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American Anthropologist,
Vol. 103, No. 4 (Dec., 2001), pp. 1218-1220
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1218 AMERICAN
ANTHROPOLOGIST
* VOL.
103,
No. 4 * DECEMBER
2001
died on September
4, 1912.
The Fontanas are careful to point
out
the sources they used to present
the biographical
material
on
McGee and
other members
of the
expedition.
The
data
provided
on the other
members of the
expeditions may
be of greatest
value
because little is known of them or their contributions
in most
cases. In
this volume,
the
photographs
of William
Dinwiddie
on
the first expedition by John Walter Mitchell reflect the great
value of this then-new
form
of scientific
recording.
Also the
lin-
guistic work of Jose Lewis (Papago
interpreter)
on the first
ex-
pedition and Hugh Norris as interpreter
on the second is dis-
cussed. Brief mention
is also provided
for other members
of the
expeditions.
The photographs
in the volume are
carefully
selected to sup-
plement
the
daily
entries and
often have
captions
of some
length
that
help clarify
and
supplement
information from the
diary
text.
The photographs
by Dinwiddie seem to be the
best and the
most
helpful
in supplementing
the diary
and
provide
a deeper
mean-
ing for the written
text. The photographs by John
Mitchell
are
fewer in the book and do not
provide
as much
information.
This
could be the
result of the
greater
difficulties
involved
in the 1895
expedition,
and
quite
often the
expedition
was split
into
separate
groups.
There
are
some line drawings
in the volume as well. In
general,
the
photographs
well illustrate the
geography,
the mate-
rial
culture,
and
the people of the region
and,
as well, the mem-
bers of the
expedition.
The three
maps
in the volume are of great
value, but
it is also helpful
to have an atlas with maps
of the re-
gion at
hand.
The study
of aboriginal
languages
is not forgotten
in the
dia-
ries, and there are
references
made
to Papago
and
Seri words
in
the
diary
text.
Appendix
A is a Papago
vocabulary
from Jose Le-
wis, and Appendix
B contains a Papago
vocabulary
and inter-
view notes
recorded
by McGee from
interpreter Hugh
Norris.
The actual
contents of the diaries are informative
scientifi-
cally and
record
the difficulties
encountered
in carrying
out
ex-
peditions
at the end of the nineteenth
century.
They
also discuss
fieldwork
activities we would not
condone or expect today
and
at times do not express a respect for the "other."
Thus, state-
ments
in the
diary
text
must be viewed in historical
context. Not-
withstanding,
there
is a great
deal of valuable
anthropological,
geographical,
biological, and
historical
information
contained
within the pages, and the carefully
researched
notes
by Fontana
make the
material
even more
understandable
and
valuable.
Other
features of the work
include
Appendix
C that
is an ac-
count of marine
flooding in the Sonora-Bacuache
delta, and
a
bibliography
of almost 300 items
coauthored or
authored
by
W J
McGee. There is a bibliography
of the works
cited by the Fon-
tanas in developing the introduction
and notes section of the
book and
an
index.
This volume will be read
by scholars
interested
in the
Ameri-
can Indian
and
northern
Mexico and the history
of science and
especially anthropology.
As the Fontanas
notes, people do not
agree
with
all that is written
by W J
McGee and
at times
will not
agree
with
material
presented
in his diaries.
However,
I feel that
this is a valuable
addition to the literature. It will also appeal
to
individuals
interested
in travel
and
exploration
in the
nineteenth
century. *
Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Cen-
tury Brazil. James
N. Green.
Chicago:
University
of Chicago
Press,
1999. 408 pp.
DONNA M. GOLDSTEIN
University of Colorado at Boulder
Historian
James
N. Green
has written
a superbly
researched
book about male homosexuality
in Brazil that subtlely chal-
lenges those familiar
with
this literature
and incites them
to re-
think their most cherished
"exceptionalist"
assumptions.To
a
large extent, Green's work is the latest contribution
both de-
scending
from
and
challenging
a
distinguished
lineage
of schol-
ars of male
homosexuality
in Brazil.'
