'Pretos e Brancos': Brito Camacho and the antropological gaze of colonial literature

• Main Author: Sandra Sousa
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Federal Fluminense 2018-06-01
• Series: Abril
• Subjects: literatura colonial; antropologia; concurso de literatura colonial.
• Online Access: http://www.revistaabril.uff.br/index.php/revistaabril/article/view/494

In this article I explore the connections between colonial literature and an­thropology during the first decades of the twentieth century. Through the analysis of Brito Camacho’s Pretos e Brancos (1926), I argue that some of the literary works that won the Contest of Colonial Literature are imbued with an anthropologic gaze. By this, I mean that colonial literature and anthropology were constituted as two intertwined colonial “knowledges” from the beginning of the colonial project. Both “knowledges” -literary and anthropological- served the objective of the construction and legitimi­zation of the Portuguese colonial empire.