Overvaluation of Portuguese Influence on Formation of Brazilian Society

This critical discussion of Maria Cristina’s article on Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s Raízes do Brasil offers a close reading of both the original and revised editions of Holanda’s influential essay, arguing that its account of Brazilian social formation depends on a determinist and organicist overvaluation of Portuguese influence. Although Holanda recognizes African and Indigenous participation, he assigns them a secondary, reinforcing role while treating the Portuguese colonizer as the primary agent shaping Brazilian identity. This approach, the article contends, obscures the sociohistorical construction of identity and marginalizes non-European actors, exposing persistent tensions between sociological method and essentialist reasoning in a foundational text.

Why it matters now:
Read against contemporary racial politics—especially in the U.S.—the article provides a cautionary framework for recognizing how deterministic narratives operate today. By naturalizing a fixed, “true” national character, such accounts marginalize racialized groups and legitimize exclusion and hierarchy. The discussion will explore how cultural determinism, whether through intellectual history or political rhetoric, forecloses plural futures and justifies unequal power relations.

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Host or Publisher Center for Latin American Studies at Boston University