Lusophone World Research Articles

ESTUDOS PORTUGUESES E LUSÓFONOS: O VALOR MATRICIAL NO PAÍS E ESTRATÉGICO NO MUNDO (REFLEXÕES SOBRE A CRISE)

As Humanidades estão a ser ameaçadas de forma dramática pelas abordagens economicistas à Universidade. Defende-se o reconhecimento do espaço lusófono como campo estratégico da identidade nacional e vínculo internacional a países ligados historicamente a Portugal. Tornou-se necessário redefinir esta área, dada a sua conotação patriótica, simultaneamente através da defesa da língua portuguesa e das denominadas culturas lusófonas, e através da defesa da intervenção e participação dos professores. Avança-se uma inovação teórica e prática: devem os textos literários traduzidos de outras línguas ser considerados lusófonos e, nesse sentido, ser integrados em todos os sectores e níveis de ensino do mundo lusófono, permitindo a difusão dessas atividades. Por outro lado, é igualmente necessário forjar novas práticas de ensino, tais como, por exemplo, a transformação da transmissão de conteúdos científicos numa abordagem que una o fazer e o pensar a literatura e cultura enquanto práticas e reflexões interligadas.

Estudos da literatura e da cultura no âmbito da língua portuguesa e diplomacia da cultura: carências e possibilidades

This paper aims to discuss and discuss issues related to diplomatic and political unification of Portuguese-speaking countries in relation to cultural aspects, especially those related to language as a common element among these countries and literature. Considering that the Lusophone world lacks a coordinated and cohesive cultural policy and a joint diplomatic - cultural practice, we propose a number of mechanisms, strategies and possible policy for the realization of this articulation and cohesion. Although there are already organizations and instruments, such as the Orthographic Agreement, the International Portuguese Language Institute, the Association of Portuguese Language Universities and other, much remains to be done to become effective intersystem the notion, conceived as a set of systems finding points of contact, relationship or attendance, subjective and objective in its cultural production, sufficient to interpret these elements as unique as compared to other systems, and sufficient to underpin flows between them in relative importance.

The empire blogs back: Gendered and sexualized cultural “others” in superdiversified digital trajectories

This paper presents an analysis of the ongoing processes of constructing and deconstructing sexualized and exoticized othering in Brazilian-Portuguese mediatized cultural (mis)encounters and (mis)constructions of the female body against the background of changing geopolitical and socio-economic superdiversifying relations in the postcolonial Lusophone world. Methodologically it tries to respond to a call, by several authors, for more empirically grounded research as a means of addressing the complexities involved in contemporary national–transnational dialogs and identity construction processes. The analysis, while resting on a larger cultural and postcolonial studies׳ frame of reference, brings this kind of translocal conversation home with an in-depth analysis of digital encounters detected in text trajectories on blogs and social media. The data, approached through the lenses of competing orders of indexicality, indicate that “cultural identity” (as enacted through the exchanges of a handful of Portuguese and Brazilian nationals) is a minefield that has to be understood as interlacing discrepant indexical values: it simultaneously articulates historic rivalries and their rejection. From this point of view, the voices of several of the focused interlocutors seemed to cry out for new meaning-making processes while still orienting to Colonial totalizing dichotomies and hierarchies. This kind of dovetailing adds more nuanced contours to the notion of superdiversity being explored in this special volume, reconstructing it in terms of a permanent and necessary diversity-sameness dialectics – a kind of friction that has been exacerbated in digital contexts. Put otherwise, “colonial empires” are still around as orienting references but, in superdiverse times, not only do they write back but also blog back in multi-territorial discursive trajectories.

Macau in China's relations with the lusophone world

After the transfer of the Portuguese administration to China, Macau kept its role as a bridge between East and West, inspired in the Portuguese settlement 500 years ago. The pragmatism of the Chinese central government, using the Lusophone specificities of this Special Administrative Region, supported the creation of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Portuguese-speaking Countries, reviving the statute of the Portuguese language and culture in its own territory.

