former officials. Although I reached out to one former official, inquiring about the veracity of this assertion, I was unable to confirm it.
This fieldwork also revealed to me how my identity mattered. It provided a better understanding of why black organizations thought it necessary to influence identity choices on the census. As a researcher, I asked for photocopies of all documents, and library staff performed these tasks. I was meeting one afternoon with a Brazilian doctoral candidate in economics who also worked on the research staff at the IBGE. The library employee copying our documents overheard our conversation and shared his view of his own identity and the category he intended to check on the census. I do not recall his answer, but I vividly recall how he responded when I asked how he would categorize me. He looked at me and became profusely apologetic, saying he did not mean to insult me as he did not (or could not) know how I would receive his response. Then he told me that he viewed me as negra (black). That was it. I did not disagree; nor was I insulted. But because of the negative meanings of “black” in Brazil, he viewed it as an insult, for which he felt the need to apologize.
That exchange crystallized the central paradox of Brazilian society and, by extension, Brazilian politics. Brazil was the purported “racial democracy” with no racial discrimination, but no one wanted to be seen or treated as “black.” How could Brazilians organize politically to combat racial discrimination if few would publicly assert a black identity? My experiences of being black in Brazil can only rightly be termed “inconveniences,” and this was usually remedied when I spoke in English, thereby demonstrating that I was not Brazilian and exempting me from the “black Brazilian” treatment. For example, I recall one day going to the bank to exchange U.S. dollars for Brazilian currency. At the time, the exchange rate was quite volatile, making it advisable to change currency frequently because the U.S. dollar could become significantly more valuable over the course of a week. I went to a nearby bank, and as I entered the door (which opened automatically), I was immediately approached by the bank’s police officer, who stopped me. Her first words to me were, in a whisper, “What are you doing here?” I knew in that instant that I needed to respond in English. I acted as though I did not understand the question or its underlying assumptions. Once I spoke in English, she became friendly and allowed me to fully enter the bank and conduct my business. I am certain my skin color and her view of it were the determining factors in that encounter.
One larger lesson that emerges from this example is that researchers, whether we care to admit it or not, are participants, not detached observers. Our social position and perceptions thereof travel with us. I am confident a white male graduate student would not have been approached in the same way I was in that bank. But let’s take that proposition one step further: Would he be as skeptical or critical of the view of Brazil as a racial democracy in the absence of such an encounter, for example? As social scientists, we are expected to rely on data and evidence when drawing conclusions—and we do. But we also rely on our own experiences and observations. We may not theorize as deeply or clearly identify our own subjectivity as anthropologists do. However, all of us are subjects: not just the black woman scholar whose racial and gender identity are explicit dimensions of the scholar’s fieldwork experiences but also the white male scholar whose identity often affords invisible (at least to him) privileges and conveniences.
My identity did provide me with easier access to leaders of the census campaign. They assumed (rightly, I should add) that I too was critical of the idea of Brazilian racial democracy and that I understood the aims of their efforts. My one-on-one interviews with leadership were important in allowing my interviewees to elaborate on the different ideological approaches that underlay their overall collective actions. As is true for most social movements, there were competing understandings of the nature of racial identification and politics in Brazil. There were also different assessments of the campaign’s probable efficacy. Not surprising, my interviewees were most candid about these differences when speaking privately with me. An important lesson, then, was that one-on-one interviews yielded more authentic data.
I took and continue to take steps in subsequent fieldwork to ensure my personal safety as a matter of course. I am thankful that my one-on-one interviews in Brazil were positive experiences. However, at least in Brazil, I heeded the warnings to only take “radio” taxis to my destinations. Radio taxis are private car services. Although simply hailing a taxi would have cost less and been more convenient, it was decidedly more dangerous for a woman. I was told stories and had heard one news report of a taxicab driver sexually assaulting a passenger. My point is that the vaunted view of fieldwork carried out by the intrepid researcher bears an incomplete resemblance to the lived experiences of women scholars. “Risk” often takes on different meanings and can include ordinary tasks, such as hailing a cab, for example.
LESSONS LEARNED
My subsequent research and fieldwork has been profoundly shaped by my first major research project in Brazil. In my ensuing work, I have learned that being an African American woman researcher matters to the people with whom I interact, in ways both expected and not. Although I am not an anthropologist, awareness of my own subjectivity has been a central feature of my research experiences. There were other more general research lessons as well. Over the years, I have tried to correct for the mistakes made in Brazil, which I only realized once I was back in the United States. Although I tried to carefully organize my documents and note taking, I realized there is always room for improvement. Namely, I could not simply collect documents at the archives or conduct interviews. I also had to constantly engage and think about the information obtained through the documents and interviews in real time. This observation is indifferent to methodology. Technologies and other research tools today greatly assist in organization and obtaining primary sources and secondary documents. However, technologies in organization are no substitute for discernment and continued engagement. Engagement seems obvious, but it is often easier said than done precisely because the desire to maximize time in the field—arranging and conducting interviews, finding documents, and the like—runs counter to stepping back and taking the big view while still in the field.
Finally, I conclude these comments with a robust declaration in support of fieldwork. If you are reading this book, you probably do not need to be convinced, but I still want to offer words of affirmation and encouragement. The ease with which written materials (journal articles, books, magazine and newspaper articles), surveys, and other types of data can be obtained without ever leaving your office makes this affirmative statement necessary. There is no easy substitute for the human experience of visiting a place and interacting with the people. As a researcher, you are changed and informed by these experiences in ways that extend far beyond what you learn from texts or what you may write. When I finished my fieldwork in Brazil, I knew I was not leaving a racial democracy. In addition, I left with more knowledge about, deeper interest in, and greater appreciation for a range of issues in Brazilian politics and society, including and extending beyond race. As my example and those of my colleagues in this book amply show, fieldwork not only generates original scholarship but also broadens and deepens your intellectual and personal perspective.
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Melissa Nobles is Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
PUBLICATION TO WHICH THIS FIELDWORK CONTRIBUTED:
• Nobles, Melissa. Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000.
NOTES
1. Mala Htun, “From ‘Racial Democracy’ to Affirmative Action: Changing State Policy on Race in Brazil,” Latin American Research Review 39, no. 1 (2004): 60–89; Mala Htun, Inclusion Without Representation in Latin America: Gender Quotas and Ethnic Reservations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
2. Michael G. Hanchard, Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil 1945–1988 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998); Tianna S. Paschel, Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno-Racial Rights in Colombia and Brazil (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2016).