This
lineage
engages
with
the
early
anthropological
and historical
arguments
embedded
in
the work of Brazil-based
British
anthropologist
Peter Fry. In
1982
Fry posited
that male
homosexuality
in Brazil consisted
of
two distinct models, an upper-class
model and a lower-class
model.2
Fry
believed
that the upper-class
model in Brazil
was a
kind of "import"
that came from Western
Europe and North
America
and adheres
to a conceptualization
of homosexuality
that connects
one's sexual
and social identity
with one's sexual
object
choice. The lower-class
model
recognized
the
categories
of homens
(men)
and
bichas
(meaning
"worm,"
a term used
dero-
gatorily
to refer
to effeminate
men and
translating
as something
similar
to "faggot"
in English)
and
was a dualistic model of ac-
tive and
passive
partners
who divided
along
both sexual
and
so-
cial gender
roles.
Within
this
model,
homens
were
understood
to
be the active penetrating
men who maintain
their masculine
identity regardless
of whether
their
sexual
object
choice is male
or
female,
and bichas
were understood
to be the passive,
receiv-
ing partners
who represent
effeminate
men and whose mascu-
line identity
is ultimately compromised
by their
social and
sex-
ual role. Fry's delineation of these models is based on his
ethnographic
research
among Afro-Brazilian
religions in the
early 1980s as well as his interpretation
of early-twentieth-cen-
tury
medico-legal sources,
which in fact scarcely
have any in-
formation
at all about
homens.
But
while Fry seems to have
ac-
cepted
this
omission
as part
of their
social
identity-not leading
fully homoerotically
identified
lives-Green finds their
omis-
sion
problematic.
He argues
that in the
early part
of the
twentieth
century,
men
who fell out of the
active/passive
binary-who did
not
conform
to hegemonic
gender
norms
and to ideas of effemi-
nate
homoeroticism-were ignored
or
mystified
by the
medico-
legal and
social science
discourses of the
time.
Fry's
flaw-and
the flaw of those who followed from
his assumptions-was to
take these incomplete
representations
produced
at that
time as
an actual
reading
of what
existed in the full gamut
of social life.
Ultimately,
Fry's reading
of the early-twentieth-century
litera-
ture led him
to believe
that the
active/passive
binary
was the
pre-
dominant
model of the time, and that it was only in the 1930s,
with the entr6e of medicolegal discourses from Europe, that
Brazilians
began
to categorize
and
pathologize specific behav-
iors. Similarly,
according
to Fry,
it was
in the 1960s
and
beyond,
with a burgeoning
homosexual
rights
and
identity
movement
in
Western
Europe
and in North
America,
that
Brazilians
(of the
upper class) were able to imagine themselves in new ways.
Green, however, is unsettled
by what he perceives as a major
possible foundational-and historical-misconception linked
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BOOK
REVIEWS
/ Related Fields 1219
to Fry's initial
reading,
one that has been incredibly
influential
not only on work related to homoeroticism
but on models of
sexuality
in Brazil
more
generally:
By operating
with this
bipolar
framework,
one can
easily
create a
false "other"
and
thereby
erase the
complexities
and
inconsistencies
of an
overarching
model. ... In
understanding
the
emergence
of a
new
gay
identity
among
urban middle-class
Brazilians
in
the
1960s,
it
is also
perhaps
more accurate to state that
there was
a
gap
between
representation
and social
experience. [p.
8]
Contrary
to Fry and those who built on Fry's ideas, Green
suggests that
subcultures of effeminate
and
noneffeminate
men
with homoerotic desires existed prior to the introduction of
Western
European medico-legal ideas. Green thus challenges
Fry'
s suggestion
that the
appearance
of certain
sexual
systems
in
Brazil corresponded
to Western
European
fashion. Within the
scope of Fry's work,
the 1960s time frame is key because it ex-
plains why, ultimately,
the lower-class model will cede to the
upper-class model-it is precisely the European
and North
American structures of sexuality
and of the
emergence
of homo-
sexual activism around
identity
issues that
ultimately
fueled the
emergence
of the
upper-class
model
in Brazil
in the first
place.
For Green, same-sex erotic subcultures and identities not
quite conforming
to Fry's active/passive
binary
preceded
both
the medico-legal
discourses of the 1930s and the newer
repre-
sentations of male homoerotic
subcultures
characterizing
the
late 1960s. What was limited, according to Green, was our
knowledge
about those subcultures. That
is, what
Fry
and those
who followed had to work from was a body of literature-med-
ico-legal documents and social science literature-that already
focused more on lower-class men than it did on upper-class
men. Subcultures of middle- and
upper-class
men not
conform-
ing to the active/passive
binary
may have remained out of the
spotlight and out of the explanatory powers of the prevailing
medico-legal
and
social science wisdom of the time and,
there-
fore, may have been underrepresented
in the literature that be-
came available for
historical
inspection.
