Ana Paula Cruz earned her PhD in History from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ). She is a member of the 2021 class of the Mark Claster Mamolen Dissertation Workshop. Her scholarship is in Afro-Latin American history with a special focus on the focus on the themes of Slavery and Freedom, black families, black peasantry, political culture, and quilombola communities.
As a fellow, Dr. Cruz will be at work on her book-length project “The Black family and the diasporic experience: black associations, struggles for land, and worlds of work in the Iguape Valley Recôncavo da Bahia (Brazil)” that analyzes the struggles for land and defense of the black peasantry in the Iguape Valley Recôncavo da Bahia, a region formed by 18 quilombola communities. Through an examination of five generations of a family of former slaves and their descendants, the Almeida Costa, the project seeks to promote a “dialogue between times” by tracing the line that connects the political culture of the quilombola population of Iguape with forms of Black organized mobilizations.