Bücher der Reihe Afro-Latin America

Behind the social and environmental destruction of modern palm oil production lies a long and complex history of landscapes, cultures, and economies linking Africa and its diaspora in the Atlantic World. Case Watkins traces palm oil from its prehistoric emergence in western Africa to biodiverse groves and cultures in Northeast Brazil, and finally the plantation monocultures plundering contemporary rainforest communities. Drawing on ethnography, landscape interpretation, archives, travelers' accounts, and geospatial analysis, Watkins examines human-environmental relations too often overlooked in histories and geographies of the African diaspora, and uncovers a range of formative contributions of people and ecologies of African descent to the societies and environments of the (post)colonial Americas. Bridging literatures on Black geographies, Afro-Brazilian and Atlantic studies, political ecology, and decolonial theory and praxis, this study connects diverse concepts and disciplines to analyze and appreciate the power, complexity, and potentials of Bahia's Afro-Brazilian palm oil economy.

Modernity in Black and White provides a groundbreaking account of modern art and modernism in Brazil. Departing from previous accounts, mostly restricted to the elite arenas of literature, fine art and architecture, the book situates cultural debates within the wider currents of Brazilian life. From the rise of the first favelas, in the 1890s and 1900s, to the creation of samba and modern carnival, over the 1910s and 1920s, and tracking the expansion of mass media and graphic design, into the 1930s and 1940s, it foregrounds aspects of urban popular culture that have been systematically overlooked. Against this backdrop, Cardoso provides a radical re-reading of Antropofagia and other modernist currents, locating them within a broader field of cultural modernization. Combining extensive research with close readings of a range of visual cultural production, the volume brings to light a vast archive of art and images, all but unknown outside Brazil.

Second-Class Daughters examines the lives of 'adoptive daughters' in Brazil: the marginalized informal domestic workers who live in slave-like conditions in the homes of their adoptive families. This powerful account will interest readers invested in the colonial legacies of slavery, as it questions standard ideas about love, family and freedom.

In nineteenth-century Santiago de Cuba, Afro-descendant peasants forged freedom and devised their own formative path to emancipation. Long before calls for national independence and emancipation in 1868, they wore down the institution of slavery through litigation and self-purchase. A rich, much-needed examination of Cuban history.

This book brings together key scholars writing on Brazilian slavery and abolition, emphasizing the profound impact it had on the social, political, and institutional history of modern Brazil. For the first time, English-language readers can access in one place arguments that have transformed the historiography of Brazilian slavery.

This new interpretation of the Brazilian anti-slavery narrative, placing Brazil within the global network of nineteenth-century abolitionist activism, uncovers the broad history of Brazilian anti-slavery activists and the trajectory of their work. The Last Abolition is a major contribution to scholarship on the ending of slavery in Brazil.

Interrogating the racial, cultural, and political foundations of Mexican nationality and the African Diaspora, Theodore W. Cohen reveals how Mexicans, African Americans, and Cubans have understood black identity in Mexico since the 1910 Revolution. This study provides crucial context for the position of Afro-Mexicans in today's society.

An engaging, innovative history of Brazil's black and indigenous people that redefines our understanding of slavery, citizenship, and national identity. This book focuses on the interconnected histories of black and indigenous people on Brazil's Atlantic frontier, and makes a case for the frontier as a key space that defined the boundaries and limitations of Brazilian citizenship.

Written for readers seeking an authoritative introduction to the field of Afro-Latin American studies, this book offers fourteen essays by leading scholars on such topics as black political thought, social movements, music, religion, and literature.

Written for readers seeking an authoritative introduction to the field of Afro-Latin American studies, this book offers fourteen essays by leading scholars on such topics as black political thought, social movements, music, religion, and literature.