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Throughout our history, the idea of Brazil has been the subject of several elaborations, in general combining political and aesthetic aspects. However, at the turn of the third millennium this process has taken a new shape. Appropriations and reworkings of the idea of Brazil multiplied. The initiatives were everywhere, reaching different sectors of cultural and artistic production, the media and especially the market. The objective of this paper is to present the results of a documentary research project on the topic conducted in the course of the 2000s, which indicate two basic changes in comparison to the movements in the 20th century: the displacement of political interest to marketing, as well as of the emphasis on national identity to cultural diversity. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of the slide of identity construction from the sphere of politics to consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The administration of the modern Cape Verdean State, which results from profound changes instituted during the second half of the nineteenth century, is made largely by natives of the archipelago, whose recruitment was done predominantly within the most favored families. This tendency still prevails throughout the twentieth century, despite having suffered a slight change in the late sixties. This article aims to analyze the rise of grassroots individuals to the political and administrative elite with the institutionalization of the National State from 1975 onwards. In the scope of this essay, we will focus our analysis on the trajectories of the political and administrative elite coming from the most disadvantaged social strata of the Cape Verdean society. Our goal is to understand the historical conditions and individual and family strategies which contributed to make their presence more frequent during the last quarter of the twentieth century [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to introduce memorization practices, experienced by diverse groups, focusing on hegemonic memories (such as those represented in memory institutions like museums and archives as well as those carried on by its professional archivists, librarians, historians and official state policies of patrimonialization) and dissenting memories (in our case, indigenous thought). The definition of history and memory (Popular memory group, 1982) has played a key-role during the construction of national identities and political domination, through the imposition of specific and partial versions as universal and shared ones, and through the occlusion, exclusion and silencing of the meanings of the past for subaltern groups. The same dynamic applied in processes of colonization, expropriation (Bonfil, 1993) and domestication (Gnecco, 2000). This paper questions to what extent the official mechanisms or devices of memory and forgetting were successful in silencing, change or represent truly the "non-hegemonic voices". On the other side, the paper introduces "new" forms of inscription and expression of non-hegemonic memories, other than documents in archives, such as body (corporal painting), rituals and landscape (sacred lands). Therefore, the definition of historical text expands dramatically. This research is situated at the crossroad of global and local cultural practices, which are represented most obviously in challenges around the definition of identities. Systems of historical representation (such as archives and museums) have played a crucial role in meeting this challenge. In spite of relations of subordination experienced by indigenous people, some groups have had success in reinventing and construct "another history". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance that is currently ascribed to the "rediscovery" of national identity in contemporary social thought. This process of attributing importance to the national identity has taken place throughout the world and has affected the local production. In the wake of its search for "self-understanding", this process focuses on authors who were central in their time and were later marginalized, but today are key to understanding the process of construction of the national identity and the role played by education in it. At the local level, one of such leading intellectuals is Oliveira Vianna. This paper tries to understand the nature of some of the elements of the understanding of the national identity and education by this author, who is sometimes associated with Brazilian authoritarian thought, due to analytical categories introduced by him, such as "clan" and "lack of solidarity". It deals with the contemporariness of his critique of the state and the role of education derived from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]