The Internationalization of Black Culture. A Comparison of Lower-class Youth in Brazil and the Netherlands

Abstract

In trying to determine whether culture makes a difference, researchers usually compare different ethnic groups in the same society. In that way they try to keep external conditions constant by choosing groups that have similar class backgrounds and that entered the society at roughly the same time. This approach has been taken by several contributors to this volume. In my contribution, however, I look at the ‘same’ group — or rather, two groups that can be considered similar in many respects — in two different countries and try to understand their similarities and differences. A key question is how similarities should be explained and to what degree culture is a viable indicator for interpreting them. The two groups I have chosen to compare are the ‘black’ populations of two countries, Brazil and the Netherlands. Obviously what is ‘black’ in one context or country may be ’brown’ or even ‘white’ in another. By ‘black’ I understand here the people who, in some specific context, see themselves and are seen by outsiders as being of African or partly African descent. Hence, I am not exactly comparing the same ethnic group in two situations. I am comparing people that either identify themselves as ‘black’ or have been constructed as such in two societies.