By MOHAMMED ELHAJJI*
Presentation of the recently released book by Mario Luis Grangeia
From the Portuguese-Brazilian migration system
How should we approach the issue of transnational migration? How can we identify its multiple facets and situate them in their social, cultural, economic and political context? What methods and theories should we adopt in our efforts to delve into its history and project its implications in the medium and long term? How can we define the degree of success of the migration endeavor – whether at the individual or community level? These are general questions that apply to the phenomenon in a broad sense, allowing us to outline an intelligible image of the object of research and study.
However, not all migrations, nor all migratory practices in every time and place are the same or capable of being understood from the same parameters. There are situations in which the problem, due to the particularity of its history and the specificity of its social and cultural significance, requires an equally exact and sui generis. Scenarios in which, in addition to possible paradigmatic and methodological generalizations, it is necessary to fine-tune the keys that give the event its own identity.
This is the case of the migratory dynamics between Portugal and Brazil, which began in the early days of colonization and continued into contemporary movements; beginning as one-way routes and becoming, over time, mutual and continuous demographic exchanges. These dynamics are configured, at the same time, as structural bases of the systemic relationship between the two countries, and as circumstantial manifestations arising from the social or political context that determines the direction of the flows.
First, it was originally an imperial/colonial relationship; in which human flows fulfilled a social, cultural and political role of possession, occupation and formation of the new nation and transformation of the primordial matrix. In symbolic and imaginary terms, in addition to the possibility of material enrichment, the North-South passage was (and, to some extent, continues to be) pregnant with a strong phantasmagorical charge of libidinal nature and emancipatory subjectivation.
For the Portuguese, Brazil is more than a geographical destination, an imaginary place, a mental escape from the rigid Iberian social framework, marked by tradition and moral rigor. It would not be too risky to say that, deep down, every Portuguese person has some kind of fantasy associated with the tropics and their fantastic creatures.
On the other hand, there are not many examples in the modern history of humanity in which the relationship between colonizer and colonized inverts the poles of power and the societal pyramid. After the colonial era, Portugal was demoted from its status from the metropolis to the indigent figure of the (apparently) simple-minded “Portuga” who only fits into the shallow and prejudiced humor we know. The Portuguese language itself is reduced to the condition of “accent”, and its grammatical and syntactical expressions are considered as mere regionalisms.
However, despite or because of this identity dialectic, exchanges between the two sides of the Atlantic are becoming more and more consolidated as a “strategic retreat” for both parties. With each episode of economic or political crisis in one of the two countries, there is a subsequent increase in flows towards the other. This mobility can be permanent or temporary, sometimes resembling seasonal transhumance rather than emigration in the traditional sense.
Thus, over the decades, movement between the peninsula and the subcontinent has become a spontaneous, almost natural reflex, reinforced by the common language and supported by the legal concept of “equality of rights” – an eloquent illustration of the civic and subjective continuity between the two territories. Brazilians in Portugal or Portuguese in Brazil, the historical, geographical and symbolic movement allows the migrant subject to experience unprecedented ways of being simultaneously the same and the other: a close alterity or a distant sameness; a relative and relational form of identity, in which the positions of host and guest are continually shared and interchangeable – if not, downright confused.
In fact, this reciprocal attraction ends up constituting a unique (Luso-Brazilian) migratory system. In the same way that the Earth and the Moon form a single system; being “the two bodies united by a strong gravitational bond and affecting each other mutually”, the migrations (or would they be, in the macro-historical plan, transhumances?) between Brazil and Portugal cannot be understood without considering this systemic aspect of the relationship between the two peoples, their cultures, and their identities.
Mario Luis Grangeia's book provides us with the phenomenological resources necessary to understand the subject in its entirety and scope. His method, plural and modular, allows us to assemble the general image of this historical-subjective reality in segments that are at once autonomous and complementary. The result is a progressive puzzle that reveals itself, in the end, to be a complete work and offers a complete and intelligible landscape of the phenomenon.
Observation, conversation, testimony, discursive analysis, historiographical report or documentary archaeology, the panoramic approach adopted by him stands out for its accessibility, comprehensibility and breadth. It illuminates and highlights the various facets and levels of the object on display in an equal manner, without leaving blind spots or obscure regions; portraying everything from the material aspects of the economic, political and legal order to the dimensions of a symbolic nature such as cultural practices, social relations or the production of imaginaries related to this historical mobility.
However, the main difference in Mario Luis Grangeia's study is its narrative power, its inviting style and its precise enunciation, which make its reading not only pleasant, but above all a lively, affective and absolutely human subjective experience – like a warm fraternal hug.
*Mohammed ElHajji is a full professor at the School of Communication at UFRJ.
Reference
Mario Luis Grangeia. Brothers from overseas? Portuguese and immigration in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro, Ed. UFRJ, 2024, 192 pages. [https://amzn.to/4f93ASw]
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