Tristes tropiques and merry luso-tropicalism: on the travel writings of Lévi-Strauss and Gilberto Freyre

Abstract

This article opens a window on luso-tropicalism through a reading of one of the less-known works of Gilberto Freyre: the travel book Aventura e Rotina (Adventure and Routine) of 1953. The book is analysed in comparison with Tristes Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss which was written at roughly the same time and also consists of the recollections and reflections of an anthropologist on his travels presented in a freer form than that of ethnographic study or theory. By contrasting the two books, which reveal of the practically opposing positions the two authors hold, certain aspects of the luso-tropical doctrine can be made clear: where Lévi-Strauss concentrates on alterity as the foundation and pillar of society and of the real, Freyre's views concentrate on similitude, which is at the centre of the specificity of Portuguese, or luso-tropical, colonization. What is the other for Lévi-Strauss appears as us in Freyre; where the French anthropologist/philosopher equates distance with alterity in «orientalizing» the tropics, the Brazilian anthropologist/sociologist attempts to annul distances and oppositions by «tropicalizing» the world; and, given that this «tropicalization» of the world is basically carried out in Portuguese, the author documents the process with examples collected from the Portuguese-speaking colonies. While making reference to some biographical aspects that go some way to explaining Freyre's motives, the article above all points out the structural contrast in the stances of the two authors and the impact this contrast has in his reference to the «tropical» tropos.