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Mobility and Public Transport in Post-independence Mozambican Fiction (1992-2022)
Abstract:
This article analyzes representations of mobility and public transport in the following Mozambican novels: Terra Sonâmbula [Sleepwalking Land] (1992), O Outro Pé da Sereia [The Mermaid’s Other Foot] (2006) by Mia Couto, O Comboio de Sal e Açúcar [The Train of Salt and Sugar] (1999) by Licínio Azevedo, and Museu da Revolução [Museum of the Revolution] (2022) by João Paulo Borges Coelho. Despite the importance of mobility and public transport in these works, existing scholarship has not considered these themes but has opted for more traditional categories such as ‘travel’, ‘diaspora’, and ‘migration’. Focusing on the literary portrayals of public transport and infrastructure of mobility – i.e. buses, ships, and railway stations (Couto), a slow-moving train (Azevedo), and a Toyota Hiace car (Borges Coelho) – this article aims to demonstrate the central role that the mobility/immobility binomial plays in the representation of post-independent Mozambique. The main argument of this article is that the images of the railway, the road, automobility, and maritime travel are the literal driving force of the narratives and contribute to the (un)building of the national space. I use literary perspectives on mobility studies and world-system approaches developed within the framework of world-literature (Warwick Research Collective) to demonstrate that the tropes of mobility and the representations of public transport in the four novels register and encode the social, political, and economic transitions in Mozambique’s colonial and post-colonial history and its incorporation into the capitalist world-system.
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Águas Pós-coloniais em Romances Angolanos e Moçambicanos
Abstract:
This article aims at mapping the narrative role of water in Angolan and Mozambican literature, through the comparative reading of four novels: O desejo de Kianda (1995) by the Angolan Pepetela; O livro dos Rios (2006) by Luandino Vieira; Água: uma novela rural (2016) and Ponta Gea (2017), both by Mozambican João Paulo Borges Coelho. The introduction places the proposed cartography within the framework of ecocritical studies, whose various paradigms offer useful tools and concepts for reading the selected literary works. The thematic and comparative methodological approach highlights experiences and imaginaries common to two post-colonial contexts, despite the difference in scenarios, themes, aesthetic choices and narrative strategies. The results of the analysis demonstrate that water is a crucial element in narrating post-colonial Angolan and Mozambican societies.
Cite this article:
Falconi, Jessica (2024). “Águas pós-coloniais em romances angolanos e moçambicanos”. Caligrama: Revista de Estudos Românicos, 29(1):75-86
Disputas de e por Espaços Político-identitários: O rap e os movimentos sociais em Cabo Verde
Abstract:
Independent since 1975 and democratic since 1991, Cabo Verde has not escaped the waves of urban protests that plagued African capitals in the second half of the 2000s. Rap, perceived as the new expression of protest by urban youth, consolidates itself in the 2000s as one of the main actors in the Cape Verdean political scene and becomes an important vehicle for mobilizing and building an urban culture of resistance, amplifying these issues. This article, based on an ethnographic research in the cities of Praia (Santiago Island) and Mindelo (São Vicente Island), seeks to answer three questions: 1) on how rap has shown the identity, social and urban contradictions; 2) how it has articulated with other types of social movements; 3) what is the place of women in rap and street politics?
Cite this paper:
Lima, R.W. and Robalo, A. 2024. 7 – Disputas de e por espaços político-identitários: o rap e os movimentos sociais em Cabo Verde. Africa Development. 48, 3 (May 2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.57054/ad.v48i3.5321.
Cape Verde: Islands of vulnerability or resilience? A transition from a MIRAB Model into a TOURAB one?
Abstract:
Small island developing states (SIDSs) traditionally face a set of challenges like the weak and highly fragile economic configuration, environmental issues, and a traditional dependence on a few economic activities forcing them to open the economy to the exterior. Therefore, their development model, like in Cape Verde, depends on migration, remittances, dependence on aid, tourism, and state employment. The current research offers an insight into the nature of Cape Verde’s economy as a SIDS economy and the degree to which the country has been relying on tourism receipts, external remittances from migrations, aid programs, and government services. Understanding Cape Verde’s development model is important to clarify the challenges the country faces and its development needs to gather a long-term resilience and to understand if it is changing from a MIRAB (Migrations, Remittances, Aid, and Bureaucracy) model into another one.
Cite this article:
Sarmento, E.; Silva, Ana (2024). Cape Verde: Islands of Vulnerability or Resilience? A Transition from a MIRAB Model into a TOURAB One? Tour. Hosp. 2024, 5(1), 80-94; https://doi.org/10.3390/tourhosp5010006. MDPI. Special Edition Submit to Special Issue: Small Island Developing Countries (SIDS): Tourism between Innovation and Authenticity for Better Sustainable Developing Paths
Understanding Social Realities of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria (FCT), Abuja
Abstract:
This article examines the social realities of forcibly displaced persons in Nigeria, with a focus on internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria, Abuja. Internally displaced persons are individuals who have been forced from their homes or habitual places of residence and, unlike refugees, have not crossed the borders of their country. They remain under the primary protection of their governments and often seek refuge in their own countries. This study draws on secondary data sources and primary data collected from two IDPs campsites, arguing that most IDPs in the FCT, displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency live in makeshift and inhumane informal settlements in the peri-urban areas of Abuja City. These settlements also host the urban poor and other economic migrants in the country’s capital, occasionally leading to conflicts between them. The paper calls for the government to recognise the presence and condition of IDPs in the FCT and to work with relevant organisations to provide durable solutions to ensure that displaced persons can once again become productive members of society.
