WHAT IS ‘LUSOTROPICALISM’?
‘Lusotropicalism’ as a concept was originally developed by the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre. Its main thesis was that the Portuguese produced comparatively more mixed colonies than other European countries because they were unusually capable of adapting to tropical environments and forming relationships with different peoples, unlike in say British or French colonies where social hierarchy was more formal and boundaries between groups more defined. According to Freyre, Portuguese colonialism importantly encouraged cultural exchange and racial mixing - which created new fusion societies that blended European, African and Indigenous influences. Portugal was uniquely ‘better’ at this because of, among other reasons, its own mixed history under Al-Andalusia and its Catholic universalism. The theory became highly influential both in Portugal, during Salazar’s Estado Novo to defend the existence of overseas colonies, and in Brazil, in shaping the country’s national identity
In Brazil in particular, maybe its most important effect was the promotion of the idea that the country was a “racial democracy”. Because racial mixing had been so widespread throughout Brazilian history, (Brazil as a kind of modern day Vedic India,) many people came to believe Brazil was more racially harmonious than countries like America. The view became an important part of Brazilian self-understanding during the 20th century
‘Lusotropicalism’ also made ‘mestiçagem’, or racial and cultural mixing, a source of national pride. Brazilian culture came to be celebrated as a combination of Portuguese, African and Indigenous traditions. New fusion forms of music, food, religion and language were presented as examples of this successful blending and diversity became a central element of Brazilian identity. Mixing also importantly meant the erosion of more traditional European cultural norms and codes of conducts and a levelling to something that more closely approximated the average norms of Brazil’s constitutive groups, taken together. Would be wrong to call these new norms ‘Third World’ but you could fairly argue that they were no longer properly ‘WEIRD’, or at least as ‘WEIRD’-adjacent as they would have been if Brazil was a purely Iberian society. Many writers in Brazil had historically described this mixing as a weakness, Freye was one of the first writers to call it a strength
Freyre would actually later extend the concept to encompass the Hispanic Spanish-speaking world too, under ‘Iberotropicalism’ - basically the same thing drawn out to encompass Latin America as a whole. When I have been using ‘Lusotropicalism’ I have used it in this broader sense as also applied to the process of ‘Hispanicisation’, not just as applied to lusophone countries - ‘Lusotropicalism’ specifically versus ‘Iberotropicalism’ too because this was the original term and because Brazil is perhaps the best example of a lusotropical society
Also don’t mean it specifically to pick out Ibero- societies, emphasis is more on ‘mestiçagem’ and the type of societies that emerge from this process, the cultural norms that they have. When you talk about ‘Lusotropicalism’ ‘taking root’ outside of Latin America you are talking about new kinds of emerging societies that ‘resemble’ Brazil, that are ‘Brazil-ifying’ in terms of ethnic composition and which now have cultural norms that are perhaps closer to those Brazil might have compared to what they’ve had historically
This could be particularly the case in America, since of all western countries it is subject to the most specifically Latino migration and influence ergo it is the most strictly lusotropical, but it can also be true of broadly anywhere where ‘mixing’ or ‘mestiçagem’ happens. Could have in many respects a ‘spiritually lusotropical’ version of ‘The Yookay’ if mixing becomes a prominent sociological feature of that country, downstream from mass immigration that then also changes its cultural norms
‘Lusotropicalism’ as a concept was originally developed by the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre. Its main thesis was that the Portuguese produced comparatively more mixed colonies than other European countries because they were unusually capable of adapting to tropical environments and forming relationships with different peoples, unlike in say British or French colonies where social hierarchy was more formal and boundaries between groups more defined. According to Freyre, Portuguese colonialism importantly encouraged cultural exchange and racial mixing - which created new fusion societies that blended European, African and Indigenous influences. Portugal was uniquely ‘better’ at this because of, among other reasons, its own mixed history under Al-Andalusia and its Catholic universalism. The theory became highly influential both in Portugal, during Salazar’s Estado Novo to defend the existence of overseas colonies, and in Brazil, in shaping the country’s national identity
In Brazil in particular, maybe its most important effect was the promotion of the idea that the country was a “racial democracy”. Because racial mixing had been so widespread throughout Brazilian history, (Brazil as a kind of modern day Vedic India,) many people came to believe Brazil was more racially harmonious than countries like America. The view became an important part of Brazilian self-understanding during the 20th century
‘Lusotropicalism’ also made ‘mestiçagem’, or racial and cultural mixing, a source of national pride. Brazilian culture came to be celebrated as a combination of Portuguese, African and Indigenous traditions. New fusion forms of music, food, religion and language were presented as examples of this successful blending and diversity became a central element of Brazilian identity. Mixing also importantly meant the erosion of more traditional European cultural norms and codes of conducts and a levelling to something that more closely approximated the average norms of Brazil’s constitutive groups, taken together. Would be wrong to call these new norms ‘Third World’ but you could fairly argue that they were no longer properly ‘WEIRD’, or at least as ‘WEIRD’-adjacent as they would have been if Brazil was a purely Iberian society. Many writers in Brazil had historically described this mixing as a weakness, Freye was one of the first writers to call it a strength
Freyre would actually later extend the concept to encompass the Hispanic Spanish-speaking world too, under ‘Iberotropicalism’ - basically the same thing drawn out to encompass Latin America as a whole. When I have been using ‘Lusotropicalism’ I have used it in this broader sense as also applied to the process of ‘Hispanicisation’, not just as applied to lusophone countries - ‘Lusotropicalism’ specifically versus ‘Iberotropicalism’ too because this was the original term and because Brazil is perhaps the best example of a lusotropical society
Also don’t mean it specifically to pick out Ibero- societies, emphasis is more on ‘mestiçagem’ and the type of societies that emerge from this process, the cultural norms that they have. When you talk about ‘Lusotropicalism’ ‘taking root’ outside of Latin America you are talking about new kinds of emerging societies that ‘resemble’ Brazil, that are ‘Brazil-ifying’ in terms of ethnic composition and which now have cultural norms that are perhaps closer to those Brazil might have compared to what they’ve had historically
This could be particularly the case in America, since of all western countries it is subject to the most specifically Latino migration and influence ergo it is the most strictly lusotropical, but it can also be true of broadly anywhere where ‘mixing’ or ‘mestiçagem’ happens. Could have in many respects a ‘spiritually lusotropical’ version of ‘The Yookay’ if mixing becomes a prominent sociological feature of that country, downstream from mass immigration that then also changes its cultural norms
Gilberto Freyre had some left wing commitments by the standards of his day of course but his work has in recent decades been criticised by the modern left for ‘trivialising slavery’ and ‘ignoring how racism worked’, his more positive vision of mixing apparently now ‘insufficient’
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