Digital humanities and the African diaspora: ethical and methodological challenges in designing a database on Mariana’s enslaved population (Eighteenth century)

ABSTRACT This article addresses ethical and methodological challenges underlying the digital approaches to the African diaspora. It takes the process of building a database about the enslaved population that lived in the region of Mariana (Minas Gerais) during the Eighteenth century as a case study. It analyzes the consequences of the insertion of historical information produced in a context marked by the asymmetrical power relations legitimized by slave ideology into digital systems. What are the potentialities and risks of this task in a socially and racially unequal country like Brazil?