FOREWORD

ENI DE MESQUITA SAMARA (1948-2011)

Eni de Mesquita Samara, colleague and very dear friend, will be missed. She faced her illness with courage and determination, transmitting to everyone her incommensurable will to live. She left very early, but her memory remains strong among her friends, colleagues and students. A very dedicated professional, her competence and dedication were obvious in how she carried out the multiple activities of research and teaching she was involved in at the national and international levels.

A Full Professor in the Department of History of USP in the History of Colonial Brazil, she was for many years Director of the Center of Studies of Demographic History of Latin America (Cedhal), on which she imprinted great dynamism. There she organized an archive of primary sources related especially to issues of population history, in addition to the publication of bulletins, journals, and collections of texts with the results of Center events and those of the various successive projects she commanded.

Her institutional commitment led her to accept many administrative positions, such as Coordinator of two post-graduate programs, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences in USP and the Director of Museu Paulista. Nor can her striking action as President of Anpuh (Associação Nacional de História) be forgotten.

Considered by her peers as a pioneer in the area of Brazilian demographic history (her master's thesis was defended in 1975), she dedicated herself to the study of the family and gender relations since the 1970s. Her research always revealed an inclination and a notable talent to deal with primary sources, both manuscripts and printed material, as well as those impossible to quantify. Her publications in this field are relevant, from the 1997 collection As ideias e os números do gênero: Argentina, Brasil e Chile no século XIX, to books divulging research, such as Família, mulheres e povoamento: São Paulo, século XVII, 2003. A speaker and visiting professor in various American, European and Asian universities, she published many chapters abroad, notably "Historia de las mujeres en España y América Latina III" in 2006.

She also had a well-known ability to manage large research projects, involving researchers from various centers, as well as students and interns, organizing events, coordinating symposiums and divulging annals. She trained numerous researchers in the areas of her speciality, many of whom now work in state and federal universities in various regions of the country.

In light of this so intense, rich and diversified trajectory, we have to pay our tribute to her and express our admiration for the life with such memorable achievements. Eni left an absence in the Brazilian university and historiography. What consoles us is the pride in having had a colleague who so collaborated in achieving the high standard of academic life and to the advances in Brazilian historiography.

Maria Helena Capelato, Horácio Gutierrez, Maria Lígia Prado

Universidade de São Paulo

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  19 Apr 2012
• Date of issue
  Dec 2011