During the 1930s and 1940s, in Brazil there was a heated debate (and fortunately a systematization) on academic studies relating to African culture and its influence and contribution in the formation of the national culture. Apart from being discussed among intellectuals, it also became a subject for “modernist” writers and visual artists, as for example since Chapter VII of Macunaíma (1928), the book written by Mário de Andrade. The 2º Congresso afro-brasileiro that took place in Bahia (1937) was organized by the sociologists Edson Carneiro and Aydano do Conto Ferraz, both linked to the research done at the beginning of the twentieth century in Bahia by Nina Rodrigues, who was a doctor and anthropologist, whose work was later expanded by the anthropologist Arthur Ramos’s research. The document splits scholars of Afro-Brazilian culture following two aspects; on the one hand, those researchers that represented the legacy of Nina Rodrigues and who worked in Salvador (state of Bahia); and, on the other hand, the group of researchers who were being led by the sociologist Gilberto Freyre in the group of Recife (state of Pernambuco). The text also highlights links with academia as well as with the ritual officiants of the Candomblé.
[On this event, see in the ICAA digital archive by Gilberto Freyre “O que foi o 1.º Congresso Afro-Brasileiro do Recife” (doc. no. 783512), included in Novos Estudos Afro-Brasileiros (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1937)].