Congress “War, Revolution and Return: 50 years on, the memory of a European, democratic – and decolonized – Portugal?”

Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto, December 5-6

 

PROGRAM

 

December 5th, Thursday.

FLUP: Noble Amphitheater

 

09:30 Opening

10:00 – 11:15 The end of Empire: international dynamics of democracy

Gonçalo Margato (ISCTE-IUL) – Concepções (nada) immaculadas: continuidades coloniais na opção europeia da democracia portuguesa

Gabriela Azevedo (CEPED-UERJ/(IS-UP)/Sandra Silva (UNEB) – Violence and surveillance – networks, meanings, changes and permanence in the Lusophone America-Africa-Europe triangle in dictatorship and democracy

Adriana Esteves (Lab2PT/UM)/Bruno Madeira (UM/CITCEM) – From Portugal to the world: Portuguese students and Soviet education (1976-1995)

11:30 – 12:45 Colonial War fighters, yesterday and today

Carolina Ribeiro (FLUP) – What remains of the Colonial War: Urban traces and the process of identity construction of ex-combatants

Daniel Filipe Soares da Silva (FLUP) – On the border of oblivion – the memory of Portuguese Colonial War combatants

Luís Grosso Correia (CIIE/FLUP) – “Tears of war” by ensign, oppositionist and lawyer Mário Brochado Coelho (1963-1974)

12:45 – 13:45 Lunch

 

13:45 – 14:45 Keynote: Julião Soares Sousa (CEIS20/UC) – Wars, revolution and decolonization: old narratives and new perspectives from a postcolonial perspective

15:00 – 16:15 Portuguese colonial and dictatorial narratives

Cybelle Mendes (UFRGS/LAPPACS) – Hunger, fear and collective memory – (de)colonial and democratic audiovisual narratives

Libânia Pinto (Lab2PT/UM)/Fátima Moura Ferreira (Lab2PT/UM) – Colonial domination through the gaze: analysis of visual narratives based on photographs of the Angola Diamond Company (Diamang), 1960-1969

Luísa Veloso (ISCTE/CIES) and Cláudia Dias – DES: memories, dememories and rememories on stage

16:30 – 17:45 Decolonization and remembrance

João Paulo Avelãs Nunes – Portugal today and the memory of the second half of the 20th century. The role of historiography and science-based technologies derived from it

Amanda Oiza Bucknor (STSGU/ISCTE) – Who’s Story? – a perspective on transformation of colonial narratives in lisbons urban space

Lígia Ferro (IS-UP/FLUP), Beatriz Lacerda (IS-UP/FLUP), Lydia Matthews (The New School USA), Susan Meseilas (Magnum Photos-USA) – Crossing the streets of Porto: A collaborative project to decolonize the city

18:00 – 19:00 Presentation of the book 25 de Abril. Revolution and change in 50 years of memory Manuel Loff (IN2PAST/FLUP) and Miguel Cardina (CES/UC).

Presentation: Sílvia Correia and Núcleo Académico de História da Universidade do Porto.

 

December 6th, Friday

 

FLUP: Meeting Room 2

 

11:00 – 12:15 Imperial nostalgias, new and old uses

Gil Duarte Ribeiro (FLUP) – Vanilla and Chocolate: colonial nostalgia in the RTP Song Festival (1964-1998)

Fábio Silva (NOVA FCSH)) – The Memory of the Colonial Empire: Indigenous and Hybrid Identities

Afonso Silva (CEDID-UAB/IHC-NOVA FCSH) – The uses of the revolutionary past in the new nationalist far right

12:30 – 13:30 Faith and empire. Religion in the face of April

Elsa Pereira (IS-UP/FLUP) – (R)evolutions of Faith, through the Eyes of Women: how the April Revolution and the Fall of Colonialism influenced religious practices in Portugal and Africa

Patrícia Freitas (CITCEM/FLUP) – “Africa continues to call for us”: the Catholic hierarchy and the diocesan press at the dawn of the Colonial War

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch

 

14:30 – 16:00 Resistance and Discourse: from the wars of national liberation to post-independence

Eduardo Esteves (NOVA FCSH) – The last elections in colonial Mozambique (1973): limitations of colonial Marcelism and racial hierarchies of power

Libânia Pinto (Lab2PT)/Francisco Azevedo Mendes (Lab2PT/UM) – The editorials of Nô Pintcha in the process of constructing official memories in Guinea-Bissau, 1975-1991.

