Race and the Politics of Knowledge Production : Diaspora and Black Transnational Scholarship in the United States and Brazil

We express our deepest gratitude to those in Brazil and the United States who have welcomed transnational researchers into their friendship networks, research teams, and community organizations. We also thank those who contributed to this edited book in order to share their experiences and insights. There are many transnational researchers whose contributions are not included in this book, but they comprise a growing network of black diasporic scholars whose work and personal politics are invested in promoting critical conversations about transnational research. Of the many organizations that have supported the coeditors' transnational research, we would like to recognize the Instituto Cultural Steve Biko, Brazil Cultural, the Federal University of Bahia, and the State University of Feira de Santana. The supportive scholars and activists in Brazil who have been critical to our work are numerous. While we cannot name them all here, we would like to recognize Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: In Pursuit of Du Bois’s “Second-Sight” through Diasporic Dialogues....Pages 1-11 Front Matter....Pages 13-13 Black Women’s Studies in the United States and Brazil: The Transnational Politics of Knowledge Production....Pages 15-25 The Genesis of the Race and Democracy in the Americas Project: The Project and Beyond....Pages 27-39 Brokering Black Brazil or Fostering Global Citizenship? Global Engagement that Empowers Black Brazilian Communities....Pages 41-57 Didn’t Your Parents Like You?....Pages 59-74 Front Matter....Pages 75-75 A (Black) American Trapped in a (“Nonblack”) Brazilian Body: Reflections on Navigating Multiple Identities in International Fieldwork....Pages 77-89 Guess Who’s Coming to Research? Reflections on Race, Class, Gender, and Power in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil....Pages 91-97 But You (Don’t) Look Like an African American: African Diaspora Looking Relations between Brazil and the United States....Pages 99-111 Changing Notions of Blackness in Field Research in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil....Pages 113-122 An African/Nigerian-American Studying Black-White Couples in Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro....Pages 123-138 Front Matter....Pages 139-139 Living the African American Way of Life—Impressions and Disillusions of an Afro-Brazilian Woman in the United States....Pages 141-154 Increasing Resilience to Face Diversity: Race in Academic and Social Environments from Salvador to Los Angeles....Pages 155-165 Far Beyond “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”: Impressions from an Afro-Latina Filmmaker and Activist in Philadelphia....Pages 167-178 Conclusion: Toward a Future African Diasporic Approach to Research Diaspora....Pages 179-187 Back Matter....Pages 189-226 In this co-edited volume, Gladys L. Mitchell-Walthour and Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman have invited contributors of African descent from the United States and Brazil to reflect on their multidimensional experiences in the field as researchers, collaborators, and allies to communities of color. Contributors promote an interdisciplinary perspective, as they represent the fields of sociology, political science, anthropology, and the humanities. They engage W.E.B. Du Bois' notion of 'second-sight,' which suggests that the unique positionality of Black researchers might provide them with advantages in their empirical observations and knowledge production. They expose the complex and contradictory efforts, discourses, and performances that Black researchers must use to implement and develop their community-centered research agenda. They illustrate that 'second-sight' is not inevitable but must be worked at and is sometimes not achieved in certain research and cultural contexts. Contributors of African descent from the United States and Brazil reflect on their multidimensional experiences in the field as researchers, collaborators, and allies to communities of color. They expose the complex and contradictory strategies that Black researchers must use to implement and develop their community-centered research agenda