316 /. Michael Turnerreflected in its director and staff, the majority with personal experience in
Portuguese-speaking African countries, and countries in southern Africa. The
centre has attempted to chronicle Brazil's developing relationship with Angola,
Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, and is receiving ample docu-
mentation and primary sources from these countries, including newspapers.
The centre has also been able to establish personal contacts with many of the
leaders of these new Portuguese-speaking countries and it has served in an
advisory capacity to Itamarati, the Brazilian diplomatic service, in helping to
define Brazil's evolving contacts and possibilities of exchange with these
countries.^16
Some attention has been given by the Rio centre to that city's Afro-
Brazilian population and it has sponsored some seminars which have allowed
Afro-Brazilians an opportunity for some self-analysis and group expression.
The major emphasis of the Rio centre is international relations within Africa
and between Brazil and the African continent. The centre is less culturally
oriented, less involved with anthropological and ethnic studies than CEAO in
Salvador. The course offerings in Rio are concerned with an analysis of con-
temporary African political ideology and strategies for economic development,
other courses tending to focus upon the problems of decolonization and neo-
colonialism and the role of international cartels and multinationals on the
African continent.^17 As described by its director, the major function of the
Rio centre is to disseminate information about Africa, serve as an essentially
neutral African information 'bank' to the Rio community; unfortunately
these functions at times have tended to compromise academic excellence as a
large part of the centre's time is devoted to a quasi-public-relations effort for
the continent. In an effort to redress this intellectual imbalance the centre is
inaugurating in November 1977 its own journal. The centre's plan for the
journal is to include scholarly research papers, primary African documents
and opinioned interpretations of contemporary African events all under one
cover.
While admittedly courting the Rio public, the centre's staff exhibits
a sound knowledge of Africa and a working experience of the continent; it
has set a difficult task for itself as it has taken a middle position between a base
popularization of a subject catering to a capricious public interest stoked only
by media coverage of Africa and those serious students of Africa who are
interested in analysing a continent of multi-cultures or attempting to under-
stand how their own country of Brazil fits into (or is attempting to fit itself
into) the overall African picture. The Rio centre because of these various
contradictions is recommended to the researcher with an interest in Brazil-
African relations, particularly in terms of international relations and political
science. It provides alternative sources of information and a balance to the data
provided by the Itamarati archives and the National Archive and Library,