Made in Brazil

Os nexos anticoloniais da lusofonia póscolonial

Abstract

The present essay analyzes the emergence in Brazil at the turn of the 1960s of a postcolonial idea of a transnational “community” of Portuguese speakers. That idea is connected with a series of heterogenous and unequal groups linked by different degrees of  activism against Portuguese colonialism. Examples include Brazil’s diplomatic turn to Africa and Asia under the Quadros-Goulart regimes; solidarities between African independence fighters and Brazilian Black activists (and supporters); the wide anti-Salazar and anticolonial activism promoted by the exiled Portuguese democratic opposition; and the cultural common sense, echoed by Maria Archer, that Brazil could safeguard the future of the Portuguese language owing to the ever-present history of slavery.