Writer, geographer and former development professional who has lived in Brazil for 26 years. Former directorate member of the Fórum Nacional de Reforma Urbana (National Urban Reform Forum). Has lived in São Luis, Recife, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Author of “Os Megaeventos Esportivos na Cidade do Rio de Janeiro e o Direito á Cidade” (CEPR: Porto Alegre. 2016). Editor of "Voices of the Brazilian Left" (Sumare: São Paulo. 2018). Editor of "Year of Lead: Washington, Wall Street and the New Imperialism in Brazil" ((Sumare: São Paulo. 2019) Irregular correspondent for the Chicago radio show This is Hell.
By Brasil Wire Contributing Editor Brian Mier. During the 1960s, legend has it that governor José Sarney sat down at a table with a group of cattle-ranching cronies and aerial photographs of Maranhão state, in Northeastern Brazil. They marked boundaries on the photos with pencil and divided up the […]
By Brian Mier. The political situation in Brazil is getting confusing, even for people who study it. To summarise recent events, in April the organized left held the largest general strike in Latin America this Century, demanding for a halt to the austerity reforms and for illegitimate president Michel Temer’s immediate resignation. On May 24, […]
After giving former Congressional President Eduardo Cunha months of advance warning which enabled him to hide millions of dollars of bribe money before his arrest in 2016, and repeatedly refusing to admit evidence that would enable him to arrest PSDB party leader Aécio Neves and illegitimate president Michel Temer, Sergio Moro, acting as both prosecutor […]
During illegitimate, corrupt president Michel Temer’s attempt to implement an unnecessary extreme austerity regime that plunged millions of people below the poverty line and caused the UN to warn that Brazil may return to the World Hunger map, one of the most under-covered stories is the organized left’s efforts to resist the state of exception. […]
by Brian Mier. On the night of May 23, I joined a group of activists from the Central de Movimentos Populares (CMP) social movement for the 16 hour bus ride from São Paulo to Brasilia. The trip was coordinated as a bus caravan and as we stopped for dinner along the way it became apparent […]
Luiz Gonzaga Gegê da Silva is a historic figure on the Brazilian left. A member of the MR-8 resistance movement during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, he spent time behind bars as a political prisoner and later became a founding member of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party, PT), running for national party […]
By Brian Mier. During my 22 years in Brazil I’ve gotten used to gringos moving down here who, before taking the time to understand how things work, begin immediately bad mouthing the entire country based on local observations about the neighborhood or city they live in, which is usually somewhere in Rio de Janeiro’s South […]
Original version of article at COHA. Reproduced with permission. This interview was originally conducted in Portuguese, and translated by the author. Erminia Maricato is one of Brazil’s most renowned urban planners. In addition to having published 11 books and contributed nearly 40 book chapters, her lectures, often in public forums and protests, regularly draw large […]
Originally written for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs’ Brazil Unit This interview was originally made in Portuguese, and translated by the author. To download a PDF version of this article, click here. On March 15, an estimated one million Brazilians took to the streets in cities across the country to protest unelected president Michel Temer’s proposed […]
On January 6, 2017, the traditional Folia dos Reis festival was declared historic cultural patrimony by the Minas Gerais state government. According to their research, the city with the most number of Folia dos Reis is Uberaba, with 106 separate annual festivals. Folia dos Reis is an ostensibly Catholic festival that celebrates the Three Kings, […]