Outline

1. A map showing the country relative to the rest of the world.

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2. A brief discussion of the forces that shaped the culture of the country.
(language/s, history, colonisation, geography, economics, politics, religion, and philosophy of
life)
Provide an overall perspective but be detailed on a few factors which you believe have been
instrumental and significant in shaping the culture of this country, in particular communication,
integration, interaction, and harmony (or the lack of) between the ‘in/out’ groups selected by your group.
- Major group types
A former Portuguese colony, Brazil has a highly diverse population, including indigenous
Americans and the descendants of African slaves and European settlers.
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- language/s
Brazil has long been a melting pot for a wide range of cultures.
● From colonial times Portuguese Brazilians have favoured assimilation and
tolerance for other peoples, and intermarriage was more acceptable in Brazil than
in most other European colonies; however, Brazilian society has never been
completely free of ethnic strife and exploitation, and some groups have chosen to
remain separate from mainstream social life.
● Brazilians of African descent (referred to by outside scholars as Afro-
Brazilians) can be further characterized as pardos (of mixed ethnicities) or pretos
 (entirely African); the latter term is usually used to refer to those with the darkest
skin colour.
● Indians - The indigenous people and the first Portuguese settlers generally
benefited from trade and peaceful relations, but the Europeans unwittingly
introduced diseases that drastically reduced the Indian population. In addition, the
colonists began to enslave the Indians, forcing them to live on plantations. Many
Indians fled from the coastal areas. But they did not shelter entirely within: from the
16th to the 18th centuries, the Portuguese launched a devastating Indian hunt called
Bandilas. In subsequent generations, many of the coastal Indian populations
merged with other populations in Europe or Africa, while indigenous peoples in the
interior fought a long struggle against further aggression.
● Africans - There are more people of mainly African descent in Brazil than in any
other nation outside of Africa, and African music, dance, food, and religious
practices have become an integral part of Brazilian culture.

Portuguese is the native language of the vast majority of Brazilians, but many loanwords expand the national
lexicon. Since the Portuguese language was first introduced in Brazil in the 16th century, the language has
undergone many changes in both its homeland and its former colony. The two countries have largely
standardized their spellings, but pronunciation, vocabulary and meanings of words are so different that some
Brazilians now understand Other Latin American spanish-language movies more easily than others in
Portugal. Italians, Germans, Japanese and Spanish-speaking immigrants have introduced new words and
phrases into Brazilian Portuguese, such as the ubiquitous "tchau" (" farewell ") from Italy's Ciao. Additional
terms have been introduced for foreign products and technologies.

- Geography
The Brazilian government has grouped the country’s states into five large geographic and
statistical units called the Major Regions (Grandes Regiões): North (Norte), Northeast
(Nordeste), Central-West (Centro-Oeste), Southeast (Sudeste), and South (Sul).
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● The tropical North covers more than two-fifths of Brazilian territory and includes the
largest portion of Amazon rainforest and parts of the Guiana and Brazilian highlands;
however, the region accounts for a limited proportion of the nation’s population and
economic output.
● The northeast has the oldest cities and accounts for a fifth of U.S. agricultural
production, but industry and services lag far behind the Southeast and the South, and
unemployment remains high.
● The south-east, which covers only a tenth of Brazil but is home to two-fifths of its
population, is the country's largest concentration of industrial and agricultural
production and is rich in mineral resources. Among them is Rio DE Janeiro, Brazil's
main cultural and tourist center.
● In the south, it is the smallest area of Brazil. Its diversified economy includes strong
manufacturing, agriculture and services. The population of the south is about one-
seventh of the country's population and includes many people of European descent,
especially Germans and Italians.
 ● The central and western regions, which make up about a quarter of Brazil, include
forest valleys, semi-arid uplands and vast wetlands. A small proportion of the
country's population lives in the area, but an increasing number of settlers have
moved into the area and expanded its agricultural borders.

- Economics
Brazil is one of the world giants of mining, agriculture, and manufacturing, and it has a strong and rapidly
growing service sector. It is a leading producer of a host of minerals, including iron ore, tin, bauxite (the ore of
aluminum), manganese, gold, quartz, and diamonds and other gems, and it exports vast quantities of steel,
automobiles, electronics, and consumer goods. Brazil is the world’s primary source of coffee, oranges, and
cassava (manioc) and a major producer of sugar, soy, and beef; however, the relative importance of Brazilian
agriculture has been declining since the mid-20th century when the country began to rapidly urbanize and
exploit its mineral, industrial, and hydroelectric potential. The city of São Paulo, in particular, has become one
of the world’s major industrial and commercial centres.

