Brazil is a vast country in South America that has experienced extreme wealth and income disparities since its independence in 1822. The uneven income distribution, combined with several other factors, is what accounts for millions of civilians living in impoverished conditions. The Northeast is the country’s most afflicted region, with an estimated 58% of the population living in poverty and earing less than $2 a day. The systemic inequality as well as lack of development and modernization has generated chronic poverty that has had detrimental effects on society in northeast and ultimately weakens Brazil.
The Northeast Region of Brazil includes nine of the country's 23 states: Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Piauí, Rio
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Anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes’ book, Death Without Weeping, is an account of her time spent in the northeast of Brazil between 1982 and 1989. Death Without Weeping analyzes the sufferings and recorded the lives of mothers and daughters, while examining the relationship between chronic child loss and poverty. While observing the perpetual famine and poverty in the northeast, Scheper-Hughes states, “The hunger of the zona da mata is constant and chronic, not much changed over the twenty-five-year period that I have known the region. It is the hunger of those who eat every day but of insufficient quantity, or of an inferior quality, or an impoverished variety, which leaves them dissatisfied and hungry. By contrast, the hunger of the drought-plagued serato, the backlands and the badlands of Pernambuco, is cyclical, acute, and explosive. It descends ruthlessly on people who are generally energetic, self-sufficient, and well nourished”. Scheper-Hughes spent 7 years in northeast Brazil, studying and analyzing the effects of the severely impoverished community, specifically mothers and their malnourished children. The ceaseless poverty in the northeast has had, and continues to have, damaging effects on communities and
Miller, Theresa. "Join Academia.edu & Share Your Research with the World." Hunger, Gender, and Social Assistance in the Canela Indigenous Society of Northeast Brazil. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2014. .
As far back as Rigoberta Manchu can remember, her life has been divided between the highlands of Guatemala and the low country plantations called the fincas. Routinely, Rigoberta and her family spent eight months working here under extremely poor conditions, for rich Guatemalans of Spanish descent. Starvation malnutrition and child death were common occurrence here; rape and murder were not unfamiliar too. Rigoberta and her family worked just as hard when they resided in their own village for a few months every year. However, when residing here, Rigoberta’s life was centered on the rituals and traditions of her community, many of which gave thanks to the natural world. When working in the fincas, she and her people struggled to survive, living at the mercy of wealthy landowners in an overcrowded, miserable environment. By the time Rigoberta was eight years old she was hard working and ...
In the favela of São Paulo, Brazil, 1958, Carolina Maria de Jesus rewrote the words of a famous poet, “In this era it is necessary to say: ‘Cry, child. Life is bitter,’” (de Jesus 27). Her sentiments reflected the cruel truth of the favelas, the location where the city’s impoverished inhabited small shacks. Because of housing developments, poor families were pushed to the outskirts of the city into shanty towns. Within the favelas, the infant mortality rate was high, there was no indoor plumbing or electricity, drug lords were governing forces, drug addiction was rampant, and people were starving to death. Child of the Dark, a diary written by Carolina Maria de Jesus from 1955 to 1960, provides a unique view from inside Brazil’s favelas, discussing the perceptions of good
There is an extreme social gap in Brazil between the lower and upper classes involving salaries, economic resources, access to health care, and disease rates. Many of the lower socioeconomic populations are located in the North, Northeast regions of the country where unemployment rates are high. Nearly half of the workers in the Northeastern region earn less than the minimum wage, compared to four-fifths of the Southeastern workers earning more than five times the minimum wage (Martins & Momsen n.d.). The Central Intelligence Agency estimated that 21.4% of Brazilians are below the poverty level, and 4% fall into the extreme poverty level. On a more positive note, in the past 10 years, 33 million Brazilians rose above the poverty level with
Tragedy in someone’s past can affect their entire life. The loss of a sibling, especially one with a violent demise, can cause physical disabilities, unhealthy obsessions, emotional tolls, and strained relationships. There are many works of literature that use the death and its effects to show character development and to deepen the plot. In Beloved, a novel written by Toni Morrison that shows how slavery has negatively impacted the lives of former slaves, Denver is affected by Beloved’s tragic death in many ways: physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Case Study about Death and Dying Among all the other unpredictable things in life, the topic of death and dying is the most difficult subject for people to honestly and openly discuss. Several theorists believe that people in general fear death and that fear directly affects everything people do (Kastenbaum, 2000). Nurses meet so many people with unfamiliar cultures and beliefs about death and dying. Therefore, awareness and sensitivity of ones’ culture as well as good ethical decision making are inevitable in rendering respectful and seamless care to patients and families going through such tragedy. Consequently, this student will ethically analyze the topic death and dying in this case study pertaining to the dissimilarity in the Christian and Buddhist faith in relation to George's incurable disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, known as ALS.