Green is interested,
for
example,
in that
category
of homens,
"real"
men who were
pre-
sumed to be active penetrating
men-but actually preferred
same-sex encounters-who did not conform to the effeminate
bicha
stereotype,
and
who are
curiously
absent from much
of the
early
writings:
Because
the criminologists, physicians,
psychiatrists,
and
jurists
who
investigated
and wrote
about
homosexuality
in the
1930s based
their
thinking
on the
overarching theory
of the
immutability
of the
active/passive,
homen/bicha model,
they usually
failed to take no-
tice
of men
who
didn't
fit
into the mold of the effeminate male.
[p.
106]
Green's book provides
fascinating
evidence of lives that
di-
verge from
the active/passive
binary
from
early-twentieth-cen-
tury
sources,3
many
of which
would be more familiar to histori-
ans than
to anthropologists.
In
this
innovative blend of historical
and anthropological
research, Green unearths
extraordinary
material
and
persuasively
argues
against
some of our standard
perceptions
of male same-sex
romantic and sexual
encounters in
the early
twentieth
century.
Using a number of creative
archival
sources, Green
reconstructs,
for example, the life history
of a
figure known as Joho
Francisco,
also known as Madame
Sate,
who embodied
the contradictory
image of ad homen and who
was a self-declared
bicha.
Jo0o
Francisco/Madame Sath
was a
young
Afro-Brazilian
migrant
from northeast
Brazil who found
his way to Rio in the 1920s, became
a malandro
(rogue),
gam-
bled and
hustled,
maintained
an
image
of masculinity
and
viril-
ity, worked as a female impersonator, killed a cop in self-
defense,
and
spent
more than
27 years
in prison.
Green
interprets
Madame Satd as a person
who "transgressed
the assumptions
and
associations
of femininity
and
passivity
that
supposedly
de-
fined bichas"
(pp. 85-92). Green's use of alternative
cases is
fascinating
and well documented
but does not
entirely
convince
the reader
that subcultures
of homoerotic
men existed
outside
of
the
active/passive binary.
Rather,
within
these
cases there
seems
to be evidence that
they are
operating
within
the constraints
of
the active/passive model; thus his claims may be a bit over-
stated:
Significantly,
and as we
have seen
throughout
this
study,
a
same-sex
erotic subculture
existed
in Rio de Janeiro
prior
to
the invention
of
the term homosexual
and the
importation
of
European
medical
mod-
els that
cataloged
sexual
"pathologies"
and "deviant"
behaviors.
For
much of the
twentieth
century,
the
dominant
gender paradigm
that
shaped
this subculture
organized
itself
along
traditional
notions
of
appropriate
masculine
and feminine
comportment.
Nevertheless,
it
is important
to point
out that
the
fluidity
of sexual
desires,
identity,
and erotic
practices
transgressed
the norms that divided
same-gen-
der
sexuality
along active/passive
lines
and that is commonly
as-
cribed,
incorrectly,
to same-sex behavior
prior
to the 1960s and
gay
liberation.
Multiple
sexual
systems
have
coexisted and
interacted
throughout
much
of the
century,
and historians
should
beware
of
identifying
the
allegedly
more
egalitarian
model
of same-sex
activ-
ity
with
progress. [p.
281]
His findings certainly problematize Fry's time frame, but
Green's
reinterpretation
at
times feels less satisfying
in the
sense
that it appears
to be structured out of the sensibilities of a late-
twentieth-century
author. On the other
hand,
while his findings
may
not
completely
overturn
Fry's early
claims,
they
do proble-
matize them in important ways.
It
does seem,
for
example,
that Brazilian
medico-legal profes-
sionals from
the
upper
classes reworked their
own internal
theo-
ries in order
to suit their own internal
lower-class models of
sexuality. Green reverses Fry's notion that European
theo-
ries-in a kind of one-way
causality-informed Brazilian local
understandings
of same-sex
eroticism.
