322 /. Michael TurnerLegón, as there is a definite interest on the part of some of its staff in Latin
America, specifically Brazil.^38 Ghana is not usually considered a traditional
area of Brazilian historical influence but the country proved to be an inter-
esting source, one requiring more than the limited research time available
to the writer. As a recipient of current Brazilian economic and diplomatic
influence and interest, Ghana along with Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Gabon and to
a lesser extent Senegal and Zaire constitute the Black African focus of Brazilian
approximation towards Africa, as distinct from Brazil's special (if indeed it
could be called special) relationship with Portuguese-speaking Africa.^37 What
is needed is research on the African reactions to this diplomatic initiative, as
seen distinctly from the African side.
Newspapers published by the Brazilian-Africans themselves also provide
an excellent source for studying social and cultural history. This is particu-
larly true in francophone Africa during the period 1920-40 with the Dahoman
newspapers.^38 While some of the collection can be found among the families
themselves and in the Benin archives, the most significant holdings are in the
Versailles deposit of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The Afro-Brazilians
are the editors-in-chief, the reporters, and are engaged in discussing events of
interest to their specific community, at that time attempting to achieve vertical
social mobility and class ascendency, envisioning for itself a kind of lateral
group identity, an intermediary position between the African 'masses' and
the European colonialist élite. The contradiction and at times evident anxiety
of this position is most accurately reflected in the newspapers.^39 Family history
is well served by the newspapers, as well as additional perspectives on the
colonial era as witnessed by that small literate African public of the early
twentieth century. They also provide data for comparative history studies
(if more are needed) of models of British and French colonial patterns, cause
and effect and of the influence of the different métropoles, Paris and London.
As a footnote to the interest in pan-African studies, the continuing research
into the historical attempt to self-define 'Africaninity', the Dahoman press
again proves its utility.
If one surveys the field of African-Brazilian studies it becomes evident
that the initial studies were concerned with cultural transferences from one
side of the Atlantic to the other, Bastide, Pierson, even Gilberto Freyre noting
the African presence generally in the Americas and specifically in Brazil.
With Pierre Verger's publication of the massive Flux et Reflux in 1968,^40
a data bank was established for future research in the field. Verger's almost
forty years of field work not only definitively established the African historical
presence in Brazil, but also returned the cultural Odyssey to Africa. Transatlan-
tic cultural studies had been given a firm base. Verger, by his presence in Bahia,
influenced young researchers in the late 1960s most particularly a fellow of
CEAO, anthropologist Julio Braga, who did research in Benin on the Afro-