Mocambique e o mundo da lingua portuguesa: Que relacao, que futuro?

Does the so-called Lusophone or Portuguese-speaking world refer to a community that is completely in harmony and engaged in strengthening fraternity and cooperation ties among its members? Or are we rather in the presence of an entity clad in new postcolonial garments that ultimately conceal hegemonic agendas? I submit that the Portuguese language does not yet enjoy full citizenship rights in the thousands upon thousands of African homes where the other national languages spoken (24 in the case of Mozambique) have a real existence but are consistently denied citizenship. Without the promotion of national or African languages, Portuguese loses its cultural legitimacy. It will remain a language with a merely political validity. Rather than labeling African countries in an abstract common language universe, I believe we must highlight the singularity of each country.

Mito Feminino e Imagologia Masculina: A Representacao da Mulher em Memorial do Convento de Jose Saramago

In general, Jose Saramago's literary work subverts the aesthetic standards of patriarchal reception and production. Moreover, the female characters in his novels tend to be more mature and coherent and have more complex and stronger personalities than their masculine counterparts, whom the author characterizes as minor people (Saramago and Viegas). This study analyses some of the discourses that construct the character of Blimunda in Memorial do Convento ( Baltasar and Blimunda , 1982), trying to provide a critical review of the representation of women in Saramago's novels. I attempt to asses extent the author might be reinventing a universal female myth, in which women symbolize the essence of human being (Saramago and Viegas), or determine the extent to which their representation in this novel might be still conditioned by androcentric aesthetics or discourses. My intention is not to raise a controversy, but as Saramago is the most referenced contemporary author in the Lusophone world (if we except Paulo Coelho), I find it necessary to reread one of his most important novels taking as a basis some of the classical perspectives of feminist literary criticism (Woolf, Irigaray), as well as some more recent critical attempts to establish a feminine sublime (Freeman). I conclude that the symbolic representation of Blimunda lies halfway between the traditional masculine desire to fix women in an essentialist identity, which is stable and stabilizing, and the more dynamic and innovative attempt to extinguish hierarchical gender difference in the systemic representation of the subject.

Macau: A Seat for Sino-Lusophone Commercial Arbitration

One of the most meaningful paths of China's economic and diplomatic 'charm offensive' is the promotion of high-level contacts with the Portuguese-speaking countries. China is well aware of the potentials which derive from the use of the Portuguese language as a means of strategic projection. Macau plays an unmatched role in the promotion of economic and trade cooperation between China and the 'Lusophone World'. In 2010, during the third Ministerial Conference of the 'Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries', the Ministers agreed to analyse the comparative advantages of Macau in the knowledge of Chinese and Portuguese-speaking legal systems, promoting Macau as one of the venues for arbitration regarding eventual disputes concerning trade between Chinese and Portuguese-speaking entrepreneurs. In this article we discuss the comparative advantages and weaknesses of Macau as a seat for commercial arbitration between entrepreneurs from China and Portuguese-speaking countries. To assert itself as a reliable seat for international arbitration between two such different worlds, Macau needs to adopt a more proactive approach towards arbitration, inter alia by improving its statutory regime and enhancing its pool of experienced legal professionals and translators with the proper language skills and cultural awareness.

Cultures, Realities, Difference — An Analysis of Bird Myths in Vozes Anoitecidas and Cada Homem É Uma Raça By Mia Couto

This paper analyses myths associated with birds as they are presented in two collections of short stories by Mozambican writer Mia Couto, Vozes Anoitecidas and Cada Homem e uma Raca. This is a writer with whom many readers living outside the Lusophone world may not be familiar, despite the fact that he is well known internationally. The analysis represents a departure from the tendency amongst researchers to focus on the writer’s language and linguistic innovation, which are the hallmark of his writing. It hopes to give Portuguese-speaking and non-Portuguese speaking readers alike some insight into the writer’s treatment of socio-cultural issues, an aspect of his works that has not been treated in sufficient depth. The paper is divided into three parts. The first provides a brief biography of the writer and situates him within the context of Mozambican literature. The second gives an overview of the historical, social, political and economic context within which the stories to be analysed are set. The third part analyses six stories in which bird myths are featured and considers the significance of these myths as they are used by Mia Couto. The analysis of these bird myths provides a valuable insight into an essential aspect of indigenous Mozambican culture. It also offers the writer an opportunity to comment on beliefs and attitudes that might hinder efforts to construct a ‘national’ Mozambican culture and identity that reflect a respect of diversity and difference in terms of gender, race, and religion

