ABSTRACT
The Brazilian anthropological tradition is a long, sophisticated, and highly distinguished one. It focused in its early years almost entirely on the study of Brazil's indigenous peoples. Over the course of the 1960s, the '70s, and into the '80s, it has expanded its perspective to the full range of social and cultural life in contemporary Brazil. Writers such as Roberto Da Matta and Gilberta Velho linked the study of Brazilian society, in all its detail and diversity, to an increasing awareness of the importance of both gender and sexuality for a full understanding of Brazilian life (Da Matta, 1978, 1981, 1983a, 1983b; Velho, 1981, 1984). The emergence of feminist thought within Brazilian anthropology, in turn, has greatly extended this perspective through an increasing concern with reappropriating and understanding the lives and experiences of women within Brazilian society (Barros, 1981; Durham, 1980, 1983; Franchetto, Cavalcanti & Heilborn, 1981; Prado, 1981; Salem, 1981).