Cite this article:
BA-ANA-ITENEBE, C. A.; EDO, Z. O. (2023). Understanding Social Realities of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria (FCT), Abuja. In: Balkan Social Science Review, Vol. 22, 213-231. https://doi.org/10.46763/BSSR232222213bai
African women’s trajectories and the Casa dos Estudantes do Império, Ethnic and Racial Studies
Abstract:
This article compares the trajectories of different women who crossed the Casa dos Estudantes do Império (CEI), a formal institution created in Lisbon by students from the colonies with the support of the Portuguese dictatorial regime in 1944, that became a platform for anti–colonialism. Due to the role played by the CEI in the political and social paths of the leaders of African national liberation movements, historiography has privileged masculine accounts. In contrast, the roles and lives of women linked to the CEI remain unexplored or approached from a vision of “methodological nationalism”, with few exceptions. Addressing these trajectories from a transnational and “Afro–Iberian” lens and through the scrutiny of several sources allows us to reflect on a diversity of gender, race, class, and political ideology. The final aim is to illuminate some aspects of the Afro–Iberian mosaic from a gendered and postcolonial perspective.
Citation:
Jessica Falconi (2023) African women’s trajectories and the Casa dos Estudantes do Império, Ethnic and Racial Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2023.2289141
Armed Conflict and Urbanization in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique: A methodology for a critical inquiry
Abstract:
Mainstream urban theory fails to encompass urbanization in Africa. Among its many drivers, armed conflicts displace rural populations to cities, accelerating urban processes and impacting sustainability and governance — the phenomenon of conflict-induced urbanization. In the province of Cabo Delgado, a violent insurgency has been displacing thousands of civilians since 2017; many of whom have fled to the provincial capital Pemba, doubling its population in just 5 years. This article presents the theoretical framework and methodological design for an inquiry located within a contemporary critique of mainstream urban studies; the goal is to analyse conflict-induced urbanization in Pemba with a comparative case study, using participatory visual methods, for which a pilot study took place in September 2022. With this, the author aims to contribute to engaged urban studies in Mozambique and Portugal and to transform the trauma of war into opportunities for sustainable development and prosperity.
Cite this article:
Agostinho do Amaral, S. Armed Conflict and Urbanization in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique: A Methodology for a Critical Inquiry. Urban Forum (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-023-09505-y
Os Ismailis Lusófonos, os Aga Khan e Portugal: mais de um século de história (Sec xix-xxi)
Abstract:
The commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the rise to the Imamate of Aga Khan IV, His Highness Prince Karim al Husseini, is a moment of particular significance for Ismailis worldwide, especially for those living in Portugal and Spain. While it is important to underline the recent and highly significant developments with regards to the relations between the current Imam and the Portuguese state, much can be gained from providing an historical perspective on this matter. This paper aims to contribute to such endeavour, by analysing both the stablishment of ties between Aga Khans III and IV and the Portuguese Empire on both sides of the Indian Ocean, as well as by examining the history of the Ismaili community then installed in Mozambique.
Quotation:
Nicole Khouri y Joana Pereira Leite, «Os Ismailis Lusófonos, os Aga Khan e Portugal: mais de um século de história (Sec xix-xxi)», Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez [En línea], 53-2 | 2023, Publicado el 24 noviembre 2023, consultado el 07 diciembre 2023. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/mcv/20283; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/mcv.20283
Elementos Históricos e Ficcionalidade em Saga d’Ouro
Abstract:
This essay proposes an analysis of Saga d’Ouro (2019) by the Mozambican author Aurelio Furdela. In this Novel, our author skillfully blends historic information with literary art. The narrative takes place in Mwenemutapa, which covers Zimbabwe and a part of the land that is now Mozambique. Through the different stories of the characters, the author portrays the lives of different groups from various perspectives, including political, economic and cultural. Following H.R. Jauss and the Reception theory, the aim of our analysis is to understand the possible intention and critical relationship between past and present, to consider the current state of Mozambican society and its development model to understand the importance of the historical novel in preserving the memory of the past, avoiding the repetition of mistakes in the present.
Quotation:
Zhu, Anqi & Leite, A. M. (2023). “Elementos Históricos e Ficcionalidade em Saga D’Ouro”, In: A narrativa moçambicana no século XXI. Caderno Seminal Digital (n.º 45). Dialogarts. DOI DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12957/seminal.2023.79827
Memória e Identidade em Tornado, de Teresa Noronha
Abstract:
This essay proposes a brief study of Tornado (2021), by Teresa Noronha, focusing on the exploration of individual, collective, and post-colonial identities. The methodological framework will rely on a Memory Studies approach, contemplating concepts such as “trauma”, “collective memory”, “feminine countermemory”, and “memory wars”. We aim to recontextualize these conceptual tools beyond Holocaust studies, demonstrating their pertinence for the research put forth here. As such, we present a critical, feminist, and feminine reading of Noronha’s novel focused on its main character.
Quotation:
Aires e Castro, A. & Leite, A. M. (2023). “Memória e Identidade em Tornado, de Teresa Noronha”, In: A narrativa moçambicana no século XXI. Caderno Seminal Digital (n.º 45). Dialogarts. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.12957/seminal.2023.79823
