GLOBAL POLICY IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: RACIAL DIVERSITY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN BRAZILIAN ENTERPRISES A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Rocío Alonso Lorenzo August 2007 © 2007 Rocío Alonso Lorenzo GLOBAL POLICY IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: RACIAL DIVERSITY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN BRAZILIAN ENTERPRISES Rocío Alonso Lorenzo, Ph.D. Cornell University 2007 The goal of this dissertation is to examine the possibility that diversity and affirmative action policies serve to open up the private sector to the Afro-Brazilian population. The dissertation approaches global diversity and affirmative action policies from an anthropological perspective that takes into account the U.S.-Brazil exceptionalisms in race relations—the idea that Brazil is no longer a “racial paradise,” in contrast the U.S. “racial hell,” and that therefore Brazilian institutions should learn from the U.S. racial experience—on the one hand, and how transnational corporations, mainly U.S. based, export their diversity and affirmative action policies to their Brazilian subsidiaries, on the other hand. A combination of global ethnography and interpretive policy analysis is used to document how managers, consultants, and activists implement these policies in a network of private enterprises located in São Paulo. Global ethnography is concerned with the study of global forces as contingent and not assumed forces, “embedded themselves in a multi-sited context” (Marcus 1995; Burawoy 2000) and with how the “transnational social”—private social spheres that are less structured than the public institutionalized spheres and that, as such, offer more opportunities, albeit limited, to excluded “subaltern publics”—gets articulated. Interpretive policy analysis (Yanow 2000) is a situation-grounded approach that explores the contrasts between the policy meanings as intended by different “policy-relevant groups.” The ethnographic research based on participant observation, documentary research, and the study of group dynamics and in-site interviews with managers, consultants, and activists across a network of business enterprises over a period of two years, from July 2003 through July 2005. The study concludes that the voluntary nature and fragmented character of the actions and the limited authority that the managers implementing the policies have, particularly when the policies are disseminated as mimetic practices or management fads, very much limit the possibilities that diversity and affirmative action policies will result in significant socio- economic openings for black people in Brazil. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Rocío Alonso Lorenzo received a SM in Anthropology from Cornell University in 2002 after having received a BA in 1996 in Spain in Geography and History from Seville University with a specialty in Social Anthropology. Since then, her participation in subsequent ethnographic projects has given her ample experience in developing relationships and using participatory methodologies for social research. From 1996 to 1997, she conducted multi-sited research in seven small communities in Minas de Rio Tinto, southwest Spain, with the goal of observing the organizational and cultural changes from within a mining company, including its shift from a multinational company to a cooperative one. She has also worked as a local development agent in Spain and as a workshop coordinator in business and social responsibility in Brazil. In 1998, she spent one year as a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. As a Ph.D. student at Cornell University, she has received several grants and fellowships. She carried out her dissertation field research in São Paulo, Brazil between 2003 and 2005. Rocio’s research interests include race and gender relations, action research and applied anthropology, interpretive policy analysis and organizational culture, qualitative research methodologies, global diversity- management, and business and social responsibility. Currently, she is settled in São Paulo. ii i To my parents, Enrique and Emilia, both gave me support and encouragement To my husband, André, who always inspires me To my son, Henrique, who was born during the time in which I wrote my dissertation iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My greatest thanks go to Davydd Greenwood, my dissertation committee chair for his intellectual and personal support, inspiration, and friendship throughout the whole Ph.D. program and the writing of this thesis. His broad knowledge on the history of the social sciences and his accurate and careful way of linking theory with methodology according to the action research philosophy have been invaluable gifts in my trajectory as both graduate student and social researcher. In the writing of the thesis, I have particularly benefited from his constructive criticism that he has always demonstrated by providing perspective and insightful comments as well as his capacity to see the dissertation project beyond the writing stages. I must thank, too, Professor Javier Escalera Reyes from Seville University in Spain for first encouraging me to do graduate coursework at Cornell University. At Cornell, Professors Vilma Santiago-Irizarry and John Forester offered guidance and support as thesis committee members. Vilma Santiago, in particular, introduced me to the literature on race theory in the United States and Latin America. Thanks to John Forester, I got acquainted with the intellectual debate on interpretive policy analysis. At Cornell, Mary Roldan’s profound knowledge on the history of Latin America proved an invaluable guide to my understanding of Brazilian particularities. Maria Cook encouraged my interest in Brazilian workplaces. Several encounters with William Goldsmith contributed to deepening my knowledge of Brazilian politics. Discussions of and comments on various sections of the manuscript by Jan Katz from the Johnson Graduate School of Management helped me to sharpen my perception of global business and the corporate world. I must also thank John Burdick for his kindness in receiving me in the Department of Anthropology at Syracuse University. My encounter with him, though short, was of great value, especially relevant to having a critical eye for my research proposal. v In São Paulo, I owe thanks to Kabengele Munanga for assisting me in getting a research visa and for allowing me to attend his course on race relations at the University of São Paulo. Guillermo Ruben invited me to be a part of the research team he coordinates at Unicamp University. The group provided an intellectual community within which to discuss theoretical ideas on the anthropology of organizations. Most importantly, I would like to thank the Ethos Institute for Business and Social Responsibility for giving me the opportunity to work with them as a volunteer during the field research. Their generosity in providing innumerable contacts with a wide range of enterprises in São Paulo and their professional support were invaluable contributions to my ethnographic research project. I certainly cannot leave out the people, mostly managers, consultants, and activists, that contributed to the field research by sharing with me their experiences working with diversity and affirmative action programs in the Brazilian corporate world. There are too many to be named here. Very specially, Helio Santos, a tireless professor and activist, really inspired me with his enormous courage in pushing the racial discrimination issue in Brazilian enterprises. Several institutions supplied funding at various stages of my Ph.D. The Department of Anthropology at Cornell awarded a Sage Fellowship which covered two years on campus. My field research would have been impossible without the generous financial support of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, enabling me to spend two years in Brazil. A first visit to Brazil was possible thanks to a Cornell Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies Travel Grant. Last, but certainly not least, I am very thankful for the moral support of my parents in Spain. Particularly, I am in debt to my husband, André, for accompanying and encouraging me during the entire Ph.D. program. v i TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iii Dedications iv Acknowledgements v List of Figures viii List of Tables ix List of Abbreviations x Introduction 1 PART ONE: Tracking the Legacies of Slavery Chapter 1: Second Abolition 20 Chapter 2: Racial Inequality versus Racial Democracy 35 Chapter 3: The Brazilian Public Policy Debate on Diversity and Affirmative Action 61 PART TWO: Ethnographizing Policy and Management Systems Chapter 4: Understanding Business and Social Responsibility Networks 79 Chapter 5: Global Diversity-Management 98 Chapter 6: Geração XXI 126 Chapter 7: Integrare 139 PART THREE: Conclusions Chapter 8: Assessing as Global Policy Diversity and Affirmative Action Policies 149 Bibliography 165 vii LIST OF FIGURES 4.3. Diagram: The transnational corporation / the multinational corporation 94 4.4. The Ethos Institute Indicators auditing process 116 viii