Introduction to the Special Issue on Migration in the Lusophone World

International MigrationVolume 47, Issue 3 p. 3-4 Introduction to the Special Issue on Migration in the Lusophone World Susan Martin, Susan Martin School of Foreign Service, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University.Search for more papers by this author Susan Martin, Susan Martin School of Foreign Service, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University.Search for more papers by this author First published: 01 July 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2009.00521.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume47, Issue3Special Issue: Special Issue on Migration in the Lusophone WorldAugust 2009Pages 3-4 RelatedInformation

The Persistence of Stereotyped Dialect Features among Portuguese-American Immigrants from São Miguel, Azores

Among dialects of Portuguese, the variety indigenous to the island of São Miguel exhibits an inventory of vocalic features not found elsewhere in the Lusophone world. The most emblematic characteristics of this dialect are the front round vowels [y] and [ø], which correspond to [u] and [ou/oi] (respectively) of the European standard language. There are also systematic differences in the pronunciation of the tonic vowels, reflexes of a historical chain shift: sete ‘seven’ is often rendered in S. Miguel as [sæt] (Std. [sεt]), avó ‘grandmother’ as [ɐ'vo] (Std. [ɐ'vɔ]), and avô ‘grandfather’ as [ɐ'vu] (Std. [ɐ'vo]). While these characteristic are attested in the contemporary speech of the island, one might ask whether they persist in the speech of Azorean emigrants in the United States. This paper presents a phonetic analysis of four emigrants from the village of Nordeste, members of the same family, each of whom presents different phonetic behaviors. While three speakers preserve most of the speech reflexes characteristic of the island, one presents a vocalic inventory more like that of the standard language. This variability reflects a tension between behaviors emblematic of Micaelense identity (e.g., [y] < [u]) and a need to accommodate to sociolinguistic pressures exerted by the standard language, which predominates in the larger community of Portuguese immigrants.

The Shifting Perspectives of Postcolonialism in a Lusophone World: The Case of Portuguese Emigration

Este artigo perspectiva a evolução da presença da emigração portuguesa nos mundos lusófonos coloniais e póscoloniais, encarando-a como prova do 'colonialismo subalterno' praticado pelo Portugal imperial, proposto por Boaventura de Sousa Santos, e como marca que distingue o seu projecto colonial daqueles empreendidos por outras potências colonizadoras. O facto que tal emigração — empreendida por elementos do centro metropolitano português, e também por aqueles das suas possessões coloniais — procurou refúgio para além dos limites coloniais de Portugal é também analizado como uma característica distintiva da identidade colonial do país, e como realidade que continua a existir enquanto Portugal procura um papel póscolonial digno de si. Propõe-se que a presença de emigrantes portugueses em várias partes do mundo, experimentando as mesmas dificuldades que emigrantes das suas ex-colónias, é uma realidade que incomoda Portugal póscolonial.This article looks at the changing presence of Portuguese emigration in the colonial and postcolonial Lusophone worlds, seeing it as evidence of the 'subaltern colonialism' practised by imperial Portugal, proposed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and a marker that distinguishes its colonial project from those undertaken by other colonizing powers. The fact that such emigration — undertaken both by elements of the Portuguese metropolitan centre as well as those from its colonial possessions — sought refuge beyond the limits of Portugal's colonial limits is also analysed as a distinctive feature of the country's colonial identity, and as a reality that continues whilst Portugal searches for a fitting postcolonial role. It is suggested that the presence of Portuguese emigrants in various parts of the world, experiencing the same difficulties as emigrants from its former colonies, is a reality that discomforts postcolonial Portugal.

