Rio de Janeiro

My research plans in Rio de Janeiro did not work out – all the materials were online. Tragic, I know. Once I realized this and noticed that my initial airbnb did not have air conditioning I switched to an airbnb in someone’s apartment just off the beach in Copacabana.

Praia de Copacabana, view from Café 18

Not going to libraries or archives allowed me to look at my archive notes and get caught up on some writing projects and grant proposals. I also went to an Apple Store where my ipad miraculously started charging again – so I bought a new apple charger – and then of course stopped working a few days later. (I can still charge it using the keyboard, and I have apple care, so I plan to deal with this once I return to the US and am at an address long enough to have one shipped to me).

My airbnb host was somewhat different than my host in Belo Horizonte. She was in her late 20s and a personal trainer. She and her partner had protein powder, and other things I’d seen in health food stores in the kitchen, and I got some real insight into Brazilian aesthetics. Even though she was quite different than my host earlier, got to learn about Brazilian culture and speak more Portuguese because I was sharing someone’s space. There were a couple of other rooms and mostly Brazilian guests from other parts of the country so I got to learn a bit about parts of Brazil I had not traveled to, which I really enjoyed.

I have to say I also liked being so close to the beach I could walk there, take a dip, and walk back. As a very pale person I cannot really stay on the beach that long – even though I was wearing long sleeves and shorts and thought about renting an umbrella. The sun was just too much. I could also walk along the mosaic “boardwalk” for several kilometers so I could appreciate the beach even while not swimming.

Ipanema. It’s a real place, not just a song!

I went to the two most famous attractions according to the internet, Cristo Redentor, where I could see Jesus’ feet, basically, and Pão de Açúcar, another lookout that was less crowded and had better views.

Christ the Redeemer statue. Incredibly crowded in spite of the lack of visibility

View from Pão de Açúcar

I am happy I didn’t over-exert myself by trying to do too many things – especially because this leaves more for future visits.

This Movie Lied to Me, or, Research in Minas Gerais

My biggest disappointment on this trip so far has been visiting a mine in Mariana, Minas Gerais, in Brazil. According to Brazil with Michael Palin, there’s a shrine to St Barbara in a mine in Minas Gerais. This mine, however, was not mentioned in any of the literature on miners’ religious practices. After going to several mines I realized where the documentary was filmed. I had already planned to visit the Mina de Passagem, and so one morning I took the bus for a visit.

Now, as an aside: when I travel I prefer to keep all my transportation options to subways/light rail because there are only so many places a train can go. If they are diverted, they still end up somewhere recognizable. Nowhere I visited in Minas Gerais (outside of the capitol, Belo Horizonte), has rail. So I took local and intercity buses. This is always a nerve-wracking experience – even though many bus routes are on the Moovit app – I never knew how much to pay, where the bus stops were, or if you could hail a bus when the bus stop is not clear. The inter-city buses, which I took to the mine and to the archive I mention in this article had a separate person to collect money and give change so at least my confusion with Brazilian transportation and currency was not slowing down other people too much.

I took a tour and when we arrived at the shrine, the guide said it was put there for tourists. I speak very rudimentary Portuguese but the guide elaborated, and said a lot of movies and telenovelas have been filmed there so I knew it was the right place. The documentary lied to me! That being said this mine had a shrine in it, which was interesting, and something does not have to be historically accurate to be worth investigating. If it did, I would have written far fewer articles and books and so would many other people.

Mine entrance, Mina de Passagem

Shrine to St. Barbara, Mina de Passagem

I also went to the archive at the Archdiocesan archive in Mariana, and looked at some documents, and the Casa dos Contos museum in Ouro Preto, to look at some more. The latter was more fruitful because I could take pictures and use my computer to take notes. My handwriting skills have really deteriorated so I can’t do it for that long.

View from the Igreja São Pedro, Mariana, where the Archdiocesan Archive is located

By far my favourite place to do research so far has been in the Archdiocesan archive in Diamantina, where I went after I left Ouro Preto. The archivist was actually a lawyer so I was skeptical but she explained that she had taken some additional workshops or courses and over the past couple of years had inventoried the majority of the collection, so when I explained my project she was really helpful! I also sadly could not take pictures of documents there but the other person in the archive was using his computer so I asked if I could use mine too, and thankfully I could. That is a place I would like to go back to to learn more about life in a mining region.

