Promoting an assessment of the Brazilian production of studies on the history of Africa is the aim of the seminar that runs from March 13th to 15th in the “Fausto Castilho” auditorium of the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) at Unicamp. The event “Africa, Margins and Oceans: Social History Perspectives”, organized by professors Lucilene Reginaldo (IFCH) and Roquinaldo Ferreira (University of Pennsylvania) and promoted by the Center for Research in the Social History of Culture (Cecult), brings together historians from various universities in the country and also in the United States, Angola and Portugal.
“Production on the history of Africa gained strength recently, starting in 2003, with the law [10.639] which made teaching African culture and Afro-Brazilian culture mandatory in primary and secondary schools, which ended up affecting also universities”, says professor Lucilene Reginaldo. “With the law, African history became a subject, often optional, but became mandatory in undergraduate history courses and has given an impressive boost to research since then.”
The Unicamp professor observes that Law 10.639/03 is based on a political position of the Brazilian government, at that time, of recognizing the demands of the black movement and the African origins of this important part of the population. “At the same time, it was a movement to get closer to the African continent, which meant, for example, funding research, something fundamental to leveraging it. It is a very interesting movement, because today, in 2019, we can say that Brazilian production already occupies an important position in the international production scenario. Work carried out in Brazil or by Brazilian researchers abroad has offered a unique contribution to the history of Africa.”
According to Lucilene, Brazilian historians have always focused, even before 2003, on two regions of Africa that have connections with Brazil: the western coast, mainly in the Gulf of Benin (which today corresponds to Nigeria), and Angola and Congo – states that became important for the configuration of the slave trade. “Researchers continue to be interested in these two regions, but from 2003 onwards the interest expanded beyond connections with Brazil, with now scholars from Sudan and South Africa. It is an effort to turn to Africa, in order to to better understand the dynamics of slavery in Brazil, so much so that many researchers migrated to that continent.”
Regarding the future of research conducted by African historians, the IFCH professor sees with apprehension the attacks directed at the human sciences in this new government, with jargon such as the “leftization of academia”. “History is particularly attacked by these groups: there is a great interest in establishing guidelines for society based on new interpretations of history, which the interpretation of our historians is not true. And the history of Africa is attacked even more, I think for two reasons: first, because it has links with debates on affirmative actions demanded by the black movement, such as presence at universities and on the political scene; the other is the rupture or disqualification of South-South relations, with the government favoring dialogues with northern countries and not with our Latin American or African partners.
Privileged space
Professor Roquinaldo Ferreira, who helped plan the seminar at IFCH, says that his research at the University of Pennsylvania concerns, above all, the relations between Central Africa (Angola and Congo) with the so-called Atlantic World. “Research has a lot to do with relations with Brazil and, more recently, with Cuba. Chronologically, they cover the period from the end of the 17th century to the 19th century, focusing on the issue of trafficking or the contacts that derive from the broader context of this slave trade. Unicamp, with its prominence and a History Department that has a history of production in the area, constitutes a privileged space to organize an event like this.”
Fernando Teixeira da Silva, director of Cecult, said that the seminar “Africa, Margins and Oceans: Perspectives on Social History”, following a tradition, will have its results published in the collection “Várias Histórias” (Editora da Unicamp), organized by professor Rodrigo Camargo de Godoi. On Thursday (14) the 20th anniversary of the collection will be celebrated, with the launch of the 46th book: “Medical priests: ancestral religiosities and contestation in southern Mozambique (c. 1927-1988)”, by Jacimara Souza Santana.
More information and schedule:
The seminar was funded by Capes and Fapesp.
