Article by Professor Nubia Hanciau*
"Brazil-Canada Relations: 15 years of Canadian studies in our country"

2006 marks 80 years of formal diplomatic relations between Brazil and Canada and more than 60 years since the establishment of the Brazilian embassy in Canada and the Canadian embassy in Brazil. Major changes in the Canadian presence in Brazil and the importance of our country for Canada have taken place. In November 2004, Brazil received a visit from Prime Minister Paul Martin, which put the final seal on what, in the diplomatic world, is called "bilateral relations".

According to the Canadian Ambassador to Brazil, Guillermo Rishchynski, who recently visited our state, Rio Grande do Sul has good commercial relations with Canada, which are likely to grow, and "Brazil is an important partner with whom Canada has been cultivating a relationship for more than 100 years". Today, this North American country is seeking to raise the relationship to another level, to address the international challenges facing our two countries. For Brazil and Canada, the major bilateral challenge is mutual knowledge between two multicultural, multiethnic countries.

At the start of his career in Brazil in 1983, the diplomat had an opportunity to collaborate with the first Brazilian expedition in Antarctica. Twenty years after his first experience as Vice Consul in Rio de Janeiro, Ambassador Rishchynski was present at FURG University for the arrival of the group participating in the fifth flight of the 24th Antarctica support station expedition. He also visited the premises of ABECAN (Brazilian Association of Canadian Studies) and the NEC (Centre of Canadian Studies), which contains the most complete collection of Canadian books in Brazil, holding about 1,000 titles. According to the Ambassador, the visit recently made to Rio Grande was because FURG was home to ABECAN from 2004 to 2006 and because it has been the headquarters of NEC-FURG since 1999. Congratulating the leadership, which he described as "spectacular", he wanted to remind people that ABECAN's 8th International Congress took place in a spirit of multidisciplinary vision, in keeping with reflections of contemporary reality.

ABECAN's 8th Congress took place in November 2005, in the city of Gramado, on the theme Brazil-Canada: Visions, Landscapes and Perspectives, From the Arctic to the Antarctic. It brought together professors, researchers, writers and students from Brazil, Latin America and Europe, motivated by opportunities to enhance the relationship which exists between the two countries, promote scientific and academic exchanges and experience art and culture inspired by Brazilian culture in general and the culture of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in particular. The event was attended by over 400 participants, 67 from overseas, a significant number, particularly when we note that the number of ABECAN members has risen from 285 two years ago to 455 members today!

Founded in April 1991, the Brazilian Association of Canadian Studies has visited several capitals since then to follow the presidency. The itinerant headquarters was initially established at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC) in the state of Parana until 1995, before moving to Bahia State University. Rio Grande do Sul Federal University then welcomed the Association (1999-2001), under the presidency of Zilá Bernd, who took on the presidency of the International Council for Canadian Studies after her term of office. Minas Gerais Federal University (UFMG) was then home to ABECAN until April 2004, before it returned to the state of Rio Grande do Sul, on the coast this time, where it stayed until the month of its fifteenth anniversary, then was transferred to Bahia Federal University. Its location in Rio Grande, away from Brazil's major academic centres, is remarkable because it demonstrates not only the extent of Canadian studies in Brazil, but also the legitimacy and recognition of the academic work of the NECs (Centres of Canadian Studies), sixteen in number, which are distributed from North to South across the country.

Favouring a multidisciplinary approach, ABECAN covers many fields, as can be seen in its official journal, Interfaces Brasil/Canada, which contains articles written by professors from Brazilian, Canadian and foreign universities, highlighting the maturity of Canadian studies research in our country. During the 15 years of ABECAN's existence, there has been progress in the desire to promote a new profile and welcome the diversity of critical observation of interdisciplinary, cultural and scientific productions, from many fields of knowledge.

Now a full-fledged "teenager", ABECAN, in other words "Canadian studies in Brazil", is relying on the convergence of these factors to show their vitality and reveal how widely cultural and cross-disciplinary perspectives can reflect the great partnerships in society and target fields of excellence from Canada, a model-country in many sectors and one where the tradition of discussion prevails.

The symbol of ABECAN's 8th Congress, the sea swallow, a migratory bird which flies from Canada to Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, represents the crossing of borders and the discussion about national identities, so often present in Canadian studies. By adopting this approach, ABECAN is attracting increasing numbers of researchers who find, in the Association, significant affinities in the plurality of themes and subthemes tackled, reflecting the multiplicity of exchanges and geographic and symbolic movements and the legitimacy of movements from one location to another which now structure our vision of international solidarity networks, new technologies, sustainability, the media, management, the arts, languages, literature, etc.

* Nubia Hanciau was President of the Brazilian Association of Canadian Studies (ABECAN) from 2004 to 2006. A professor in the Master's program in the History of Literature at the Foundation of the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG), she has a doctorate in Comparative Literature from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. She represented Brazil at the International Association of Quebec Studies (IAQS) (1998-2000) and is the co-organizer of the publications L'Amérique Française: introduction à la culture québécoise (Ed. FURG, 1998), A América Francesa: introdução à cultura quebequense (id., ibid., 1999) and A voz da crítica canadense no feminino, (Ed. FURG, 2001). As a translator, she published A gaiola de ferro, by Anne Hébert (Ed. FURG, 2003). Her dissertation (Air Canada award 2004) was the basis for the book A feiticeira no imaginário ficcional das Américas (Ed. FURG, 2004), winner of the Pierre Savard Award 2005 and is considered to be one of the "30 notable books" in the field of Canadian studies in the last 30 years.