Patricia Pinho

My research and teaching interests focus on the themes of blackness, identities, and racism as well as forms of resistance to racism. My book, Reinvenções da África na Bahia , was published by Editora Annablume in 2004. The book received an Honorary Award from LASA’s Premio IberoAmericano “for the outstanding book on Latin America in the Social Sciences and the Humanities in Spanish or Portuguese,” in 2006. A revised and updated English edition will be published by Duke University Press in 2007. Employing theories of Cultural Studies and Sociology, my book traces the way in which Africa has been imagined and reinvented by Afro-Bahian cultural groups, functioning, on the one hand, as an inspiring reference for the construction of cultural and political black identities, but serving, on the other hand, to freeze blackness in static icons that are manipulated by the local Government, the consumer market, and the tourism industry. My current research focuses on African-American roots tourism to Brazil , looking at how it affects transnational black relations and shapes the position of Brazil in the Black Atlantic world. Before joining the Department of Latin American, Caribbean and US Latino Studies, I was a visiting lecturer at Yale University , and a Mellon fellow in the Department of Black Studies in Amherst College . I have a PhD in Social Sciences from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas – UNICAMP.

My recent publications include:

“African-American Roots Tourism in Brazil .” Latin American Perspectives, especial issue on tourism, edited by Tamar Diana Wilson, forthcoming.

“Afro-Aesthetics in Brazil .” Nuttall, Sarah (editor), Beautiful/Ugly: African and Diaspora Aesthetics, Duke University Press, 2006.

“Gilberto Freyre e a Baianidade.” McNee, Malcolm & Lund, Joshua (editors), Gilberto Freyre e os Estudos Latinoamericanos, Pittsburgh, Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 2006.

“Descentrando os Estados Unidos nos Estudos Sobre Negritude no Brasil.” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, nº 59, São Paulo, October 2005.

“Comment Trouver l’Afrique a Bahia en suivant les ethno-touristes Afro-Americains ”, Cahiers du Brésil Contemporain, n.49-50, Paris, 2002.