Explanations of the Abolitionist movement's success in Brazil (1888) have, since the 1960s and 1970s, emphasized the movement's material context, its class nature, and the agency of the captives. These analyzzes have misunderstood and gradually ignored the movement's formal political history. Even the central role of urban political mobilisation is generally neglected; when it is addressed, it is crippled by lack of informed analysis of its articulation with formal politics and political history. It is time to recover the relationship between Afro-Brazilian agency and the politics of the elite. In this article this is illustrated by analysing two conjunctures critical to the Abolitionist movement: the rise and fall of the reformist Dantas cabinet in 1884-85, and the relationship between the reactionary Cotegipe cabinet (1885-88), the radicalisation of the movement, and the desperate reformism that led to the Golden Law of 13 May 1888.
234 p., This dissertation examines the various discursive expressions of black agency that formed the stereotypical representations of African descendants found in Victorian racial discourse. It is, therefore, an analysis of the discursive practices of peoples of African descent and not of the actual stereotypes frequently associated with Victorian racial discourse. A close reading and analysis of the discursive practices of peoples of African descent subject to British rule will generate more focused critical narratives about the fantasies that plagued the British imagination well into the 20sth century. This study also suggest that contemporary scholars should look at Victorian racial discourse as an active dialogue and conversation with the Other, rather than a description of the psychology of power.