Performing folklore: ranchos folcloricos from Lisbon to Newark

Portugal's transition from fascism to democracy, and from imperial metropole to EU member state. Kimberly DaCosta Holton examines the evolution and significance of Ranchos folcloricos, groups of amateur musicians and dancers who perform turn-of-the-century popular and have acted as cultural barometers of change throughout 20th-century Portugal. She investigates the role that these folklore groups played in the fascist dictatorship early in the century, how they fell out of official favour with the advent of democracy, and why they remain so popular in Portugal's post-authoritarian state, especially in emigrant and diasporic communities.Holton looks at music, dance, costume, repertoire, venue, and social interplay in both local and global contexts. She considers the importance of revivalist folklore in the construction and preservation of national identity in the face of globalization. This book embraces invented tradition as process rather than event, presenting an ethnography not only of folkloric revivalism but also of sweeping cultural transformation, promoted alternately by authoritarianism, democracy, emigration, and European unification. Kimberly DaCosta Holton Assistant Professor of Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies at Rutgers University, Newark.

Gender in the Lusophone World

Gender in the Lusophone World

Introduction: the politics of folk culture in the lusophone world

Introduction: the politics of folk culture in the lusophone world

A postmodern nationalist: truth, orality, and gender in the work of Mia Couto

This is the first book in the English language devoted to the study of the work of Mozambique's leading contemporary author, Mia Couto. Widely read in the lusophone world and considered one of the most important active African writers, Couto's fiction is riddled by a central paradox-it forges a distinct postmodern national identity for a country historically plagued by repeated and detrimental interference from abroad. Phillip Rothwell argues that Couto is a writer who eschews and reinforces the national frontier. In fact, Couto produces a cultural phenomenon that is markedly Mozambican by corrupting aspects of the European legacy Portugal left on the African continent, fusing this distortion with a corrupted version of African heritage, and demarcating literary boundaries through fluidity.

Business and politics in São Tomé e Príncipe: from cocoa monoculture to petro‐state

While the islands of Sao Tome e Principe (STP) were once a leading cocoa producer, cocoa production is now relatively insignificant and the country is little known today outside the lusophone world. But STP could soon gain strategic and economic importance as its territorial waters are suspected to hold large quantities of crude oil. This article explores STP's shift away from domination by cocoa exports, narrating the decline and final collapse of the plantation economy and the country's slide towards overwhelming dependence on external assistance in the form of foreign aid and external debt. In this context, it calls STP an unviable state as its fledgling domestic economy fails to generate enough revenue to sustain its highly importreliant consumption patterns. But it finds STP on the verge of another major transformation as it is likely to become a crude oil producer within a few years. In the course of this research, the authors came across major irregularities in the conduct of the country's oil policy and some of this information appears for the first time in the public domain. In this context, their research points to opportunities for rent-seeking and corrupt behaviour, which stem from access to foreign aid and natural resources.

Mirroring Imperial Endings: Recognizing the Unknown in Nationalized Lusophone Texts