Building
on the work of
historian
Talisman
Ford,4
and
very
much in line with a long list
of postcolonial
writers across a number of disciplines,
Green ar-
gues, "Brazilian
physicians
and
other
observers
reframed
Euro-
pean theories of homosexuality along lines that
conformed to
popular
assumptions
that
associated male homosexuality
with
effeminacy and passive anal sexuality" (p. 144). Thus Green
supplies Brazilian
medico-legal professionals
with a kind of
agency missing from Fry's depiction
of neocolonial domina-
tion. Fry argued
that
eventually
the lower-class model would
give way to the
upper-class
model,
not
only because of its popu-
larity
among
the dominant
classes but also because of the ways
in which power/knowledge systems-in this case the medical,
scientific, psychological, and legal regimes-work their ef-
fects. In this scenario the active/passive binary
would whither
away, being replaced
by a system of gays and entendidos
(the
word means "one in the know" in Portuguese
and is the word
most
closely associated
with
"gay"
in English)
who themselves
have a more politicized homosexual
identity. This would, in
many significant
ways, be a more
egalitarian
system in which
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1220 AMERICAN
ANTHROPOLOGIST
* VOL. 103, No. 4 * DECEMBER 2001
one's masculinity
is neither
preserved
nor threatened
by one's
actions
in a sexual encounter.
Nevertheless,
in Foucauldian
un-
dertones,
Fry
somewhat
laments the recategorization
of the du-
ality
of homens and bichas
into
homosexuals
and
heterosexuals
and, in the spirit of the times (anti-imperialist
and anti-North
American),
bemoans the fact that both the medico-legal dis-
courses and those of the social movements
organizing
around
homosexual
identity
have their
origins
in the exterior.
Besides
being
concerned about
Western cultural models
colonizing
Bra-
zil, Fry
was also aware
of the class factors
in Brazil
that
would
ultimately
lead to one group's model-that of the dominant
classes-phasing out another
group'
s model-that of the subor-
dinate
classes. But in Green's version,
not only did Brazilians
rework
European
theories of homosexuality
to suit
their
own in-
ternal
theories, but the extreme gap between the classes that
characterizes
Brazil could ultimately
lead to a lesser effect of
medico-legal
discourses
on subordinated classes:
Although
the stated
goal
of many
writers on
the
subject
was to edu-
cate
society
about
this
social
disease,
much
of their material was
written in professional journals
directed to the police,
criminolo-
gists,
and
physicans.
Their
ideas
about
homosexuality certainly
in-
fluenced
the
medical
and
legal professions,
as well as criminolo-
gists,
and
thus
had an
impact
on
patterns
of "treatment."
But,
there is
no indication that
these
publications
reached
broad
audiences.
Thus,
the effect of their
writings
on
most
homosexuals
was indirect at
best.
[p.
145]
I suspect,
however,
that
while Green's
emphasis
on the separate
effects on specific classes may
be reasonable,
he may
be under-
estimating
the long-term
effects of dominating
discourses. Per-
haps here, too, these authors
are staking
out dissimilar
claims
about Foucault' s notion of distinct class sexualities.
In another
register,
Green is historicizing
male homoeroti-
cism in Brazilian
culture
and
ultimately using this information
to analyze and reflect on Brazil's, and specifically Rio's, em-
blematic Carnival
celebration. Green
rightly
notes that the im-
ages of cross-dressing
men during
Rio's Carnival
celebration,
for
example,
have
bolstered
Brazil's
image
as a haven of sexual
permissiveness.
Yet these public
manifestations
of gender-role
reversals
have always been temporary
and confined to the four
days of Carnival,
and for men
engaged
in homosociality,
Carni-
val is not
simply
an act of inversion
but, rather,
an
intensification
(p. 203) of their own experiences
as gender
benders
and
sexual
transgressors.
Rather than
breaking
down traditional
gendered
stereotypes,
Green sees the possibility
that
Carnival
may actu-
ally reinforce
stereotypes
with its trademark
camp
imitations of
women,
of the
Brazilian
actress
discovered
by Hollywood,
Car-
men Miranda,
and of exaggerated femininity
and masculinity.