Brazil is located in Eastern South America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It is slightly smaller than the U.S., with bordering countries Argentina, Bolivia, Columbia, French Guyana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. It has many natural resources, including bauxite, gold, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates, platinum, tin, uranium, petroleum, hydropower, and timber. The climate is tropical in the north, but temperate in the south. The terrain consists of mostly flat to rolling lowlands, with some plains, hills, mountains, and a narrow coastal belt. In recent years, environmentalists have become increasingly concerned over the future of the Amazon region, where human life has threatened the world's largest intact rain forest. Brasilia is the capital and main source of modern industry.
Life and death are dualities. These two immaterial forces culminate into a beautiful and tenuous composition creating an awareness of abject mortality that indirectly contributes to the breadth and depth of human existence. This existence or being is marked by an incessant love of life, influenced by the pervasive knowledge of eventual death. The characters in Mrs. Dalloway endeavor to grasp the meaning of both life and death through the act of resistance and/or acceptance of the impermanence of human existence as it relates to them personally and to those around them. Nietzsche’s interpretation of the themes of life
Instead, Farmer separates the book into two parts; case studies and then analysis. He utilizes the first part of his book to share vivid case studies showing how the sicknesses of the poor and marginalized are an embodiment of structural violence. To Farmer, structural violence is defined as suffering that is “structured by historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces that conspire – whether through routine, ritual, or, as is more commonly the case, the hard surfaces of life – to constrain agency” (2005, 40). In Haiti and Chiapas, the breakdown of subsistence living and the problems of landlessness are connected to relocation and infrastructure-building projects of governments and corporations. The displaced farmers are forced to live on infertile land, and thus starvation, malnutrition and social problems create multiple avenues to poverty.
John F. Kennedy once said, “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.” This quote shows that we can solve cases of poverty, like the one in “Flavio’s Home” by Gordon Parks. Flavio is a youthful boy who is living in severe poverty, in the unsanitary slums of Rio de Janeiro. Flavio had many roles to play; he had to take care of the younger children and give them water and food while his parents were at work. There is an answer to solving poverty in Brazil. The Brazilian president created the Bolsa Familia program; not only can they stop poverty rates in Brazil, but they can develop similar programs like America.
Poverty is prevalent in Brazil 40% of the county’s income goes to the top 10% of financially richest people where only about 1% of the income goes to the bottom 10%(1) about 35% of Brazil’s population lives in poverty(19). Since women
Then we can tie in how poverty has an effect on the education and perhaps how the education effects the poverty. One of the many reasons for the poverty in Brazil can be directed to the distribution of wealth in the country. Just by looking at the cities in Brazil, we can see the clear difference of wealth just looking at the slums in Brazil known as “Favelas”. In fact, according to Brazil.org “The richest 10% of people in Brazil have access to over 40% of the country’s income. On the other hand, the poorest 10% receive about 1% of the income.” We see that like the education system in Brazil, where there is a visible inequality in education, there are similar characteristics with the distribution of wealth. The policy that really tied education and poverty together would be the Bolsa Familia program, which was brought together by former President Lula da Silva. Daniel Hellinger explains Bolsa Familia as “Under this program, poor families are subsidized if and only if their children are attending school and have been attending school” (Hellinger p. 325). Essentially the poor families would receive a transfer of cash or some benefit that would promote long-term improvements to the poverty. This program did reduce the poverty for a long period, however in my opinion I believe the Bolsa Familia program has
However, agriculture is, either directly or indirectly of the Brazilian labor force. Five million agricultural workers are wage earners focused in the plantations of the North and South. In addition, seventory percent of these earners lack formal agreements and benefits and less than forty percent are employed throughout the year (Brazil Economy, 2015). There are also 4.8 million families who survive as tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and casual laborers. In the last decades of the twentieth century, growing systematization, and domination of the best farmlands by commerce has hastened the dislocation of small family-owned farms.
In Plato’s Apology Socrates’ was on trial for corrupting the youth and for spreading atheism. Socrates defended himself in the trial saying that he was just performing a service to the god that complimented him saying that he was wiser than anyone else. Ultimately this defense did not work, therefore he lost the trial. He was sentenced to death. Most people would be sad, scared, or distraught over this sentencing, but not Socrates. He didn’t view death as a bad thing, he almost welcomed death. Socrates welcomes death in a different way than Christians. Indeed people should welcome death, but not the way Socrates did. People should welcome death the way that Christians do, the right way. I believe that the Christians have the correct view of death, and that Socrates view of death is flawed. Socrates says that we should believe that death is the biggest blessing to man. He also says that we should not fear what we do not know. I find that hard to believe because I believe that the opposite to be true as well.
Einarsdottir, J. (2004). Tired of Weeping: Mother Love, Child Death, and Poverty in Guinea-Bissau. Madison: The University of Wissconsion Press.