In recent weeks I have participated in two academic events dominated by bleak appraisals of the conduct of government by Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Participants not only offered strong critiques of the negative social, political, geopolitical, and environmental implications of the government’s actions to date and plans for the future, but also expressed considerable concern about the sheer ineptitude of the President and the nature of his ministerial team, which combines a number former soldiers without precedent since the return of democracy with civilian figures whose ideological postures have already created disquiet, not only in Brazil but in Europe as well.

The first of these events was a conference in London designed to celebrate the achievements of Brazilian anthropologists and find out what British anthropologists could do to help our colleagues in the National Museum following its destruction by fire in September last year. Organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute…