Racial Identity, Development, and Foreign Relations in the Atlantic World, 1950-1980

FAIN: FB-51735-05

Jerry Davila
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Charlotte, NC 28223-0001)

By examining the influence of racial values over Brazilian foreign policy, this project aims to understand the ways cold war pressures and developmentalist strategies were interpreted locally in Brazil through a myth of racial democracy which concealed social inequality and celebrated a purported racial harmony. This project contributes new understanding of the African Diaspora by examining post-slavery links within the Atlantic world. It will rely upon archival historical research and oral history to deconstruct the ways in which policymakers and intellectuals involved in Brazil’s approachment toward Africa applied the meanings that racial identity held for them.