José Jorge de Carvalho

O olhar etnográfico e a voz subalterna

The essay presents, firstly, a review of anthropological theory, assessing its role in the context of contemporary theoretical developments in the Humanities. To do so, I developed the metaphor of the metamorphoses of the ethnographic eye, which allowed me to detect some crucial moments of the reception and reproduction, in peripheral countries such as Brazil, of this knowledge created in metropolitan places in the days of colonialism. Secondly, I review the ideas of some leading theorists of postcolonial and subaltern studies, such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha. Thirdly, I discuss the possibilities of a postcolonial ethnography, aimed at the narration of subaltern voices, which puts Anthropology close to Comparative Literature. Finally, I illustrate these discussions with the presentation of an extraordinary narrative of a woman gatherer of babacu coconut from Maranhao. I compare her text with Heideggers reading of one of Holderlins poems on the subject of unhomeliness. This crossing of texts opens a wide range of references about the condition of homelessness which affects us all, both our so-called natives and ourselves, ethnographers and intellectuals of peripheral nations of the world system.

Transformações da sensibilidade musical contemporânea

Este ensaio visa propor uma reflexao sobre as mudancas na sensibilidade musical no mundo ocidental neste fim de seculo. As profundas transformacoes na tecnologia da producao musical ocorridas nas ultimas decadas provocaram uma alteracao dramatica do lugar que a musica ocupa na sociedade e tambem para o individuo. Interpreto o impacto dessas mudancas atraves de quatro elementos de analise profundamente interrelacionados: a tecnologia de gravacao e reproducao, a execucao musical, a recepcao do produto musical e as subculturas musicais que condicionam as opcoes de uma vasta gama de consumidores de musica, jovens e velhos. Na tentativa de construir uma sensibilidade musical deveras pluralista, procurei ilustrar esses argumentos com exemplos musicais retirados dos estilos mais diversos: eruditos, tradicionais, populares, massificados, folcloricos, ritualizados, etc. Dialogo tambem com teorias da musica e da cultura contemporânea que cobrem um amplo eixo da Musicologia e da Etnomusicologia, de Bela Bartok, Adorno e Benjamin a John Blacking, Jacques Attali, Jean Baudrillard, Simon Frith, Lawrence Kramer, entre outros.

Los estudios culturales en América Latina: interculturalidad, acciones afirmativas y encuentro de saberes

Resumen: El articulo ofrece una propuesta de refundacion de los Estudios Culturales en America Latina, retomando el ideario y la postura politica critica que ha sido constitutiva de esa area de estudios desde su creacion en los anos sesenta en Birmingham. Esa postura critica fundante se actualiza ahora en el proyecto de un Doctorado en Estudios Culturales en la Universidad de Brasilia, basado en tres ejes: la lucha por cuotas para negros e indigenas en las universidades; la superacion del dualismo dominante entre las Humanidades y las Ciencias Exactas a traves de las teorias de la complejidad; c) el Encuentro de Saberes. El proyecto de Encuentro de Saberes es un proceso teorico-politico que empezo este ano en la Universidad de Brasilia y que permite que los maestros y maestras de los saberes tradicionales latinoamericanos (chamanes, payes, artesanos, arquitectos indigenas, artistas, musicos, especialistas en plantas medicinales) entren ahora como profesores a dictar cursos regulares en la universidad. Los Estudios Culturales en cuanto Estudios Criticos de la Cultura deben proveer la fundamentacion teorica, metodologica y politica para que las universidades latinoamericanas, que fueron constituidas como blancas, excluyentes, racistas y dedicadas a reproducir unicamente el saber eurocentrico moderno, finalmente se transformen en aquello que ellas deberian haber sido desde su fundacion hace siglos: centros multi-epistemicos de estudios, abiertos a todos los saberes creados y vigentes en nuestro continente - saberes occidentales, indigenas, afro-americanos, y de las comunidades tradicionales.

Antropologia e esoterismo: dois contradiscursos da modernidade

This essay seeks to analyse the complex relationships between two worldviews that were developed in the West during the second half of the nineteenth century: esotericism and Anthropology as an academic discipline. I try to show that these two trends of thought are simultaneously heirs of the modernist project and critical of its basic system of values. In fact, Anthropology and esotericism are opposed to the Weberian model of rationality, defended nowadays by Habermas, which seeks to separate the spheres of science from those of morality and art, as if they were autonomous in relationship to each other. Three crucial concepts of esotericism are approached from an anthropological point of view: tradition, initiation and sacred science, which leads to a proposal of reintegrating human knowledge about religious experiences in their most diverse ethnographic manifestations.