Nossa Senhora Aparecida, Patron Saint of Brazil, in the Archdiocesan Archive in Diamantina

Diamantina, Minas Gerais

After I left Ouro Preto, I spent a night in Belo Horizonte, and then took a bus to Diamantina. I took the bus, which was at least an hour longer than the website had suggested, perhaps because the bus kept picking up people at places that were not stops. The bus also took a 15 minute stop at a halfway point at a place that is much nicer than where they Greyhound between Toronto and Ottawa used to stop (the Log Cabin in Actinolite) I could buy hot food if I wanted, or snacks and water.

Most unusual statue of St Francis of Assisi, spotted from the bus

Upon arrival, I had to make a telephone call in Portuguese to my airbnb so that my host could let me in (it was a small apartment on the first floor of her house). That was an experience I would like to have one time. It became clear to me that while my airbnb was close to the center, it was also downhill from the center (80 m elevation in a 1 km walk to the grocery store that would take a credit card). It was also in an area without cobblestones so that was a real upgrade from both places I stayed in Ouro Preto.

Igreja da Consolação, Diamantina, right by my airbnb

Over the course of several days I visited the attractions, made sure that I could in fact visit the archive on the days where I had an appointment, bought some bright green pants that pilled after one wash, and got a yellow fever vaccine.

The main attractions were the cathedral (the only church open during the day for visitors and personal prayers) and the house of Chica da Silva, which temporarily housed the Diamond Museum. She is a really interesting historical figure. She was able to wield significant power in spite of her status as an enslaved woman and is a highly romanticized figure in popular culture. The museum did not explain her life in any way. It had some furniture and some really weird paintings and poems about her (seriously wikipedia is doing a better job) and then a bunch of religious art from the Diamond Museum. I saw that they have an archive so if I were to go back perhaps I would be able to visit it and ask the staff some questions.

Interesting juxtapositions, Casa Chica da Silva, Diamantina

I also booked a tour to the nearby state park. I happened to arrive at the travel agency at the same time as a retired couple who had been on my bus. This was handy because they had lived in the US so spoke English (our guide did not), and because it was a lot cheaper than a private tour. It looked so much like the mountains in upstate South Carolina and North Carolina that I felt like going camping!

The tour guide talked about the history of the region – how the Portuguese crown wanted to keep the Catholic Church out of the area because they wanted all the money from diamond mining for themselves, and how a priest in the 17th century had realized there were diamonds in the area because people were using them as part of a card game. I enjoyed the storytelling and, because it was in my wheelhouse of church/mining/archive/health center vocabulary, I was able to understand and ask a few questions.

The tour also took us to Vila Biri Biri, a company town started by a priest to bring investment and industry into the region after diamond mining ended. It is always interesting to see different ideas from different time periods about how to improve a region – and how fickle industry is – I am sure the owners of the factory for example became much, much wealthier than the people who worked there.

I enjoyed my visit and would like to go back.

Ouro Preto Tourism

My current research project came out of a pastime I enjoyed (hiking and camping in mountains) and I didn’t really think about my research as taking place primarily in mountainous areas but it’s not a bad side effect I have to say. 

There is a saying that if you do what you love you won’t work a day in your life, which I’ve seen updated as, no that’s not true you work all the time and can’t stop. 

Last summer I traveled around Europe and visited archives and libraries for fun so this might be correct. (I also visited archives in Madrid and Lisbon for work). 

At any rate, in Ouro Preto, Brazil, all the available tourism opportunities related to my research in some way – lots of mines, museums about religious art and churches and chapels. 

I visited three mines – there’s a ton a person could visit throughout the town – mines were primarily “artisanal” where an owner would become rich off the labor of enslaved and indentured African and African descendant miners. This leads me to believe there are a bunch of tunnels and vents around Ouro Preto and this is probably not the safest. 

I picked the first mine I visited because it was called Jejê which is how you type out laughter or “hehe” in Spanish. It also highlighted African expertise in mining and the influence of African miners in founding the town’s post secondary institutions (today part of public universities). I got a private lesson on the history of mining and how much money Portugal extracted from Brazil – portions of which were paid to England and the Vatican – and how much was estimated to have been traded in other markets- including by enslaved miners to give to the church to purchase their freedom.  I then got a personal mine tour. It started in front of an altar to “the elders” – I asked about this because I wasn’t sure if it was ancestors or older folks – and according to the guide it was to honour older Black people because so few Black people get to be old. It continued with a discussion of how mines were constructed without dynamite I told both of my tour guides that I spoke Spanish so they should speak slowly and this mostly worked. I learned a lot! 