José Luis Moreno-Perez (U. Sevilla) – CIA intervention and student activism in Angola and Mozambique against the Portuguese colonial regime and the Estado Novo in the 1960s

Neo-Aidan H. O. Allert (U. Cambridge) – Return to the Source: Reclaiming Amílcar Cabral’s Critical Hermeneutics for a Post-Revolutionary, Postcolonial Portugal

 

FLUP: Amphitheater 2

09:30 – 10:45 1974 – 1976: the comeback

Estefânia Magalhães (UM)/Bruno Madeira (UM/CITCEM) – The conflict between personal memory and historical metanarrative in the Portuguese colonial experience. The experience of three Portuguese in occupied African territories, 1955-1976

Fernando Tavares Pimenta (CEHA-Alberto Vieira)/Odete Souto (CEHA-Alberto Vieira) – From Africa to Madeira: memories of the “return” and the process of integration of displaced people from Portuguese decolonization

Bruno Góis (CEEC/FLUL/ICS) – Portuguese returnees and April 25: memory with class, gender and race

11:00 – 12:15 Memories of a European Portugal

Alice Cunha (IPRI – NOVA FCSH) – Portugal Post-Imperial and Pro-European: the political debates on the country’s new international insertion in democracy

Pedro Ponte e Sousa (UPT/IPRI) – Redefining Portugal from Empire to Europe: national identity through foreign policy aspirations of elites and decision-makers

Clara Isabel Serrano (CEIS20/UC) – The tip of The Stone Raft: European integration in 9th grade history textbooks (1975-2022)

12:30 – 13:30 Hot Summer and Agrarian Reform

Lucas Frucci (Lab2PT/UM), Bruno Madeira (UM/CITCEM), Fátima Moura Ferreira (Lab2PT/UM) – From the “Hot Summer” to November 25, 1975, violence and counter-revolution in Famalicão: a look at the local press

João Pedro Soares (ICNOVA/NOVA FCSH) – Occupations: the fields of the South and agrarian reform in “Red Line” (2011)

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch

 

14:30 – 16:00 Memory and historiography – Atlantic interconnections

Carla Ribeiro – The right to memory: the role of civil society in highlighting the struggle of those who resisted the dictatorial regime of the Estado Novo

Isabela Ramos (CITCEM) – A museological narrative of the National Liberation War: continuity or rupture of the colonial discourse in Portuguese national identity?

Eduardo Duque/Ana Lima de Assis – An expression of the colonial legacy and memories from the African diaspora in Brazil

João Gonçalves – O passado que se quer esquecer: África, Guerra Colonial Portuguesa (1961-1974) e Descolonização na Resenha Histórico-Militar das Campanhas de África (1988-1990)

16:15 – 17:30 Keynote: Elsa Peralta (CEComp) – The April Revolution and the end of the Empire: conflicting memories in post-colonial Portugal

 

Organizing Committee: Ana Sofia Ferreira (FLUP and IS-UP), Bruno Madeira (UM and CITCEM), Carlos Martins (IUE, Florence), Manuel Loff (FLUP and IHC-NOVA-FCSH/IN2PAST), Sérgio Neto (FLUP and CITCEM), Sílvia Correia (FLUP and IS-UP)

 

The 50th anniversary of the last democratic transitions in Western Europe (Portugal, Spain and Greece) is taking place at a time characterized by an anti-democratic drift that has been unprecedented for decades and by the systematic questioning of some of the social, political and economic assumptions that have characterized democracy since the end of World War II – among others, the effective enshrinement of the right to self-determination and the political and moral demand for decolonization.
The public discussion, with its inevitable political dimension, that is currently taking place around the meaning of April 25, 1974 proves, on the one hand, that the passage of time alone does not lend consensus to the interpretation of historical changes, and, on the other, that rigorous, critical academic debate supported by comprehensive historical reflection and research is permanently relevant. This debate and research is all the more urgent given that, at a time when the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution is being commemorated, simplistic narratives continue to inform the political debate in the present, incapable of an in-depth, long-term analysis of what the great transformations triggered by the military movement led by the MFA were, are and will continue to be in the future. In 2024, much of the public debate remains dependent on commemorative or derogatory motivations, ignoring much of how today’s democratic Portugal was and is shaped: by the violence of a different (“lusotropical”) colonization; by the violence of 13 years of Colonial War and its profound consequences; by a two-year period (1974/1976) of unprecedented transformations in contemporary Portuguese history (social, political and economic revolution, and the end of colonial domination); by a complex decolonization, generating new nations and returns; by the effective end of five centuries of imperial history; by the return of thousands of returnees, combatants and their processes of social and economic (re)integration; and finally by the memory, individual, collective, but also political, an always disputed memory of April, of the Estado Novo, colonialism and anti-fascist democratic resistance. Based on a concern to think about the uses of the past, this congress proposes to debate the experience, representation and remembrance of violence, both in Portugal’s colonial past and in the process of decolonization. It will also focus on the Colonial War, questioning its significance as a rupture or structural continuity, and its interpretation and influence on the post-colonial reality of the former metropolis and the former colonies. Finally, the aim is to discuss the place of the April Revolution in this history, not only as the great catalyst for change, but also as a direct consequence of colonial violence and as the cornerstone of a post-colonial democratic society in permanent tension with its past. Thematic Lines: – Portuguese late colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s, the swan song of the “Civilizing Mission”: development of the territory and “conquest” of the populations; – Violence as a legacy: the lasting impact of colonial violence on the Portuguese and African political process before and after April; – The relationship between the Colonial War, the end of the Estado Novo and the Carnation Revolution; – April 25, 1974, from Africa to Carmo: the preponderance of Africa and the colonial past in Portuguese destinies; – Colonial legacies and memories for democratic posterity: ex-combatants, returnees.