Group solidarity
in the form of homosexual men parading
to-
gether
with their
friends
in outrageous
costumes
may
be a segre-
gating process
rather than an
experience
of communitas,
the lat-
ter a well-accepted
argument
offered
by anthropologist
Roberto
Da Matta with regard
to Rio's Carnival.5
Together,
Da Matta's
widely accepted vision of Carnival as communitas
and Fry's
version of active/passive dualism have inspired
a number
of
scholarly
and popular portrayals
of Brazil as a kind of homo-
erotic
paradise
of sexual
permissiveness.
But here
again
Green
throws into question some widely accepted
beliefs regarding
Carnival and challenges the reader to rethink
this vision from
one particular
subculture's
subject
position.
In
doing so, Green
challenges
the idea that Brazil is an unparallelled
sexual
para-
dise,
instead
refocusing
attention on the
ways
in which
same-sex
interactions
were prohibited
within the close-knit Brazilian
family and
men with homoerotic
desires were forced outward
into the dangerous public space as well as into the limelight
of
this national ritual
in order
to live out these desires. Green's
work,
therefore,
serves as a coherent corrective
to our skewed
imaginaries
of Carnival
in this
complex
society and is an
impor-
tant contribution
to this literature.
This extraordinarily
well researched
book
challenges
and
in-
forms
the reader
on a number of levels. Green reminds us that
standard
anthropological
discourses-such as Fry's on the ac-
tive/passive binary
and Da Matta's on Carnival-may require
rethinking
over time. This tremendously thought-provoking
book
offers
a fresh
perspective
on male
homoeroticism,
on Bra-
zil, and on the
possibilities
for
anthropology's
relationship
with
history.
Notes
1. Other
anthropologist
scholars built on
Fry's
work
throughout
the
1980s
and
1990s
and
conceptualized
their
writings
about homoerotic
sexuality
within
Fry's
scheme. Nestor
Perlongher
wrote
about
male
prostitution,
and
Edward MacRae
wrote about
homosexual
identity
formation and
political
organization;
Richard Parker wrote
about
the
ways
in which the
active/passive binary
is used to
genderize,
eroticize,
and
categorize
the
broader Brazilian sexual universe.
All
of this work
extended
Fry's
early
findings
in important
ways.
See
Perlongher's O
negrcio do miche:
Prostituiido viril em Sdo Paulo (So Paulo: Editor
Brasiliense,
1987),
and MacRae's "Homosexual
Identities
in Transi-
tional Brazilian Politics"
(in The
Making ofSocial Movements in
Latin
America: Identity, Strategy, and Democracy, Arturo Escobar and
Sonia
E.
Alvarez,
eds.,
Boulder: Westview
Press,
1992,
pp.
185-203).
See also Richard
Parker' s Bodies,
Pleasures
and
Passions: Sexual Cul-
ture in Contemporary
Brazil,
(Boston:
Beacon, 1991).
2. Beginning
with
extended research
of the role of homosexual men
within
Afro-Brazilian
religious groups, Fry began
to construct
a pic-
ture of Brazilian
sexuality.
See his "Homossexualidade masculina e
cultos
afro-brasileiros" and "Da
hierarquia
'a
igualdade:
A construgqo
hist6rica
da
homossexualidade no Brasil"
(in
Para
Ingles
Ver,
Peter
Fry,
ed.,
Rio de
Janeiro: Zahar
Editores,
1982).
3. Green does a fine
job
of scouring
the archival
materials from the
early
twentieth
century published by
the medical
profession,
the
state,
and mainstream media
in Brazil;
he also conduct
70 interviews with
men
between
the
ages
of
35 and
85
from
distinct
class,
racial,
and
politi-
cal
backgrounds
from the cities of Rio de Janeiro and
So Paulo
and
gather
material
from
journals produced
in
the
1970s
directed at homo-
sexual men.
4. Green relies
on
Ford'
s work
about
sexologists
in the
early part
of
the twentieth
century
in Brazil. See Talisman
Ford's
"Passion
in the
Eye of the Beholder:
Sexuality
as Seen by Brazilian
Sexologists,
1900-1940"
(Ph.D.
dissertation,
Vanderbilt
University,
1995).
5. See,
for
example,
Roberto Da Matta's
Carnivals,
Rogues,
and
Heroes: An Interpretation
of the Brazilian Dilemma (Notre Dame:
University
of Notre Dame
Press,
1991). *
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