The cordial nation: an analysis of rituals and official ideologies of the "500 years of Brazil celebration"

Abstract

This paper discusses the events organized by Brazilian State to celebrate the so called "500 years of Brazil's discovery", between 1998 and 2000. It seeks to identify the ideologies found in these activities, which revealed the images of the nation. It shows that those activities were critical events for the Brazilian nation-building process. Taking for analysis documents, discourses, exhibitions, museums, and others, the paper suggests the rituals performed at those "celebrations" retake the Brazilian myth of the "three races" and a kind of lusotropicalist ideal, making possible the reediting of the idea of a "racial democracy" by Brazilian State.

Ritual; Brazilian 500 years; Nation-building discourses; Anthropology of politics