The Political Economy of the BRICS Countries. Группа авторов

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However, reforms that systematically restructured the existing benefits toward equity enhancements have continued on in a laggard fashion over the years (Hunter and Sugiyama, 2009).

      Despite recent increases in financing for education, the population as a whole remains poorly educated, especially in relation to Brazil’s overall levels of development. Educational mobility is exceedingly low. Social mobility in Brazil remains closely tied to family background. Brazil’s high incidence of poverty, low educational achievement, and middling health indicators explain its low ranking in overall human development indicators (Hunter and Sugiyama, 2009, p. 32).

      More than 15 countries have been collecting information on ethnicity through the census, but only a few, Brazil and Colombia, collect data on Afro-descendants. Peru and Guatemala follow the same for indigenous peoples. In Brazil, minorities like Afro-descendants account for 45%, Japanese 1%, and indigenous groups like Yanomami, Tukano, Urueu, Wau-Wau, Awa, Arara, Guarani (0.2–2.4%), and Jews 0.00056%. Brazil currently has 197 forest-dwelling indigenous groups (Telles, 2015).

      In Brazil, nearly 80% of Afro-Brazilians live below the nation’s poverty line compared to the ‘whites’. Only 4% of Afro-Brazilians between the ages of 18 and 24 are in universities, compared to 12% of the ‘whites’. Three-fourths of all Afro-Brazilians have not completed secondary school, and 40% do not complete elementary school. In the UNDP’s Human Development Index, Brazil’s rank continued to stay at 79 among 159 odd countries (HDI Ranking, 2017). In 2007, Afro-Brazilians earned 50% less than the national average income. Afro-Brazilians suffer from the highest homicide, poverty, and illiteracy rates in the country. They are seriously under-represented in professional positions and in middle and upper classes and over-represented in prisons (56%). The situation is similar among the indigenous peoples in the region. FUNAI’s data (National Foundation for the Indigenous) showed that the indigenous people continue to suffer from disease, poor healthcare, loss of native culture, and recurring incursions, especially in rain forests (National Native News, 2017).

      Historical Antecedents of the Racial Issue

      Often contrasted with the United States, Brazilian post slavery race relations were said to be harmonious, tolerant, and devoid of prejudice or discrimination. The image of presumed equality was based primarily on Brazil’s unparalleled level of miscegenation among European, African, and indigenous peoples. Widespread intermixing of the population gave rise to a unique pattern of social differentiation in which, allegedly, ‘racial appearances’ (phenotype) rather than ‘origin was key’. Due to the resulting ambiguity of racial identity, many Brazilians denied the existence of race or racism in their country. Race relations in Brazil, as a result, received much less attention among social scientists in Brazil. However, recent empirical research has amply documented the persistence of racial prejudice and discrimination. Brazil’s image of racial equality has eroded greatly over the past two decades.

      Today, vigorous public debate over Brazil’s image of racial equality has displaced the ideology of ‘racial democracy’.4 The overwhelming evidence makes it clear that racial inequality, prejudice, and discrimination are Brazil’s social reality. Scholars have often argued that one of the basic determinants of contemporary racial inequality is the geographic polarization of Brazil’s economy and population (Andrews, 1992, Figueiredo, 2015; Skidmore, 1992). Of the total population, it was found that Afro-Brazilians lived in the impoverished and underdeveloped Northeast, while the white population (52%) was concentrated in the industrialized Southeast (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estaistica, IBGE, 1996). Thus, because of locational disadvantages, Afro-Brazilians are said to be handicapped as they are concentrated in regions where there are fewer social and economic opportunities. Unequal regional development and population distribution has characterized Brazilian society since colonial times (Merrick and Graham 1979; Wood and de Carvalho 1988).

      Population and regional imbalances are the legacy of the boom and bust cycles of three colonial export commodities: sugar, gold/rubber, and coffee. The scarcity of labor to fuel sugar plantations during the 16th and 17th centuries was the impetus for importing African slaves into the Northeast. In the 18th century, with the discovery of gold/rubber and the concomitant decline in sugar production, the economic and population center of gravity shifted to central and southern Brazil. This shift left the once wealthy northeastern plantation economy in ruins, and from this point on development favored southern Brazil.

      It was the southern expansion of coffee exports during late nineteenth and early 20th centuries that led to the incipient industrialization of São Paulo, built first on slave and later subsidized European immigrant labor. Following the abolition of slavery in 1888, southeast coffee growers used the tax revenues from the great fortunes accumulated from coffee exports to provide the foundation to build São Paulo’s industrial economy and attracted roughly 3.5 million European immigrants. By the 1920s, São Paulo became the most advanced region of the country, and by the 1940s the state had the largest concentration of manufacturing in all of Latin America (Wood and Carvalho, 1988).

      The predominantly white regions of São Paulo and the southeast remained the nation’s locus of manufacturing and finance (Kowarick and Campanario, 1986). Over time, the consequence of such cumulative effects was the sharp spatial disparities. Continued growth and diversification of the Brazilian economy lessened but did not eliminate the unequal distribution of wealth and population. From the 1950s, industrialization in south-central Brazil lured Afro-Brazilian migrants from the Northeast and rural areas to the dynamic urban metropolises, especially São Paulo. This was accompanied by notable gains in Afro-Brazilian urban employment. Between 1950 and 1980, the proportion of individuals of African descent employed in cities rose from 36% to 62% (Oliviera et al., 1985). Yet, at the same time, the occupational structure moved toward more skilled jobs.

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