# Mémoire bricolage as a social insertion strategy  
The life experience acquired in Brazil, common to them all, allowed these returnees to assimilate into the Brazilian community established in the region and thus share the place they occupied in local society. This experience enabled them, above all, to enter the economy on the order-giving side, rather than as simply a workforce. By the time the clash of traditional culture and expanding capitalism became more prominent in the region, they were in a position to drive the economy alongside the Brazilian traders and traffickers. The meeting of these two groups - the traders and traffickers of Brazilian or Portuguese origin on the one hand, and the formerly enslaved Africans on the other shaped the profile of the Agudá community we can see in West Africa today.  
One of the most important aspects to highlight in the study of this social group is undoubtedly the exemplary manner in which these formerly enslaved people succeeded in integrating into the very society that had excluded them. They had certainly been freed in Brazil, but not in Africa, where they were considered by the majority of the population as enslaved people. It was this treatment - the same as they experienced in Brazil - that constituted a catalyst for their building of a new collective identity. This identity allowed them to have a social and economic function and the condition of full citizenship in the very society that had rejected them.