The Exchange of Letters Between Arthur Ramos and Rüdiger Bilden (1936-1943): Notes on the History of Afro-Brazilian Studies

Arthur Ramos and Rüdiger Bilden were central figures in the creation and consolidation of Afro-Brazilian studies, taking part in a collaborative network that involved several other Brazilian and American researchers, such as Gilberto Freyre, Edison Carneiro, Melville Herskovits, Donald Pierson, and Ruth Landes. The two researchers were positioned differently in the academic field; while Arthur Ramos was a professor of anthropology in Brazil, Bilden encountered many difficulties in his efforts to secure a permanent position in the United States but was close to some of the main figures in anthropology, such as Franz Boas (1858-1942). Despite this asymmetry, they developed an important partnership that was decisive for the debate on Afro-Brazilian studies between the 1930s and 1940s. In this article, I reconstitute the networks of relationships established between Ramos and Bilden, using as a source the correspondence exchanged between them, available at the Arthur Ramos Archive at the National Library (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). This reconstitution allows us to understand, on the one hand, the power relations and alliances that were being established at the time in the field of Afro-Brazilian studies and, on the other hand, the self-representation that these agents were producing about themselves.