Portuguese Colonial War Research Articles

Histories of the Portuguese colonial war and its (other) images: a photo-text essay

In 1975, my parents-in-law met in Lourenço Marques (Maputo, Mozambique). The period preceding their engagement was marked by profoundly contrasting experiences. Because of his political activities against the Estado Novo dictatorship, he was conscripted into the Portuguese Commandos and participated in the conflict that unfolded in northern Mozambique. Conversely, she travelled from the Portuguese metropolis to Lourenço Marques as a child (following her grandfather’s promotion in public service), and had a happy childhood and adolescence, as documented in a collection of Super 8 films that were entrusted to me. How to reconcile such opposite experiences? And how to honour a legacy of images that do not cease to question me in the critical present? This photo-text essay focuses on a set of images that go beyond the commonly accepted depictions of Portuguese colonialism to problematize issues of resistance, indifference and complicity, showing how private and seemingly insignificant visual materials take part in collective forms of enunciation. It stresses the importance of landscape in conveying unassimilable and traumatic aspects of Portugal’s problematic history, examining how different discourses and imaginal references about war and colonialism reflect various perspectives, experiences and sensibilities, which may or may not align with each other. Ultimately, by drawing on an experimental, self-reflexive and visual approach to history, the essay encourages readers to actively engage in shaping alternative public memories, capable of encompassing the intricacies and diverse facets of history’s manifold manifestations.

The ‘other’ in images from the Portuguese Colonial War

The ‘other’ in images from the Portuguese Colonial War

Narrativas de experiência de vida sobre a guerra do Ultramar práticas discursivas de construção da memória e da representação do corpo

Starting from the analysis of an oral corpus of life narratives of Portuguese soldiers mobilized for the Overseas military campaigns during 1969 and 1974, this article aims to constitute itself as a reflective exercise on the experience of war, seen as a collectively shared construct. We seek to understand not only the place of the body in the way the military and war experience is appropriated, but also to verify the effects of the tensions and displacements of such experiences in the former combatants of the Portuguese Colonial War.

The Representation of “Difficult Pasts” in Military Museums

This work addresses how the history of the Portuguese colonial war and its mnemonic productions are (non)represented in the Portuguese Armed Forces museums (Army, Air Force, and Navy). Through an analysis of the textual and visual contents of the exhibitions, activity reports, and institutional communication texts; site visits; and interviews with the museums’ staff, I seek to identify and examine the contexts of creation of these spaces and the production of the exhibitions’ content. I conclude that these spaces manifest the complexity of addressing the colonial war and colonial pasts and communicating “difficult pasts” in military museums. When the topic is addressed, the exhibitions tend to focus on the Portuguese perspective of the conflict and elide its colonial nature. I advocate a reformulation of the colonial war musealization, in order to avoid the normalization of warfare and provide more plural and complex perspectives on this historical phenomenon.

The construction of a web narrative about the Portuguese colonial war: a critical perspective on Wikipedia

As part of recent research into the Portuguese colonial war in the sphere of memory studies, this article seeks to fill a gap in the underexplored field of digital memories. It aims, firstly, to explore the processes through which discourses about the Portuguese colonial war are produced in the Portuguese version of Wikipedia, looking at its dynamics and mechanisms of construction, including formal and informal rules; and secondly, to analyse that discourse using theoretical and methodological considerations from critical discourse analysis (CDA), complemented with concepts of absence and silence, which enable a reflection on the relationship between power, knowledge and memory. The article also explores the limits of Wikipedia as regards the formation of collaborative narratives about the past, arguing that they are marked by the reproduction of Eurocentric narratives which circulate in political, educational and media discourses, and also by the memories of more conservative sectors of Portuguese society, such as war veterans and former settlers returning from the colonies (the so-called retornados). These narratives mask the colonial violence and resistance to it that preceded the colonial war and depoliticize the struggle of the national liberation movements.

The monumentalization of the Portuguese Colonial War: Commemorating the soldier’s efforts amid the persistence of imperial imaginaries

This article presents an analysis of the monumentalization of the Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974) and explores the dynamics that sustain its growth recently, while other symbols and forms of public memorialization associated with the colonial past have increasingly been called into question and contested, nationally and internationally. Through the semiotic and epigraphic analysis of monuments, observational visits and interviews with some of the people who put them up, the main representational dynamics of the approximately 415 monuments in Portugal are identified. The article examines the (under)-representation in black troops of the Portuguese Army, the boom in monument construction (over 350) from the year 2000 onward and the maintenance (and reinforcement from 2010 onward) of messages and visual narratives projecting a sort of imperial imaginary. This work shows how the vernacular remembering and the public memory of the conflict and the colonial past are reflected on the monuments’ representations and images.

'A man can only be truly known in drunkenness and war.' An anthropological perspective on alcohol use during the Portuguese Colonial War.

