First steps of Brazil’s foreign policy towards Africa and instrumentalization of cultural practices from brazilian afro-descendants

Abstract

After the abolition of slavery, prejudice and exclusion against the afro-descendant people were part of everyday life in Brazil. However, the power elite encouraged and disseminated the image of a country with a racial paradise, especially since the decade of the sixties, which coincided with the decolonization process in Africa. So, the elite began “exhibiting” and showing pride in its black population at the international level, while maintaining the segregation and discrimination of the descendants of black Brazilians within the country. This article shows that the elite, during the sixties, especially during the military dictatorship, sought to appropriate the most representative cultural elements of this racialized group for foreign policy objectives, without modifying the structures that maintained social discrimination and inequality. Though, this was not without the mobilization of the affected group, even in times when the repression struck Brazilian society.