# Biographies of Africans in diaspora: Methodological contributions  
In Brazil, biographies are used in historiography. Biographical studies of Africans or people who underwent the experiences of the Atlantic slave trade are recurrent. While biographical studies in the anglophone world are embedded in the tradition of using autobiographical narratives followed by a long contextualization, Brazilian historiography is devoted to writing about individuals who continually appear in the documentation. Some of them are so present that it is possible to establish details about them. Thus, one can identify two historiographical traditions in relation to biographies of Africans: one is a tradition focused on autobiographies, focusing on narratives written by the individual himself or herself, and with direct participation. The other is more consistent with establishing a 'historical imagination' based on documents containing information, testimony or evidence of the person's trajectory. However, in both cases, the methodology involved in using biography needs to  
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[^0]:    3 Livro de Assentos de Óbitos e Testamentos de Livres - Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Piedade de Iguaçu, 1777-1798, Arquivo da Cúria Diocesana de Nova Iguaçu.