To understand the use of psychoactive substances, one must consider the context and the social circumstances in which the substance use occurs. This paper discusses alcohol use from a socio-cultural perspective, based on the use of alcoholic beverages among the Portuguese servicemen who fought in the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-74). In-depth interviews were carried out with 17 former Portuguese soldiers. Simultaneously, extensive bibliographic and documentary research was carried out based on a broad set of biographical and autobiographical texts by former military personnel. Finally, an on-line survey (n=210) was conducted among ex-combatants of the Portuguese Colonial War. Alcohol drinking among Portuguese servicemen was high during the Portuguese Colonial War. Socio-cultural factors (such as regarding alcohol consumption as therapeutic and affirming masculinity) explain why alcohol drinking was so intense and frequent, and why repeated drunken behaviour was tolerated and undervalued by the military authorities, who considered it normal and not a health problem or disorder. The use of alcohol in the Portuguese Colonial War is an empirical example of how what is considered 'acceptable', 'normal' or 'pathological' may depend more on socio-cultural norms than on objective and measurable criteria, including clinical criteria.

The Fugitive Image: Colonial Terror and Contemporary Art

As colonial visual culture now fully integrates the mainstream of historical research and artistic practice at a global level, one subset of imagery still remains woefully unaddressed: the atrocity photograph. This essay provides a brief historical contextualization of the role of photography in decolonization wars and the concurrent emergence of critical theorizing on violent images, and why it still remains exceedingly difficult to analyse graphic pictures in the colonial context; then, honing in on the case of the Portuguese colonial wars in Africa (1961-1975), it examines the rare appropriation of a shocking photograph in Daniel Barroca’s work Circular Body (2015).

Looking at Africa with Lisbon Eyes

Suddenly, in the summer of 1960, the map of Africa gained a new political outline, with the proclamation of nine independences. But the majority of Luanda’s newspapers appeared not to see the ‘wind of change’ blowing through the continent. In its pages, the news of Africa would barely mention more than the crisis in one of its neighbours, the former Belgian Congo. The analysis of the news about the proclamation of independences leads us to formulate the hypothesis that the relative invisibility of the smooth transitions and the major emphasis given to turbulent situations in the continent contributed to value the Portuguese colonial model. Crossing the analysis with research made in archive, this article also contributes to the characterisation of the Angolan daily press on the eve of the Portuguese colonial war.

A crack in everything: Violence in soldiers’ narratives about the Portuguese colonial war in Angola

ABSTRACT How do soldiers recall and voice their wartime experiences when the war they fought is under scrutiny? How do they inscribe the recollection of private affairs in a potentially contested colonial past? Drawing from an ethnography of war memory and focusing on an artillery unit’s deployment in the Portuguese colonial war in Angola, in 1971, this article tackles both the soldiers’ memories and the military reports about the unit’s length of service. It articulates and contrasts the formulaic order of the official account with the veterans’ affective storytelling, to unearth the cracks that run beneath the reconfiguration of colonial war violence in Angola. Soldiers’ narratives, it will be argued, avoid the wars’ dystopic potential by dislocating attention to the affective reverberation of the past and by silencing accounts of bloodshed. And yet, they are unable to fully de-politicize their wartime stories, as soldiers unwittingly disclose episodes of sexual violence against African women, hence exposing the enduring entanglements of sexuality, race and colonialism.

Processos de construção da memória nas democracias ibéricas. Os casos Os Anos do Século (1979) e Rocío (1980)

Theprocesses of democratization of the Iberian societies initiallyopened a stage of liberation from the memory of the dictatorialpast to later adopt strategies of “reconciliation”, accompaniedby the silencing of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) andthe Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974). In this text I question the politics of memory developed in the first decade ofthe transition to democracy, in Portugal and Spain, from thecases Os Anos do Seculo (1979) and Rocio (1980), as means ofreproducing memories that defied the political, ecclesiasticaland military powers, launched legal proceedings, mobilizedthe media and called public opinion to a debate on the right tofreedom of expression.

Arquivar o exílio, contrariar o silêncio: memórias, objetos e narrativas de tempos incertos

Este artigo discute as práticas de arquivamento – produção e preservação de arquivos – em contextos de exílio no quadro do projecto # Ecos. Exilios, contrariar o silêncio: memórias, objectos e narrativas de tempos incertos.
 Tomando como corpo empírico um conjunto de entrevistas realizadas a membros da Associação de Exilados Políticos Portugueses (AEP61-7461-74) que estiveram exilados em França, na Dinamarca, na Suécia e na Holanda durante o regime do Estado Novo, particularmente no período da Guerra Colonial Portuguesa (1961-1974), pretende-se explorar o arquivo como um artefacto cultural, espelho de um tipo específico de mobilidade.