- Religion
About two-thirds of the Brazilian people adhere to Roman Catholicism, which ceased to be the
official religion after the proclamation of the republic in 1889. After independence, which loosed the
formerly close links between church and state, the predominance of Catholics among the immigrants
of the 19th and 20th centuries contributed to the lasting presence of that religion. Much of the rest of
the population is Protestant, including fundamentalist and Pentecostal groups. (Evangelical groups
gathered rapid support from the 1990s by taking some members from the Catholic ranks; in response,
Catholic groups initiated a series of charismatic masses and rallies.)
Brazil has increasing numbers of adherents to Eastern Orthodoxy, Buddhism, Shintō, Islam, and
other religions, all of which together are about numerically equal to those practicing a form of
spiritualismCandomblé, Xangô, and Umbanda, that blend Christian beliefs with rites imported from
Africa or with spiritualistic practices. Candomblé predominates in Bahia. The Nagô Candomblé sect,
derived from the religion of Yoruba slaves, is particularly widespread and influences the rites of other
sects. Macumba and Umbanda have many adherents in Rio de Janeiro state, whereas Xangô is most
influential in Pernambuco. Practitioners generally identify their deities with Roman Catholic saints
and believe that these deities intercede for them with a supreme being. Priests and priestesses are
mostly of African ancestry, but adherents are drawn from every ethnic group and social class,
especially in urban centres. Perhaps tens of millions of Brazilian Catholics occasionally participate in
syncretic or spiritualist feasts and ceremonies.

- Political Life
Government. The Federal Constitution of Brazil provides for three independent governing branches:
executive, legislative, and judicial. Although the constitution has undergone several revisions in the last
century, the most recent in 1988, it has always retained this division of governmental powers.

- Voting in Brazil today is universal and compulsory for all literate citizens from eighteen to seventy years
of age and optional for those who cannot read and write.

Leadership and Political Officials. Brazil's return to free elections in the mid-1980s after two decades
of military dictatorship has not resulted in greater social and legal equity, and unequal treatment of rich
and poor is ongoing. Government officials and well-to-do individuals who have committed crimes still
 are more likely to escape the long arm of the law than are those of lesser social status. In part, this is
because Brazil is a country in which laws and regulations are passed, yet a significant proportion of
them are ignored. Still, today there is growing intolerance of political corruption and a host of official
inquiries are evidence that Brazilians are starting to reject impunity and demand accountability of their
public officials.

- One concept is key to understanding Brazilian political culture: jeitos, ways of cutting through obstacles
—such as rules and red tape—to achieve a desired end. Jeitos are partly a response to Brazil's
notorious bureaucratic thicket which makes getting a government document—be it a driver's license,
passport, or marriage license—a cumbersome process. Those who can afford to hire despachantes
(dispatchers), professional facilitators who know how to "do jeitos", to get things done. Others do jeitos
on their own; perhaps a small "gratuity" to a low-paid government clerk will produce the desired
document.
- A personalistic system of patron-client relationships is another key to the nation's political culture. One
becomes a government bureaucrat or politician and rises through the ranks by developing influential
connections and getting help from personal networks. Ambitious individuals cultivate powerful patrons
who promote and protect them, and their own career trajectories typically rise and fall with those of their
patrons.

Social Problems and Control. Given the nation's stark economic inequalities, social control in Brazil
has long been problematic, even more so at the end of the twentieth century than in the past. High rates
of crime, particularly in large urban areas, are a frequent topic of conversation; kidnappings, assaults,
and murder receive wide media coverage. The murder rate in greater São Paulo, for example, is some
five times that of the New York metropolitan area. Killings by police are common particularly in poorer
urban areas. Fearful for their security, corporate executives travel around in armored cars; elite
neighborhoods are fortified as private, guarded condominiums surrounded by high walls. Also within this
urban landscape of have and have-nots live tens of thousands of street children, eking out a bare
existence, ever on their guard against being rousted, or worse, by the police.

Military Activity. The role of the military in Brazilian life declined significantly following the military
dictatorship that lasted from 1964 to 1985. By 2000 the three forces of the military, the army, navy, and
air force, had been subsumed under a new civilian defense ministry and were forced to give up their
separate cabinet-level posts. Despite considerable grumbling about this reorganization, particularly
among the nationalist wing of the Air Force, no evidence exists that the Brazilian armed forces have
either the ability or the desire to regain their lost power through a military coup.

