Learning from Brazil

Jaguars have always fascinated me: I’ve tried to track them through the cloud forests of Central America, the jungles of Colombia, the Amazon... but they are such shy creatures that many biologists who study great cats only see a couple in their lifetime. But last week, in the Brazilian Pantanal, I not only found jaguars, but also a new way to do science and ecology.

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On Sunday, we had a great victory for democracy in Brazil. After a terrible first round result, the progressive forces that defend human rights, the Amazon, and cultural diversity went from a 2,000,000 vote loss to a 4,500,000 vote win.

How did this great comeback happen? And what lessons does it hold for other countries struggling against fascism? That’s the topic of today’s podcast.

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In early February, the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood where I live in the south of Brazil, was transformed by thousands of people walking down the main shopping street until it opened onto the beach. Many sang in Yoruba, the Nigerian language preserved in afro-Brazilian rituals. Others clapped to the rhythm of the ijexá, the rhythm of the orixá Iemanjá, queen of the ocean. Six ogans — drummers and priests in the candomblé and umbanda religions — carried a boat made of banana laves and palm fronds, filled with flowers and a statue of Iemanjá.

What brought this return of Africa to a part of Brazil where many people want to see themselves as white and European? That’s the question for today’s episode.

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Last Sunday, we had elections here in Brazil. In spite of the fact that day-to-day life is better than it ever has been -- the lowest unemployment ever, reduced poverty, growing GDP, improving environmental conditions -- the far right defeated the party that had brought all of those benefits.

This week, I'm looking at how that happened. Why is the far right so strong in Brazil? The explanation takes us deep into history, into the kitchens and elevators of apartment buildings, and into how Brazilians see race.

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In the South of the island of Santa Catarina, nestled between steep hills and the blue bay, twenty small children prepared a performance for their parents and grandparents. Heads and torsos appeared above colorful costumes made of papier-mâché and fabric: Bento was inside a red ox, a friend inside a toucan and another inside a vulture. There was a cowboy whose body poked through a horse; a goat, and the emblematic creature of the Boi de Mamão: the Bernunça. Half dragon and half alligator, with an immense mouth to devour children, this Bernunça came to life with four girls inside it.

The Boi de Mamão — a ritual/game/play (brincadeira) common along the coast of the state of Santa Catarina — serves as a fascinating illustration of how play can function as memory and a power to “sustain the world.”

With clips from the movies “Um boi para as crianças”, “Coragem de Brincar o Boi,” and “Como fazer uma zarabatana”, directed by Rita Oenning da Silva and Kurt Shaw.

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When we look beyond the idea that the goal of the game is to win, we see that the game transforms the player; the relationship with the “opponent” transforms the player. When an escola de samba performs or during the Kuarup in Xingu, we can’t talk distinguish between the artist and the work of art or between the subject and the object she manipulates. Nor does this art really fall into the “I-Thou” dynamics so thoughtfully analyzed by mid-century Jewish thinkers like Buber and Levinas. We don’t really know if the Morena de Angola is shaking the shaker, or if the shaker is shaking her, as the classic samba lyrics insists.

With the help of little kids, toys, and farm animal, we learn how play can help us overcome the polarization of the zero sum game.

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“When we play the drums and dance, my happiness grows together with yours,” says Ciany Castro, leader of a Tambor de Crioula. Unlike a material good — a pie, a chocolate bar, the stock of a corporation — joy is not a fixed, limited, dividable thing. The amount of happiness grows based on what activities we do, how happy you are, how happy I am, how happy a child around us is. In the realm of economic necessity, it might make sense to talk of a zero-sum game, but the moment that we talk about another immensely important aspect of human being — happiness — the fundamental premise of game theory just isn’t true. It doesn’t even make sense.

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With this podcast, I’ve been trying to show that Brazilian popular culture has much to teach the world. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from indigenous people is to sit and listen to the nature around me.

This morning, Rita and I walked into the jungle along the banks of the Lagoa de Peri, a fresh water lagoon nestled in the high mountains close to our house. It was cloudy, still, and cool — somewhere in the mid 40s Fahrenheit — and the birds decided to provide a symphony in the jungle, with only us as the human audience.

These sounds aren’t just beautiful: they are also hopeful. From the time of colonization until the middle of the last century, the jungle around Lagoa de Peri was destroyed for firewood and planting. In the last century, it has come back as exuberant and inspiring nature.

So today, in a special and unexpected episode, you can listen to the sounds of that natural symphony. Enjoy.

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Everything in our culture is a type of art.

A song is art for us. Dancing is art. A prayer is art. From the moment you start smoking the ritual pipe to speak with the deities, making that connection with Nhanderu—that's art.

Body painting is art. It's making a connection with Nhanderu, so it's a type of art.

Of course, there isn't a word in Guarani for "art." But everything is related to art. It's all connected to spirituality.

The Guarani people see art, spirituality, dance, and agriculture as a way of creating the beauty tat sustains and justifies the world. And all of these activities are play, a way of bringing joy into the world. If our life rotates around play instead of profit, they ask, what would it look like?

Interviews in the podcast come from various movies made by Usina da Imaginação and directed by Rita Oenning da Silva and Kurt Shaw: The Art of Play (2026) and Brincar na Roda de Tambor (2024), and The Rhythm of Liberation (2025).

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The idea that politics is really about creating and defining enemies — and that identity only emerges from hate — is not inevitable. In this episode of Learning from Brazil, we look at how some children and indigenous thinkers show other ways to think about who I am, who you are; who we are and who they are. When we see that culture connects us in an almost physical way -- one girl described music as a sort of transpersonal synaptic connection between people -- and that more than one soul can inhabit a single body, we can think politics and culture in new ways.

And when we use these other frames for thinking, conflict and difference can be something much more productive and less threatening, a way to grow instead of something to fear.

Interviews in the podcast come from various movies made by Usina da Imaginação and directed by Rita Oenning da Silva and Kurt Shaw: Arte em tempos de Pandemia: Eliz (2021), Novo Futuro (2021), Mar de Liberdade (2021) and A Infância Festiva (2024).

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