A South-South Dialogue: A Sociological Reflection on Relations between New Zealand and Brazil

Abstract

Historians have reconstructed various links, whether empirical or theoretical, between the settler societies of Latin America and Oceania. Between 1787 and 1856 over 800 British boats stopped in Rio de Janeiro on their way to the South Pacific, especially to Australia and New Zealand.1 On board were the explorers, scientific expeditions, convicts, immigrants, artists and preachers who came to forge new societies and supply images of a world with vast new frontiers. The earliest exports from Brazil were tobacco, sugar-cane, alcohol, coffee and sugar. Plants and animals were transferred in both directions across the Pacific. Contacts waned after changes in maritime technology and the building of the Panama Canal.

In the words of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a sociologist and then senator for São Paulo state, the development of the trans-polar air-routes subsequent to the Malvinas war can be seen as a pivotal point for a new period of ‘South-South dialogue’. The main section of this paper will analyze this ‘South-South dialogue’ from the viewpoint of contemporary globalization. I will employ Michel Wieviorka’s classification that emphasizes three distinct dimensions to globalization: economic, cultural and supra-national organization to analyze relations between Brazil and New Zealand from 2001 to the present day. We will see the building of a range of new South-South dialogues as the forces of globalization play their unexpected and surprising hand. In concluding, I speculate about the future and reflect briefly upon two events that resulted in the projection of New Zealand in the Brazilian media.