Brazil

Greetings! Today I’m going to talk about Brazil and the world cup. I know Germany will win the cup; it is the best team ever!

But… I have big troubles with this world cup. Maybe if I explain to you, you will understand.

Brazil is the largest country in South America. Bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and bordered by all countries in this part of the American continent except for Chile and Ecuador. It is the world's largest Portuguese speaking country and it belonged to Portugal until its independence in 1822. It has an enormous population: 190 million people approximately and everyone knows how to play football soccer (just joking).

Politically, Brazil is a federal state, in fact, is a federal presidential representative democratic republic. And the head of government and of the state is the President. 2010 was elected the current president Dilma Roseuff.  However, Brazil was unable to solve their biggest problems related to delinquency, poverty, violence and corruption disrupting the quality of life of people who lives in slums, the famous “Favelas”. Also, the executive power was unable to control the economic crisis and all the problems about representation. In this controversial context, Brazil was chosen to host the World Cup in 2014 creating a lot of chaos, killings and protests thanks to the number of implemented measures that were catastrophic for the people and their lives, like tax hike for public transport, “cleaning people” in the favelas and destruction.  In my opinion, I have to admitted, I like a lot the world cup even thought is a big mafia by FIFA and contributes to the "bread and circuses" to keep people busy while important things are decided. Besides the major problems that affect most of countries thanks to neoliberalism are forget. For Brazil, it is very harmful and awful. It was the worst choice. People are suffering a lot and that destroy the essence of football soccer (also the existence of FIFA does it too and the fact that girls cannot play the world cup ¬¬).

That is all, hope you like it.

Goodbye!

Claude Lévi-Strauss

Greetings! Today I’m going to talk about one of the most famous anthropologist in the world: Claude Lévi-Strauss.  He is the father of structural anthropology and anthropology of kinship.

First I must say his theories are not my favourite ones but he deserves all the respect of the world, he had an amazing mind and his ideas provoked a big revolution in anthropology, especially in the field of mythology and kinship studies.

He born in 1908 in Brussels, Belgium but he grew up in Paris. First he studied law and philosophy but he only continued with the last one. He took part in a mission to Brazil and there he did his first ethnological investigation.  These experiences gave him the opportunity to do more researches in this field and a chance to prove his skills in a lot of complexes areas of the human being: Kinship structure, the savage mind, mythology, linguistics, etc. He thought that savages mind works in a rational way, despites of the prejudices of the occidental mind about the primitive stage of these cultures.  Also he said that all the myths in the world have the same structural function, in fact, all the myths can reduce in only one but it has different forms. Another famous theory is about kinship and the importance of the incest in the transition to the nature to culture stage.

He wrote a lot of books and he sets the principles of modern anthropology with his structural analyses and theories.  He died very young –sarcasm- with only 101 years in October of 2009.  I like him because his way to analyse all this things is very impressive, and when you read him (if you understand something! Is almost impossible comprehend what he is saying!) you can realize the significance of his work in social science.

That is all! Hope you like it! See you soon…

Goodbye!