I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies, and the Convenor of the Masters in Reparatory Justice, a double-degree programme in partnership with the Centre for Reparations Research at the University of the West Indies. 

Trained as an anthropologist, most of my work and teaching projects focus on indigenous peoples in Brazil and the African diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean. I graduated from the University of São Paulo with a BA in Social Sciences and earned my Ph.D. in Anthropology at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro. 

Before joining the University of Glasgow in December 2024, I was a Visiting Research Scholar at the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University (2022-2023) and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Africana Studies at Williams College (2023-2024). 

In 2018, inspired by a collective of Black undergraduate students, we co-created a syllabus entirely based on pioneering Black anthropologists from the African continent and the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean. In 2022, the Brazilian Anthropological Association awarded the initiative the Best Teaching Project in Brazil. It also received the Award for Science Communication. In 2023, I was awarded as a Fellow of the Leadership Program of the American Anthropological Association.

Over the past few years, I have edited and translated into Brazilian Portuguese books by Zora Neale Hurston, Sefi Atta, Junot Díaz, and John Steinbeck, among others. In 2021, I wrote an introduction to the Brazilian edition of Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston.

At the University of Glasgow, I look forward to inviting students to learn from and connect with Black and Indigenous authors from the Global South.

My research focuses on the following areas:

• The Black diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean.
• Afrodiasporic literature and cultural history.
• Black and Indigenous experiences within and beyond slavery. 
• The study of the lives and work of pioneering Black anthropologists.
• Racism and antiracism in the history of Anthropology and Social Sciences.
• Indigenous peoples in Brazil.

My first book project, Black Voices in Anthropology (in progress), seeks to unveil key aspects of the lives and work of Black authors still unknown to most social scientists. Its primary outcome is to offer an antiracist contribution to the teaching of anthropology through an Afrodiasporic framework, focusing on the following authors: Joseph A. Antenor Firmin (Haiti, 1850-1911); Martin Delany (USA, 1812-1885); Manuel Querino (Brazil, 1851-1923); Zora Neale Hurston (USA, 1891- 1960); Jean Price-Mars (Haiti, 1876-1969); Katherine Dunham (USA, 1909-2006); Pearl Primus (Trinidad & Tobago, 1919-1994); Edison Carneiro (Brazil, 1912-1972); Virginia Bicudo (Brazil, 1910-2003); Lélia Gonzalez (Brazil, 1935-1994); Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya, 1897-1978); Manuel Zapata Olivella (Colombia, 1920-2004); Safi Faye (Senegal, 1943-2023); Archie Mafeje (South Africa, 1936-2007). The introduction provides a brief history of the teaching project, the context in which it has flourished, and its resonances with other recent antiracist measures in Latin America, focusing on those directly related to affirmative action and curricular redesign in Social Sciences and Anthropology. The book takes part of its inspiration from the work of Ira and Faye Harrison (1999) and Ira Harrison et al. (2018). Nonetheless, it intends to expand them to include African, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latin American perspectives in the list of the contributions of pioneering Black authors in the history of the discipline.

My next book project will focus on Katherine Dunham’s influence on Brazilian culture (and vice-versa) and the anti-discrimination legislation enacted primarily in response to an incident where she was discriminated against because of her race. The main goal is to conduct archival research and literature review about the African American dancer and anthropologist, examining her travels and experiences in Brazil. Her tour through Brazilian cities and theaters was widely covered in newspapers and magazines, sparking a vivid interest in Afrodiasporic art and culture. Katherine Dunham also played a vital role in enacting Brazil’s first law prohibiting racial discrimination. In 1951, a famous hotel denied her and her company entry into the building, sparking a national conversation around the myth of racial democracy and the pervasive legacy of slavery in the country.

I am currently working on three articles:

• Student-led Change: How Black and Indigenous Students are Transforming Anthropology in Brazil.
• Penning the Path: Black Studies and the Afro-Atlantic print culture.
• Sylvia Wynter & Lélia Gonzalez: an Amefrican dialogue.

Prior publications

I am interested in supervising research projects that align with any of the following areas and topics:

• The Black diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean.
• Afrodiasporic literature and cultural history. 
• Black and Indigenous experiences within and beyond slavery. 
• Indigenous peoples in the Americas and the Caribbean.
• History of Anthropology and Social Sciences.  

I am currently supervising the following students: 

• Lottie Fountain, "Transformations in Indigenous Faunal Relationships: The Impact of European Livestock Introduction and the Objectification of Animals in 19th-Century Argentina."
• Shannon MacLean. Topic: Capoeira and the Black diasporic community in Glasgow, Scotland: a case study in oral history 

Sub-honours:

• Global History

Honours:

• Black Communities in the Diaspora 

Masters:

• Political Violence
• Reparations Now