Parentela

Parentela, a term used to describe a large kinship group exceeding the boundaries of a patriarchal family or clan in rural Brazil. It includes not only consanguines and affines, bound through marriage, but also nonrelated dependents linked through godparentage, friendship, and adoption. Parentela is most commonly used to refer to political interest groups grounded in family-based clans of the Brazilian Northeast during the Second Empire (1840–1889) and First Republic (1889–1930). Patronage, government jobs, and subsidies flowed through these extended kinship networks. Parentela is also associated with Coronelismo of the First Republic, the oligarchic rule in the Brazilian interior by local bosses who held honorary titles in the National Guard.

See alsoFamily .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Billy Jaymes Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão of Inhamuns: The History of a Family and a Community in Northeastern Brazil, 1700–1930 (1972).

Victor Nunes Leal, Coronelismo, enxada e voto: O município e o regime representativo no Brasil, 2d ed. (1975).

Maria Isaura Pereira De Queiroz, O mandonismo local na vida política brasileira e outros ensaios (1976).

Linda Lewin, Politics and Parentela in Paraíba: A Case Study of Family-Based Oligarchy in Brazil (1987).

Additional Bibliography

Borges, Dain Edward. The Family in Bahia, Brazil, 1870–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992.

Zephyr, Frank. "Elite Families and Oligarchic Politics on the Brazilian Frontier: Mato Grosso, 1889–1937." Latin American Research Review. 36:1 (2001): 49-74.

                                    Judy Bieber Freitas