Also took a tour of the Palacio D’Ouro, which I had seen from the bus to the archive in Mariana. Turns out that a local man decided to restore this house and eventually turn it into a museum. Even though this tour didn’t focus on the African contribution I was impressed with the space dedicated to discuss slavery and the way the guide shut down incorrect ideas about slavery – I don’t think Brazil lives up to its promise of racial democracy but compared to some places in the Southeastern us, it was a breath of fresh air. There was a beautiful chapel and the restoration was based on one man’s memories about what his father (an antique dealer) bought from and sold to previous owners throughout the 20th century – again this is “fake” -it’s a shrine near a mine – and like the oratorios in all the bedrooms and paintings of the Virgin Mary on the walls it’s presenting an idea about the past- that is better to consider in terms of how it came to be and what message it’s sending now than as an accurate representation of the past, whatever the heck that would even be! 

I was also there over Carnaval – and by staying on one of the parade routes, I got to see a lot more than I would have otherwise!

Pampulha, Belo Horizonte

I was in Belo Horizonte over one weekend and decided to visit Pampulha – an area planned as a resort for Belo Horizonte’s elites – which is now part of the city. There is a lake with a walking path, several museums, an amusement park, and the main football or soccer stadium. In 2023 it seems to be an area that local or regional tourists visit.

I took an Uber there and Uber sent me to somewhere that was very much not the St Francis of Assisi church and I was able to talk a bit with the driver and he took me where I wanted to go. I was also eventually able to make the app direct us to where he was already driving so he could earn whatever minimal amount the app pays drivers. Hurray for me learning Portuguese, less hurray for capitalism.

I saw two cool things there: the church designed by famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

I also saw a former home of the Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek who was outsted in a coup in 1964. I really enjoyed it for two reasons. First: mid century modern décor. Second: special exhibit of embroidery, primarily of Pampulha – the church I saw, as well as a famous art gallery and casino.

I people watched for a bit by the lake until I just about melted in the sun, and then returned to my airbnb.

Religion, Mining, and Money

I have been interested in the connection between religion and primary resource extraction for a number of years. In 2020, I found myself unable to go inside anywhere with anyone and so I took up visiting state parks. I have visited all of South Carolina’s 47 state parks and almost all of North Carolina’s.

Hunting Island State Park, South Carolina

I walked and hiked and drove through the South Carolina countryside and kept seeing lakes created by hydroelectric dams, and occasionally, signs that churches and cemeteries had been moved. I also camped and hiked outside of South Carolina. At one point I visited Camp Creek state park and forest in West Virginia and saw cemeteries, natural gas extraction and police target practice in a single hike. The next day I hiked at Hawk’s Nest state park and saw that the land had been donated by a coal company. Seemed like a repeated trend.

Me in a cable car at Hawk’s Nest State Park

Since I research Mexico, I began wondering if this trend continued outside of the US. It does. I began reading about different sites, and in ways that connected to previous research, on Mennonites and Mormons, in film, and in law, policy and bureaucracy.

I also thought it would be interesting to visit more places. So, I drafted a multi site proposal for an NEH summer grant in which I developed a hypothesis that religion was a tool for control in mines and also a way miners resist colonial and neocolonial power.

I continued this research by attending the American Academy of Religion, and teaching a class on the topic in the Spring semester of 2023.

I also wanted to fund my sabbatical so I applied for many grants. I was rejected from 8 of them. I got 3 from my institution. The Hagley library – which rejected my NEH application – gave me a small exploratory grant. So I decided to go there and then use the travel money plus an additional institutional fellowship to go to Mexico in the fall, and then to Brazil and Bolivia in the spring.

I have enjoyed my travel (as you will know if you have read my posts) and have continued applying for grants. I am pleased that my efforts have been more successful this time around. I have continued to do what I have done in the past – contact people who have previously won the grant for their research materials and try to apply to things that will actually relate to my research – which I often find out about in acknowledgments to books and articles, and sometimes on twitter.

One grant I saw on twitter was at the Marian Library at the University of Dayton. I’ll be going there in June to conduct research on the Virgin Mary – as most of the religious sites I’m interested in seem to be shrines to the Virgin Mary, it seems like a good idea to learn more about Marian devotion. We will see how that goes but there are enough materials that it would take an entire career to read all of them so I think it’ll be good!