The Portuguese have been deemed possess, through their language, a destiny reconhecer desconhecido. This implies a respect for the Other that gainsays any attempt reduce it a defining buffer for the Self. The cultural outputs of post-independence Brazil and Africa, and the critiques that they triggered, reveal the impediments the fulfillment of this project. The similarities between the Brazilian and Mozambican experiences, particularly at the level of localized and European reactions towards a new type of language usage, highlight the degree which the unknown is granted recognition. Mia Couto is a paradigmatic case because he is problematically read give a written voice the oral cultures of his country. n his novel, Partes de Africa (1991), Helder Macedo suggests that Portugal's imperial adventure had its end inscribed in its beginning-an end at which the metropolis would bequeath an enriched language, and recuse political domination (Macedo 167). He points the assertion in Joao de Barros's Gramdtica (1539) that armas e os padries que Portugal disseminou por todos os continentes eram coisas materiais, que poderia destruir, mas que a lingua portuguesa n.1o seria tAo facilmente destruida pelo tempo (Macedo 167). Macedo's vision, on first consideration, mirrors aspects of Fernando Pessoa's cultural empire-an entity mediated through the Portuguese language. Poets and writers from every nation in the Lusophone world are empowered claim Cam6es como parte da sua literatura (Macedo 167)-a poet who sought reconhecer desconhecido by bringing Otherness into dialogue with the Portuguese language. The perspective adopted by Macedo is one that celebrates the possibilities of that cultural exchange, while accepting the limitations of the historical reality behind it. Portugal's destiny to discover will only have been realized when the desire reduce, via metaphor, Otherness Sameness gives way an ability accept and thrive on difference. The role assigned the Portuguese language by Macedo places him on a long list of intellectuals and writers from CamOes onwards who have situated language at the heart of the imperial endeavor. The language outlasts the temporal political empire, and is seen embody the assimilative aspect of the Portuguese. Macedo's position in Partes de Africa differs from many other commentaries on the language as an imperial legacy because he does not sentimentally attempt obnubilate the negative aspects of Portuguese colonialism, as he proffers a vision of a post-imperial Lusophone world that was always meant be. The component of recognition in reconhecer desconhecido implies a respect for the Other and a rejection of hierarchies. The unknown becomes valued in its own right, rather than being reduced a counter-discourse that shores up the fragile identity of the Self. As it enters the language, o desconhecido begins exercise a new authority over the language-one that allows for novel possibilities and exiles imperial and linguistic regulation. Like Jorge de Sena before him, Helder Macedo views the Lusophone world from the

African Studies in Portugal & the Lusophone World

The word “Luso” comes from an old constellation of Iberian-Celtic tribes established in the mountainous areas of today's Portugal and Spain. They were a warlike people who offered fierce resistance to the Roman conquest. However, once the territory was conquered, the romanisation was so intense that, apart from one or two words, little remained of the previous cultural legacy. One cannot even affirm that this ancestral people, the Lusitans, were the main basis of today's Portuguese population. We can, however, see the undeniable importance of these tribes from their numerous archaeological remains. However, as Jorge Dias, an eminent Portuguese anthropologist notes: “the country was destined to be a meeting point of many races, coming from the Mediterranean, like the Phoenicians, who secured the ports, and others from the extreme north, like the Normans who invaded its coasts”.

The Image of Blacks in Lusophone Literatures and Cinema: A Research Bibliography

Black characters have appeared in the creative literature of the lusophone world since the sixteenth century, when they figured in the dramatic works of the Portuguese playwright Gil Vicente. With the current surge of interest in the Luso-Brazilian world, many critical studies now shed much light on the variety of ways in which lusophone authors and filmmakers have portrayed blacks. This compilation provides sources appraising the portrayal of black characters in the literature and cinema produced by whites in the Portuguese-speaking world, with particular focus on Angola, Brazil, and Mozambique.

A Bahian Heritage: An Ethnolinguistic Study of African Influences on Bahian Portuguese

In this impactful addition to the field of ethnolinguistics, Willian W. Megenney dissects the influence of African languages and cultures on contemporary Bahian Portuguese. The author aims at studying the connection between the use of Africanisms and socio-economic class. Megenney interrogates a broad swath of claims concerning potential syntactic, morphological, and phonemic influences in the field, giving sound analysis and drawing the conclusion that, with the potential exception of a causal correlation between the musical intonation in areas of high population density of people of African descent and the tonality of some of the studied languages, the only aspect that is incontrovertibly influenced is vocabulary, though direct source-traces prove problematic at best. Megenney's primary study of the interrelation of socio-economic class and the use of Africanisms, and the circumstances that allowed for the survival of such Africanisms in Brazil, is an intriguing read for any scholar of ethnolinguistics, as well as an excellent resource for researchers working in the Lusophone world.