Claiming Brazil: Performances of Citizenship in the Centenary of Independence [Hardcover]

Brazil marked its centennial as an independent country in 1922.Claiming Brazilexplores how Brazilians from different walks of life commemorated the event, and how this led to conflicting ideas of national identity. Civic rituals hold enormous significance, and Brazilian citizens, immigrants, and visitors employed them to articulate and perform their sense of what Brazil was, stood for, and could be. Gregg Bocketti argues that these celebrations, rather than uniting the country, highlighted tensions between modernity and tradition, over race and ethnicity, and between nation and region. Further, the rituals contributed to the collapse of the country’s social and political status quo and gave substance to the debates and ideas that characterized Brazilian life in the 1920s and then under the transformative rule of Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945). Now, at the bicentennial of Brazil’s independence, which itself unfolds in a period of political crisis and economic dislocation, and in the aftermath of several large civic events, it is an opportune moment to consider how Brazilians used civic rituals to engage with questions of identity, belonging, and citizenship one hundred years ago.

"Bocketti’s well-written and thought-provoking book leaves much to ponder regarding memory and belonging, particularly in the wake of the 2022 bicentenary."
—The Americas
 "A welcome addition to the historiography of twentieth-century Brazil."
—Journal of Social History "Bocketti has made an important contribution to the history of the slow growth of Brazilian national identity."
—H-Net Reviews “InClaiming Brazil, Bocketti artfully merges two views about 1922 as a key year in Brazilian history: that it was a moment of celebration of the past and the beginning of an exciting new vision of Brazilian society. Bockelã'