Ester Nelly Abuter Ananías - Fachbereich Philosophie und ...

Ulrike Schmieder ( University of Hanover, Department of History, Germany )
Th e Sexuality of Brazilians in the Mirror of European Travel Accounts of the
19th Century
Europeans, many men, some women, who went to Brazil as businessmen, military
or naval offi cers, scholars, tourists, accompanying wife or private teacher, described
every day life scenes of Brazilians of diff erent sex, social and ethic backround.
Many travellers felt to be in a tropical Babylon and were scandalized by the high
rate of sexual relations outside of marriage, interethnic partnerships, “harems” on
plantations and concubinages of Catholic priests. Although they painted very
diff erent and gendered pictures of the sexuality of white, black and native people,
most of them looked at the Brazilian society as immoral and uncivilized as a whole
and had an implicit view on European societies as civilized, moralized, marked by
controlled sexuality of its members, normally within a Christian marriage. Protestant
prejudices against Catholic culture also played an important role in creating the
sexualized image of Brazil. My contribution will analyse the relationship between
sexual relations as part of social relations and every day culture in the multiethnic,
highly hierarchical slaveholding Brazilian society and its image constructed in travel
accounts of ( German, British and French ) travellers. I will look also for the selfdefi
nition of Europeans in diff erentiation to Non-Europeans conceived as primitive
and exotic.
Email u.schmieder@gmx.de
Section Traveling, Gender, Sexuality
Panel 43
Date July 29
Time 15 :00
Location l 113