Portuguese Colonial War veterans’ physical health: A systematic review

After 45 years, little is known about Portuguese Colonial War veterans’ physical health. This systematic review aimed to fill this gap. Following PRISMA guidelines, searches were conducted, on November 2018, in seven electronic databases for the inclusion of Portuguese or English quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method published studies, unpublished master’s or doctoral theses and research reports that focused on physical health. Seventy-one studies were identified; 10 were considered eligible. Veterans reported several physical complaints and chronic diseases, as well as risk behaviors and health services use for the relief of psychological symptoms. Differences were found between veterans and nonveterans, and veterans with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Combat exposure and PTSD were associated with physical morbidity, in which PTSD was a full mediator. Implications for practice and recommendation for future research are discussed.

O corpo nas imagens da guerra colonial portuguesa: subjetividades em análise

Resumo Este artigo analisa a representação dos corpos em imagens fotográficas produzidas no contexto da Guerra Colonial Portuguesa, por militares portugueses, que os retratavam e também à população local. Partindo da ideia do corpo como elemento constituinte da subjetividade, estas imagens estabelecem-se como territórios de tensão e negociação das complexas identidades em causa. A análise terá em conta os regimes visuais dominantes que contextualizam estas fotografias, nomeadamente através de uma arqueologia do seu campo imagético, mobilizando o binômio retrato honorífico/retrato disciplinar. Consideram-se ainda as possibilidades de resistência às convenções representativas no espaço fotográfico, e os processos de performatividade hermenêutica que incluem também o espectador actual destas imagens, na articulação entre memória e fotografia.

"No Coward Soul is Mine": The Year in Portugal

"No Coward Soul is Mine"The Year in Portugal Cláudia Faria (bio) If you are not a famous football player, involved in a political or private scandal, or recovering from cancer, your autobiography will surely fail to make any bestseller list in Portugal. It is not only the general public who is disinterested in everyday life stories; Portuguese academe also appears reluctant to embrace life writing as a legitimate field of study, which explains the few publications and projects available for consideration this year. Portuguese Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Wars However, a closer look at the publication spectrum suggests that life stories associated with the two World Wars (in particular, Portuguese overseas war memories) have become a popular topic for the general public. Perhaps the topic's popularity is directly correlated to the celebration of the centennial of the end of WWI. Public interest in this war indicates that Portuguese society is finally coming to terms with this moment in history, as is suggested by Fernando de Castro's O meu diário de campanha and Maria José Oliveira's Prisioneiros Portugueses da Primeira Guerra Mundial. Two works related to WWII are also worth mentioning: Portugal e os Nazis by Cláudia Ninhos and Aristides de Sousa Mendes: Memórias de um neto by António Moncada Sousa Mendes, grandson of the famous consul who saved many Jews from Nazi persecution. We have also been witnessing a series of books written by veterans of the Guerra do Ultramar—the official name in Portugal of the Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974)—as well as by scholars researching this period. Why is this happening? Without attempting to provide a sociological justification for this war or its consequences, we can note that Portugal as a nation has been shaped by this dark period, and that the Portuguese people have only recently gained public access to sensitive archives, like the ones held by the Secret Police Department (PIDE), thus allowing comparative studies to be made. War veterans and families have realized [End Page 119] the time has come to reveal "the other side" of the story in order to bring to light their own experiences of suffering and injustice. Struggling with ambivalent feelings about their participation, veterans have kept diaries, letters, photos, and other types of private documents. However, by now, most appear to have accepted their sons' and grandsons' lack of interest in the matter. Fearing this information will be eventually lost forever, some have decided to write their own version of the story of these conflicts, while others have relied on specialists to help them with the retrieval of their past. As Ioana Luca puts it, referring to the situation in post-Soviet societies, "[there is] a personal and/or collective urge to talk about a forcefully silent past, as well as a need to reassess political figures or events" (656). A master's thesis entitled "As cicatrizes da ditadura: memórias autobiográficas de ex-presos políticos Portugueses" by Ana Pinto Pereira, an article entitled "La resistance à la dictature Portugaise et le sceau de la memóire: l'archive sensible d' Aurora Rodrigues" by anthroplogist Paula Godinho, and the book Os Flechas: A tropa secreta da PIDE/DGS na Guerra de Angola by Fernando Cavaleiro Ângelo all contain first-person accounts from this period, while Miguel Carvalho's Quando Portugal Ardeu: Histórias e segredos da violência política no pós-25 de Abril includes testimonies and private documents concerning the days after the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974. These projects demonstrate Portuguese scholars' emerging interest in discussing a silenced moment in the country's history. Other works that treat this topic include Retornar: Traços de Memória do Fim do Império edited by Elsa Peralta, Joana Oliveira, and Bruno Góis, Abril, caderno de memórias by Nuno Pinto Soares, and Luanda, como ela era: 1960–1975 by Rita Garcia. Identity Card: "No coward soul is mine" In June 2017, sociologist Maria Filomena Mônica republished her autobiography Bilhete de identidade, which originally appeared in 2005. Mônica was born in Lisbon in 1943, graduated in philosophy and history, completed a PhD in...