Museu Inhotim

I visited the Museu Inhotim while I was in Belo Horizonte. Although it was in Brumadinho, 60 km away, it was worth the trip – the museum has an officially approved travel agency and it was easy to book the bus ride and entrance fee through them.

Inhotim began when former mining magnate Bernardo Paz became very wealthy from his business interests (and was convicted of money laundering – and then the charges were dismissed) and decided to found an art gallery. I was expecting it to be like the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, founded by an incredibly wealthy Mexican man, which has a lot of really expensive art organized in a way that shows more of the monetary rather than aesthetic value of the pieces. I also thought it might be like Storm King, in upstate New York, which has a bunch of outdoor pieces.

The Museu Inhotim is a bit like both of these things – it has outdoor art – and it also, crucially, has indoor art galleries that have air conditioning. There were more women artists than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise, and a mix of Brazilian and international artists.

Some of the exhibits were really weird. There was an outdoor pool that I think you could swim in, and a place where you could plant a plant (I declined both opportunities). There was also an opportunity to draw nature (I accepted this).

There was one exhibit where I was lucky enough to get a free timed ticket simply because I went to the gallery early in my meanderings, and got a timed entry ticket for a few hours later. I realized why I needed this ticket once I entered – it was an individual experience that lasted 2 or so minutes, and then a small group experience that lasted another few minutes.

There was another gallery where you had to take your shoes off to enter the gallery only to find a room with balloons, a room with hammocks and an indoor pool. Apparently that art was inspired by cocaine.

This museum was a nice reminder that it is not only rich people of the past who engaged in social projects – but that much like projects of the past (public libraries, for example) they are not always designed with the entire public in mind (implicitly and explicitly). Here anyone could theoretically enter but it’s not accessible by regular public transportation, only shuttles or else multiple buses + walking, and it is free one day a week that is not the weekend. Today it is run by a private foundation and heavily sponsored by the Vale mining company (who also sponsored the history and culture museum in Belo Horizonte) but honestly considering the amount of companies in the US who pay approximately nothing in taxes and whose social projects involve planning for end times that they could, say, prevent if they paid taxes at 1970 rates, it was a breath of fresh air.

Belo Horizonte

I flew from São Paulo to Belo Horizonte in late January. When I planned my trip, I imagined consulting public archives in Belo Horizonte. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, all of these documents were available online and so the archive said that I could look at them that way.

Partially because I didn’t have much to do research wise and partially seeking a place with better air circulation, I decided to change my Airbnb. I stayed in a middle-aged woman’s apartment, and had a great time. It was designed for air circulation, there was great wifi, and the room and living room had room to spread out papers and computer, etc. I got to practice speaking Portuguese with her – and she had traveled and knew some Spanish so knew how to speak more slowly and use words I’d understand more easily. She also told me the best way to get from the airport to the city by bus, and which grocery stores would have food I liked. She also had this beautiful cat – which, because of aforementioned air circulation, and the magic of Zyrtec, didn’t even bother me. She gave me some recommendations for sightseeing.

I visited a few of its many museums, primarily in the “Circuito de Liberdade,” in former state government buildings around a main plaza. I really wanted to visit a museum about Quilombos and Favelas but it was closed between Christmas and mid-February for Carnaval (a large part of school holidays). The Gerdau mining-company sponsored mining and metal museum – Museu de Minas y Metal – taught me a bit about mining techniques and the only picture of a person in the entire permanent display in the museum was a baby – showing the percentage of various minerals in their body. Very strange.

Memorial Minas Gerais Vale is sponsored by a different mining company presented exhibits on history and culture. Some rooms had enlarged state maps on the walls and I could see that nearly every town in the region was founded for mining – so that some people could get very rich off of other people’s work (and extra rich by enslaving people and when that was not possible, a system that is comprable to indentured servitude).

There was also an exhibit on popular celebrations, which are particular interest to me, because of African and African descendant ties to Our Lady of the Rosary – in Minas Gerais when mining started in the 17th century, the people who extracted minerals were Black, and this association was significant for that community (and still is today). Since the feast day for Our Lady of the Rosary is in October this was a way I could see someone’s idea of what the celebration looks like and what it means.

I visited some other places as well, but I’ll discuss those in another post. Overall I’m not sure I’d recommend Belo Horizonte as a tourist destination – because Brazil is such a large country I am sure a person could spend a year here doing nothing but tours – but I enjoyed it a lot.