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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
The importance of the study of culture change lies not only in the opportunities for scientific understanding of culture through its dynamic aspects, but also in “applied” needs for analyzing and, so far as possible, predicting present-day cultural trends. Keesing defines culture change as a, “reformulation of group behavior. Such reformulation may be seen occurring from the level of individual experience to that of the total functional and integrational setting of a cultural system.”
This paper is concerned primarily with the second aspect of the reformulation, that is, the total setting in one country, Brazil. Obviously, in such a short paper, all aspects of change in Brazil cannot be treated nor can they be definitely stated. In fact, one of the purposes of this preliminary paper is to raise more questions than it answers concerning culture change in whole, contemporary, national cultures.
This article is a revised version of a paper given at the 35th International Congress of Americanists, Mexico City, August, 1962, under the title “An Overview of Culture Change in Brazil”. The author is grateful to Dr. Eugene V. Smith of the University of Florida for many stimulating suggestions, some of which have been incorporated in the revision. Errors of analysis or interpretation, however, are the author's only.
1 Keesing, F. M., Cultural Anthropology (N. Y.: Rinehart & Co., Inc., 1959), p. 381.Google Scholar
2 Ibid.
3 Dobyns, Henry F., Monge M., Carlos, and Vázquez, Mario V., Human Organization, Vol. XXI, summer, 1962, No. 2, p. 109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Kroeber, A. L., Anthropology (N. Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1948), pp. 386-7.Google ScholarPubMed
5 Ibid., p. 387.
6 Anthropologists have dealt with acculturation situations involving whole peoples or cultures (usually indigenous) and with the phenomena of change, resistance to change, and the impact of agencies of directed culture change for several decades. The situational model dealt with in this paper, however, is not viewed as primarily a culture contact situation, although such effects cannot be totally ignored; rather, it is viewed as primarily involving internal changes in a single cultural system. A speculative discussion of the possible relationship between “advanced” and “emerging” nations in acculturation terms might prove interesting on a different level of analysis, in view of the popular theme which sees a rapid Westernization of the world.
7 Holmberg, A. and Dobyns, H., Human Organization, Vol. XXI, summer, 1962, No. 2, p. 107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 Kroeber, , op. cit., p. 408.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., p. 411.
10 Ibid.
11 Keesing, , op. cit., p. 409.Google Scholar
12 Herskovits, M., Man and His Works (N. Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), p. 542.Google Scholar
13 Lowie, R. L., Social Organization (N. Y.: Rinehart & Co., 1948), p. 7.Google Scholar
14 Herskovits, , op. cit., p. 544.Google Scholar
15 Shortly after this article was accepted for publication, a military coup took place in Brazil. The Journal has been kind enough to allow a short postscript.
The author's crystal ball is no better than anyone else's at this time. He would like to point out, however, that although the upheaval which took place has been called a revolution, revolution does not fit the definition given by Kroeber, cited in this paper. At any rate, the results are being referred to as militarism, dictatorship, a shift to the “right”, and so on.
If our analysis of culture change in Brazil is anywhere near being on the right track, however, this most recent happening is best understood when placed in a dynamic perspective such as the conceptual frame provided by Bohannon called the recurrent event system. ( Bohannon, P., Social Anthropology [New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1963], pp. 369–370.Google Scholar In this same chapter, Bohannon presents a far more complex model for the analysis of culture change. The book came to the author's attention too late to attempt to compare the models.) In discussing this, Bohannon says:
Yet a second event sequence, often called into action by the tension created in the first, is found to be widespread; interestingly enough these gyroscopic event structures that maintain the operation of the other event structures within the institution are often disapproved by the actors. One of the best examples is to be found in American political activity. America is beset every couple of decades with witch hunts on a national scale. Such witch hunts always take a political form; they are universally deplored at the same time that each individual one is well-nigh universally deemed necessary to maintain the most precious of political ideas and organizations. Extremist groups of both the right and the left “get out of hand,” make their points, even change minor aspects of the national political organization, and then are brought to heel. Thus, they constantly refortify the middle: the fundamental dynamic of the political process.
Similar activities have been observed elsewhere. Among the Tiv of central Nigeria, a “witch hunt” of similar mien recurs about every ten years. The event system of the political institutions allows power to be thrust into the hands of fewer individuals. The Tiv political ethic allows authority to no one. Therefore, in order to maintain the political institutions so that authority does not become crystallized in given offices, the Tiv revolt and throw out the leaders to whom the authority is accreting. Only so is it possible for them to maintain their particular type of “democracy.” The revolts are generally deplored; but the results are considered necessary and worth the candle.
In modern Brazil, a republican form of government with underlying democratic concepts of freedom of expression and action, which fits the Brazilian value system better than any form of regimentation, was firmly institutionalized in 1889. It has been held to ever since, albeit with periodic variations usually viewed in political terms as undemocratic and even revolutionary. The variations viewed as “gyroscopic”, however, do seem to be built-in correctives which maintain the institution (in this case, political) on the course chosen and adhered to by the value systems.