Abstract:
This paper maps the contours of a new field in Brazilian historiography, the one devoted to the study of the African Diaspora in Brazil. Drawing from the research and debates on the slave trade and slavery, the field encompasses now its own theoretical and methodological questions, as historians try to single out the experience of African-born individuals across the middle passage and within Brazilian slave society. The paper discusses how historians have worked around the challenge presented by the problem of defining African identity in Brazil, and presents some of the recent published work dealing with labor, cultural practices and resistance, religion and individual biographies in the diaspora.
Key Words:
African Diaspora; historiography; slave trade