Library Research Guides: AFR 215: Unpacking Blackness, Ethnicity, and Identity in the African Diaspora: Find Secondary Sources

Find Secondary Sources

The databases listed here are just a selection of what is available through Wellesley. See our Databases list and browse by Subject to find other databases relevant to your research.

Politics Collection This link opens in a new window
Journal articles, think-tank reports, working papers. Comprised of four political science databases, which can also be searched individually: PAIS Index (Public Affairs Information Service), Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, Political Science Database, and Policy File Index
Social Science Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
Search many social science databases at once. Disciplines covered include sociology, political science, education, economics, anthropology, linguistics, and criminology. Component databases can also be searched individually.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Indexes international scholarly literature in sociology, 1952 to present.
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
With a focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas, this collection gathers historical perspectives on the evolution of the women's movement, men's studies, the transgender community, and changes in gender roles, including articles dating back as far as the 1970s.
Women's Studies International This link opens in a new window
Indexes journal articles and books on women's studies, feminism, and gender studies, 1972 to present
Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Articles on world history from 1450, excluding US & Canada, written since 1955. Can be co-searched with America: History & Life

Note: The last 3-5 years of articles are not available for many journals on JSTOR. Be sure to supplement your JSTOR searches with searches in other databases appropriate to your specific topic.

JSTOR African Studies Journals and Books
Search through 65 journals and over 400 books in African Studies. Note: the last 3-5 years of articles are not available for many journals in JSTOR.
JSTOR African American Studies Journals
Search through 20 journals from African American Studies.
JSTOR: Latin American Studies
Search through 56 journals and over 900 books in the area Latin American Studies. Note: the last 3-5 years of articles are not available for the majority of these journals on JSTOR.
AfricaBib.org
Contains the Africana Periodical Literature Database, African Women Bibliographic Database, and links to several other very useful indexes. Good bibliography of articles on Africa. Use SuperSearch to see if we have the full text of articles listed here. If we don't, you can request them through Interlibrary Loan.

AfricaBib Search Tips:

Click "AfricaBib: all records, and more," and then "To search the database click here" to search across all content.
Use the Extended search form to see all the searchable fields. Use the "Whole record" field to search for your keywords in all the available fields.
All searches in Africabib are additive, i.e., AND is implied between all the terms you enter.
- For example, if you enter botswana gender women, it searches for botswana AND gender AND women, which means each result has to have all of those words in it.

African Journals Online (AJOL)
The world's largest and pre-eminent collection of peer-reviewed, African-published scholarly journals

Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive index to the literature of anthropology, archaeology, and related interdisciplinary research, from the 19th century to today.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
An interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish), full text database of newspapers, magazines, and journals from ethnic, minority and native presses, 1960 to present.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
The world's largest scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database. Dates of coverage vary by title and go back as far as 1887.

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Search the Library Catalog

Catalog Search Tips

Why should I search the library catalog?

The library catalog is another way to search for books, ebooks, and videos. Although SuperSearch includes the library catalog, searching the catalog separately can give you a smaller, more focused set of results. It often helps to keep a search in the catalog relatively simple to start. Try different keywords, and then use what you find to find more. You can also use the subject terms to browse related materials.

Start with a keyword search. Once you find a book that's relevant to your topic, click on the title and look for the Subjects listed for that book to help you find "more like this" and explore related aspects of a broader topic.

Example: Keyword search: africa AND lgbt

Subject terms for the books that come up in this keyword search lead you to more books on various aspects of the topic, for example:

Gay rights > Africa.

Homophobia > Africa.

Lesbians > South Africa

Gay rights > Namibia.

Homosexuality > Africa.

Clicking the first word or phrase above will show you everything listed under the broader topic (e.g., Gay rights). Clicking a subsequent word or phrase will take you to the narrower topic (e.g., clicking "Africa" in Gay rights > Africa will show you everything listed under that subtopic of "Africa").

Once you find a useful subject term, you can also use it to browse related subtopics, by choosing "Browse Alphabetically by Topic" from the menu next to the search box, and entering the subject term.

Not finding enough, or found an item that's checked out? Search WorldCat and request a copy through Interlibrary Loan.

Don't know where to find a book in the Library? Check out this quick guide.

Borrowing from Elsewhere

Can't find what you're looking for at Wellesley?

Use WorldCat Discovery to search and request directly from libraries worldwide via Interlibrary Loan.

Questions? Interlibrary Loan Guide