Read more: [Link]

- Social Stratification
Classes and Castes. "Brazil is no longer an underdeveloped country. It is an unjust country," Brazilian President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso proclaimed in 1994. Today Brazil, although one of the ten largest economies in the
world, has the most unequal distribution of income of any nation except South Africa. Moreover, inequality has
been growing. In the mid-1990s, the poorest 20 percent of the population received only 3 percent of national
income, while the richest 10 percent received 47 percent. Or, put in another way, the wealthiest 20 percent earn
twenty-six times as much as the poorest 20 percent. It is estimated that some thirty-three million Brazilians live in
poverty, including twenty million workers and ten million pensioners who receive the minimum wage of around
$115 a month. In parts of Brazil, particularly the Northeast, infant mortality, a sensitive indicator of social
inequality, has actually been rising.

This "social question," as Brazilians call the divide between rich and poor, has characterized the nation since
colonial times. With industrialization and urbanization during the first decades of the twentieth century, however,
the growth of the Brazilian middle class has made this simple division more complex. Today, depending on how it
is defined, the middle class accounts for one-fifth to one-third of the population, but the resources and lifestyle of
its members vary considerably. Some claim the Brazilian middle class admires elite values and aspires to elite
status and it is indeed true that middle-class families in Brazil are far more likely to employ domestic servants and
send their children to private school than their North American counterparts.

In the late 1980s, moreover, it was members of the Brazilian middle class who, hurt by then rampant inflation,
began seeking their fortunes abroad as immigrants to North America, Europe, and Japan.
Still, a ray of hope emerged with the stabilization of the Brazilian currency and the rapid decline of inflation in the
mid-1990s. Estimates suggest that some nineteen million Brazilians moved from the working poor to the lower
middle class. For the first time these people had money to spend on consumer goods; those who remained poor
also benefitted from stable prices and were better able to afford staples such as meat, chicken, eggs, and beans.

Symbols of Social Stratification. Brazilians are preoccupied with class distinctions and are quick to size up th
social distance that exists between themselves and others they meet. Yardsticks of such distance are general
appearance and the "correctness" of a person's speech. The degree to which an individual's vocabulary and
grammar is considered "educated" is used as a measure of schooling and, hence, social class. And this, in turn,
establishes patterns of deference and authority between two individuals should they belong to different social
strata. When such patterns are ignored, the "elite" persons may harshly demand of their "lessers," "Do you know
whom you're talking to?"—a ritualized response when someone of higher status is not accorded due deference
by someone lower on the social scale.

Read more: [Link]

3. Are there problems in the country among the selected ‘in/out’ groups? Is there one (or more) group(s)
which is economically powerful? How does that impact on those groups that do not enjoy the same
economic power?

Racial discrimination／Black consciousness

Brazil's racial reckoning: 'Black lives matter here, too'( [Link]
Persisting Inequality／Racialized Violence

4. Do members belonging to various ‘in/out’ groups within the country enjoy equal rights and obligations?
Are selected ‘in/out’ groups ‘free’ to practice its own ‘unique’ culture?
 5. Does the ‘official line’ (e.g. government propaganda) with regards to equality between selected ‘in/out’
groups equate with the ‘reality’?

6. Are there major cross-cultural issues at play in the country between selected ‘in/out’ groups?

7. Are there specific social, political, and economic issues that affect each of the selected ‘in/out’ groups?

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The cultures of the indigenous Indians, Africans, and Portuguese have together formed the modern
Brazilian way of life.
- The Portuguese culture is by far the dominant of these influences; from it Brazilians acquired
their language, their main religion, and most of their customs.
- The Indian population is now statistically small, but Tupí-Guaraní, the language of many
Brazilian Indians, continues to strongly influence the Brazilian Portuguese language; other
Indian contributions to Brazilian culture are most apparent in the Amazon basin.
- African influences on the Brazilian way of life are strongest along the coast between the
Northeast and Rio de Janeiro; they include traditional foods, religions, and popular music and
dance, especially the samba.
- Commercial and cultural imports from Europe and North America have often competed with
—and influenced—Brazilians’ own cultural output, and critics have argued that the nation’s
cultural identity is suffering as a result.
Despite numerous social and economic challenges, Brazilians continue to be exuberant and creative in their
celebrations and art forms.

