The Boundaries of Freedom brings together, for the first time in English, writings on the social and cultural history of Brazilian slavery, emphasizing the centrality of slavery, abolition, and Black subjectivity in the forging of modern Brazil. Nearly five million enslaved Africans were forced to Brazil's shores over four and a half centuries, making slavery integral to every aspect of its colonial and national history, stretching beyond temporal and geographical boundaries. This book introduces English-language readers to a paradigm-shifting renaissance in Brazilian scholarship that has taken place in the past several decades, upending longstanding assumptions on slavery's relation to law, property, sexuality and family; reconceiving understandings of slave economies; and engaging with issues of agency, autonomy, and freedom. These vibrant debates are explored in fifteen essays that place the Brazilian experience in dialogue with the afterlives of slavery worldwide. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Book Information
ISBN 9781009287975
Author Brodwyn Fischer
Format Paperback
Page Count 504
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press