Social, economic and political (re)integration in a revolutionary context; – Three parallel memorial dimensions: the memory of the War, the memory of the Revolution, the memory of decolonization; – The historical and political narratives of the Portuguese democratic regime, particularly its approach to colonialism, the end of the empire and the end of the Estado Novo; – The end of the empire and Europe: European integration and new national identities; – Portugal seen from Africa: the perspective of the former colonies; – Relations with independent countries: the legacies of colonialism in Portugal and Africa; Submission of paper proposals: The organization does not charge for registration.
Organizing Committee: Ana Sofia Ferreira (FLUP and IS-UP), Bruno Madeira (UM and CITCEM), Carlos Martins (IUE, Florence), Manuel Loff (FLUP and IHC-NOVA-FCSH/IN2PAST, Sérgio Neto (FLUP and CITCEM), Sílvia Correia (FLUP and IS-UP)

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Congress “War, Revolution and Return: 50 years later, the memory of a European, democratic – and decolonized – Portugal?”

 

The 50th anniversary of the last democratic transitions in Western Europe (Portugal, Spain and Greece) is taking place at a time characterized by an anti-democratic drift that has been unprecedented for decades and by the systematic questioning of some of the social, political and economic assumptions that have characterized democracy since the end of the Second World War – among others, the effective consecration of the right to self-determination and the political and moral demand for decolonization. The public debate, with its inevitable political dimension, that is currently taking place around the meaning of April 25, 1974 demonstrates, on the one hand, that the passage of time alone does not lend consensus to the interpretation of historical changes and, on the other hand, that the rigorous and critical academic debate, supported by exhaustive historical reflection and research, is permanently up-to-date. This debate and research are all the more urgent since, at a time when the 50th anniversary of the Claveles Revolution is being commemorated, simplistic narratives continue to inform the political debate, incapable of a deep and long-term analysis of what the great transformations triggered by the military movement
led by the MFA will continue to be in the future. In 2024, a large part of the public debate continues to depend on motivations that are in line with the heritage of 25 April, or, on the contrary, that are openly hostile to it, largely ignoring how today’s democratic Portugal was and is shaped by the violence of a colonization that was believed to be different (“lusotropical”); by the violence of 13 years of Colonial War and its profound consequences; by a period (1974/1976) of unprecedented transformations in contemporary Portuguese history (social, political and economic revolution, and the end of colonial rule); for a complex decolonization, generating new nations and returns; for the effective end of five centuries of imperial history; for the return of thousands of returnees, combatants and their processes of social and economic (re)integration; and, finally, for the memory, individual, collective, but also political, an always disputed memory of April, the Estado Novo, colonialism and anti-fascist democratic resistance. Starting from a reflection on the uses of the past, this congress aims to discuss the experience, representation and memory of violence, both in Portugal’s colonial past and in the process of decolonization. It will also focus on the Colonial War, questioning its meaning as a rupture or structural continuity, and its interpretation and influence on the post-colonial reality of the former metropolis and former colonies. Finally, the aim is to discuss the place of the April Revolution in this history, not only as a major catalyst for change, but also as a direct consequence of colonial violence and as the cornerstone of a post-colonial democratic society in permanent tension with its past.

Thematic Lines: – Portuguese colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s, the swan song of the “Civilizing Mission”: territorial development and the “conquest” of populations; – Violence as a legacy: el impacto duradero de la violencia colonial
en el proceso político portugués y africano antes y después de Abril; – La relación entre la Guerra Colonial, el fin del Estado Novo y la Revolución de los Claveles; – 25 de Abril de 1974, de África al Largo do Carmo: la preponderancia de África y del pasado colonial en los destinos portugueses; – Legados coloniales y memorias para la posteridad democrática: excombatientes, retornados, (re)integración social, económica y política en un contexto revolucionario; – Tres dimensiones memoriales paralelas: la memoria de la Guerra, la memoria de la Revolución, la memoria de la descolonización; – Las narrativas históricas y políticas del régimen democrático portugués, especialmente en su aproximación al colonialismo, el fin del imperio y el fin del Estado Novo; – El fin del imperio y Europa: European integration and new national identities; – Portugal seen from Africa: the perspective of the former colonies; – Relations with the independent countries: the legacies of colonialism in Portugal and Africa;

 

The organization does not charge for registration.

 

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