8. What is the treatment of each selected ‘in/out’ group with regards to religion,language, education, and
cultural activities?
 - Education
Mixed-race, black and indigenous primary education continues to improve: the educational attainment of
black or mixed-race children is on the rise, from 10% in 1910 to 84% in 2010. Indigenous peoples are
less likely to be educated. The relative gap with Afro-Brazilians, who reportedly completed primary
education, remained roughly the same between 1940 and 1980 (ranging from 18 to 22 per cent) and
was even greater between 1991 and 2000. In 1940 and 2010, Asians equalled whites, with mid-term
completion rates 40 per cent higher. Overall, there has been a steady convergence in educational
attainment since 1980, with the exception of the indigenous experience of the 2000s.

Bucciferro J.R. (2017) Racial Inequality in Brazil from Independence to the Present. In: Bértola L.,
Williamson J. (eds) Has Latin American Inequality Changed Direction?. Springer, Cham.
[Link]

Language ([Link]
Language is one of the strongest elements of Brazil's national unity with Portuguese the spoken
language of nearly 100 percent of the population.

The only exceptions are some members of Amerindian groups and pockets of immigrants (primarily from Japan
and South Korea), who have not yet learned Portuguese. The principal families of Indian languages are Tupí,
Arawak, Carib, and Gê.

There difference between the Portuguese spoken in Brazil and that spoken in Portugal comparable to the
differences in English spoken in the United States and that spoken in the United Kingdom. Within Brazil, there
are no dialects of Portuguese, but only moderate regional variation in accent, vocabulary, and use of personal
nouns, pronouns, and verb conjugations. Variations tend to diminish as a result of mass media, especially
national television networks that are viewed by the majority of Brazilians.
9. What is the role of the government in promoting or discouraging each selected ‘in/out’ group in terms of
having its own separate identity?
For example, is there a belief in multiculturalism or is the country pursuing more of an assimilationist
agenda?

10. Is there interaction between the selected ‘in/out’ groups on a business and commercial level, what about
socially? What does your investigation suggest about the nature of the cross-cultural interaction
between the selected ‘in/out’ groups?
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Skin colour and ethnic background influence social interactions in Brazil. Brazilians with darker
skin colour account for a disproportionately large number of the country’s poor; nevertheless, racially
motivated violence and intolerance are less common in Brazil than in the United States and some parts
of Europe. Blatant discrimination is illegal but pervasive, especially in predominantly white middle- and
upper-class areas, and racism often takes subtle forms. Interracial marriage does occur; however, the
majority of marriages in Brazil are between two people of the same race or colour partly because
Brazilians tend to interact primarily with people of their own social class and geographic region—two
factors that are closely tied to race in Brazil. Still, although the country may not be a “racial democracy”
as some observers have claimed, its social barriers are somewhat flexible and even permeable.
Members of the light-skinned majority seldom discriminate against Afro-Brazilians who have achieved
high levels of education or socioeconomic status. As a consequence, most Afro-Brazilians pursue social
advancement through individual rather than collective actions, such as civil rights movements.

11. What are the gains made by any/all of the selected ‘in/out’ groups in seeking a separate identity in the
country (if this is the case)?

12. Have members of each selected ‘in/out’ group come to identify under one nationality/culture (dominant
culture) i.e. the ‘umbrella’ nationality or do they see themselves as a distinct sub-cultural group? Why?
（[Link]
Migrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers
Thousands of Venezuelans have crossed the border into Brazil fleeing hunger, lack of basic health care, and
persecution.

- Early phase

● Brazil has not approved all asylum applications for refugees,

● In October, the head of Brazil’s refugee agency (CONARE) told Human Rights Watch the agency had
not made any decisions about asylum requests from Venezuelans “in the last years.”

- Begin to have access but do not have rights

● By October, the federal government and the UNHCR had opened 13 shelters in Roraima State that
housed more than 5,500 Venezuelans.
The government has been slow to integrate them into society; most children in shelters do not go to
school, and many Venezuelans still lack legal papers.

- Banish and attack

● In March, a mob expelled Venezuelans from an improvised shelter in Roraima, the Brazilian state that
borders Venezuela, and burned their belongings;
● in August, after another attack, a mob pushed about 1,200 Venezuelans back across the border while
police looked on, making no arrests;
● and in September, several Brazilians lynched a Venezuelan whom they accused of a killing.

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In 2020, more than 200,000 Venezuelans are living in Brazil, but asylum applications have not been relaxed.
There are even proposals to expel them.