Ramos, Artur (1903–1949)

Artur Ramos (Arthur Ramos; b. July 1903; d. 31 October 1949), Brazilian anthropologist, psychiatrist, and educator. Trained as a physician, Ramos first wrote psychiatric studies. In 1934 he moved to Rio de Janeiro to establish the psychiatric service of the Department of Education. That year he published O negro brasileiro, primarily a study of religion, and in 1935, O folk-lore negro do Brasil: Demopsychologia e psychanalyse, a study of dance, music, religion, and folktales. These studies explore psychoanalytical interpretations of Afro-Brazilian culture, but his later works emphasize processes of acculturation.

During World War II, Ramos's public career turned toward the application of anthropological research to antiracist propaganda. He founded the Brazilian Society of Anthropology and Ethnology in 1941 and became professor of anthropology at the Faculdade Nacional de Filosofia in Rio de Janeiro in 1946. Ramos died in 1949 while serving as director of the social science department of UNESCO in Paris, where he promoted the postwar UNESCO study of race relations.

See alsoAnthropology .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Artur Ramos, O negro brasileiro: Ethnographia, religiosa e psychanalyse … (1934), translated by Richard Pattee, under the title The Negro in Brazil (1939).

Marilu Gusmão, Artur Ramos: O homem e a obra (1974), a biographical sketch.

Thomas Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (1974).

Additional Bibliography

Barros, Luitgarde Oliveira Cavalcanti. Arthur Ramos e as dinâmicas sociais de seu tempo. Maceió: Universidade Federal de Alagoas, 2000.

Campos, Maria José. Arthur Ramos, luz e sombra na antropologia brasileira: Uma versão da democracia racial no Brasil nas décadas de 1930 e 1940. Rio de Janeiro: Edições Biblioteca Nacional, 2004.

Sapucaia, Antonio. Relembrando Arthur Ramos. Maceió: EDUFAL, 2003.

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