Brazil's Northeast has traditionally been considered one of the country's poorest and most underdeveloped areas. In this impassioned work, the Brazilian historian Durval Muniz de Albuquerque Jr. investigates why Northeasterners are marginalized and stereotyped not only by inhabitants of other parts of Brazil but also by nordestinos themselves. His broader question though, is how "the Northeast" came into existence. Tracing the history of its invention, he finds that the idea of the Northeast was formed in the early twentieth century, when elites around Brazil became preoccupied with building a nation. Diverse phenomena—from drought policies to messianic movements, banditry to new regional political blocs—helped to consolidate this novel concept, the Northeast. Politicians, intellectuals, writers, and artists, often nordestinos, played key roles in making the region cohere as a space of common references and concerns. Ultimately, Albuqerque urges historians to question received concepts, such as regions and regionalism, to reveal their artifice and abandon static categories in favor of new, more granular understandings.
- Contents
- Foreword by James N. Green
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter One. Geography in Ruins
- The Regionalist Gaze
- The New Regionalism
- Regionalist Literature
- North versus South
- Chapter Two. Spaces of Nostalgia
- Stories of Tradition
- The Invention of the Northeast
- Northeastern Pages
- Northeastern Brush Strokes
- Northeastern Music
- Northeastern Dramas
- Chapter Three. Territories of Revolt
- The Inversion of the Northeast
- Controversy and Indignation
- Portraits of Misery and Pain
- Images That Cut and Pierce
- Seeing through the Camera Eye
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
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