“Frequent Deaths”: The Colonial Development of Concentration Camps Reconsidered, 1868–1974

ABSTRACTThis article sheds new light on the development of concentration camps in colonial warfare in the longue durée from 1868 to 1974. Introducing different examples of forced removal and deportation in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, the analysis emphasizes their interrelation, highlighting possible transfers of knowledge that have been neglected in comparative discussions. Specifically, the article reassesses the Cuban experience of concentrating civilians in times of war (1868–98); it critically evaluates Spain’s forgotten concentration camps on the Canary Islands, which emerged during the Ifni-Sahara war of 1957–58; and it focuses on both the theory of revolutionary warfare and the practice of so-called strategic resettlement in the long and protracted Portuguese colonial wars in Africa (1961–74). In particular, the camps on the Canary Islands suggest the need for an analytical distinction between the function of forced removals in counter-guerrilla warfare and administrative internment; they are related but essentially different policies. Based on hitherto ignored archival material, this empirically supported analysis challenges common assumptions about the “origins” of camps, and questions traditional temporal boundaries in the development of (anti-)guerrilla warfare.

Can Economic Pressure Overcome Social Norms? The Case of Female Labor Force Participation

We investigate the potential channels that drive female labor force participation to rise in response to unbalanced sex ratios, in the presence of strong social norms against female employment. One such channel is women's desired labor supply, operating through the marriage market, and the other is employers' de­ mand for female labor. If faced with a reduction in male workforce, do employers turn to women to fill in the gap? Do women enter traditionally male occupations and industries, so that segregation decreases? Does the gender pay gap decline? We exploit exogenous variation in sex ratios across cohorts and regions, by using instruments based on casualties from the Portuguese Colonial War and massive emigration in the 1960s combined with its historical regional patterns. We find that as the sex ratio declined, female participation increased, women entered tra­ traditionally male-dominated occupations and industries, and the gender pay gap declined. These findings are consistent with a demand shock. Our estimated impact of sex ratios on marriage market points to a muted supply channel. We complement the quantitative analysis with an archival case. Our findings help to explain an apparent puzzle, a decades-long high female participation in Portugal, as opposed to the other Southern European countries.

Specters of Colonial Violence: The Archive in António Lobo Antunes's "South of Nowhere"

Abstract: António Lobo Antunes’s novel South of Nowhere is plagued by ghosts, which function as an archive of the violence perpetrated during the Portuguese colonial war. These specters can be read in light of the notion of “archive fever” propounded by Jacques Derrida, in that they concurrently keep memory alive and lead to the annihilation of archival normativity. It is from the double bind between conservation and destruction of the archive that the possibility of a future emerges. Embracing the ghosts of colonial violence is the first step in the direction of a future where openness to what is to come can be allied to responsibility.

Representing alterity in a post-colonial context: Lídia Jorge’s A costa dos murmúrios and its english and french translations

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2017v37n1p46O presente artigo analisa duas traduções de A costa dos murmúrios (1988) de Lídia Jorge, uma publicada em França (1989) e outra nos Estados Unidos da América (1995). Traduzido de uma língua periférica para línguas centrais e sistemas culturais dominantes, o romance sobre a guerra colonial portuguesa em África teve receções contrastantes naqueles países, as quais revelam diferentes abordagens à tradução. Este estudo visa identificar os principais agentes e fatores externos envolvidos no processo de tradução, assim como determinar o papel que questões como mecenato, tradição nacional de tradução e história nacional de ambas as culturas recetoras desempenham nesse processo. Com base nesta discussão, refletir-se-á então sobre o modo como o povo colonizado e a sua cultura são representados no romance, de forma a verificar se existe ou não uma tendência, ao traduzir, para substituir referências estranhas à cultura ocidental por formas de representação mais generalizadas.

As drogas em combate: usos e significados das substâncias psicoativas na Guerra Colonial Portuguesa

Apresentam-se as principais questoes suscitadas pelo trabalho em curso acerca do uso de substâncias psicoativas na Guerra Colonial Portuguesa (1961-1974). Sao identificados alguns aspetos-chave que emergem das narrativas dos ex-combatentes acerca da sua experiencia de guerra e que contextualizam um conjunto de praticas, entre elas o uso de drogas. Confirma-se o abuso de alcool e o uso de canabis entre os militares das forcas armadas portuguesas envolvidas no conflito, numa altura em que em Portugal surgiam as primeiras iniciativas de combate as drogas. Tanto o consumo de bebidas alcoolicas como de outras drogas pode ser entendido como uma forma de lidar com a ansiedade e a violencia do quotidiano.