Identidade
National Social Identity in Guinea-Bissau: An Exploratory Essay Inspired by the Methodology of J. Cheek, S. Briggs, S. Smith and L. Tropp
Abstract:
The research (supported by the Centre for African and Development Studies of the University of Lisbon) is defined as exploratory and aims to evaluate whether the methodology of inquiry and analysis of the identity of J. Cheek, S. Briggs, S. Smith and L. Tropp, can be adapted to a fragile state like Guinea-Bissau. This methodology consists in the assessment of the importance attributed by the respondents of 70 sentences from which the characteristics of individual and social identity (family and collective) are extracted (Cheek, J. M. & Briggs, S. R.). The phrases were sent by digital means to 102 Guineans known in person or only by Facebook with a request for response and dissemination and obtained 183 responses. These answers, calculated according to the methodology adopted, allowed to define some identity characteristics of the respondents. We tried to interpret these results using other surveys conducted since 2014 in Guinea-Bissau with different themes. It is concluded by realizing that this is a method that can contribute to the knowledge of the national identity of Guineans, but insufficient. This conclusion remains to be demonstrated if it is carried out with a statistically significant sample.
Quotation:
Sangreman, C., Faria, R., & Magalhães, J. (2023). National Social Identity in Guinea-Bissau: An exploratory essay inspired by the methodology of J. Cheek, S. Smith and L. Tropp. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(5).148-171.
Working Paper 188/2023: A identidade nacional na Guiné-Bissau: um ensaio exploratório inspirado na metodologia de J.Cheek, S.Briggs, S.Smith e L.Tropp
Abstract:
The investigation of A Identidade Nacional na Guiné-Bissau – Um ensaio exploratório inspirado na metodologia de J.Cheek, S.Briggs, S.Smith e L.Tropp is defined as exploratory and aims to evaluate whether the methodology of inquiry and analysis of identity. created by J. Cheek, S. Briggs, S. Smith and L. Tropp, can be adapted to a fragile state like Guinea-Bissau. This methodology consists in the assessment of the importance attributed by the respondents of 70 sentences from which the characteristics of individual and social identity (family and collective) are extracted. The sentences were sent by digital means to 102 Guineans known in person or only by Facebook with request for response and dissemination and obtained 183 responses. These answers, calculated according to the methodology adopted, allowed to define some identity characteristics of the respondents. We tried to interpret these results using other surveys made since 2014 in Guinea-Bissau with different themes. It is concluded by realizing that this is a method that can contribute to the knowledge of the national identity of Guineans, but insufficient. This conclusion remains to be demonstrated if it is carried out with a statistically significant sample.
Quotation:
Sangreman, C., Magalhães, J., Faria, R. (2023). “A Identidade Nacional na Guiné-Bissau – Um ensaio exploratório inspirado na metodologia de J.Cheek, S.Briggs, S.Smith e L.Tropp“. Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão – CEsA/CSG – Documentos de Trabalho nº 188/2023
Working Paper 186/2022: Estado, Nação e Etnicidades em Moçambique
Abstract:
The processes of state and nation building begin soon after independence and establish a link between them, although each has its own logic. While the nation refers to collective identity, the State refers to the existence of a central-level political authority, respected throughout the territory. As evidenced during the text, a significant part of the State structure that emerged after national independence was the result of the Portuguese colonial legacy, idealized by FRELIMO’s ruling elite and implemented as a project of formation of the “New Man”, which occurred in an imperative way and through uniformizing policies. Estado, Nação e Etnicidades em Moçambique analyses the process of State and Nation building in Mozambique, whose population is characterised by a diversity of ethnicities. The first section presents a reflection on the foundations, the main actors and the actions towards the formation of the nation-state. In the second, we discuss the relationship between nationalism and socialist ideology, the latter interpreted in the post-independence period as the only path that would lead to development and to a society free from exploitation. With the 1990 constitution, a new order of political and economic liberalisation came into force. We seek to critically examine the political process underway in the country, in defiance of the dominant conceptions in the media, government, business and academic circles. To this end, we rely on bibliographic research and official documents, in addition to the experiences of two scholars who develop work in Quelimane, capital of Zambézia province in central Mozambique.
Quotation:
De Melo, C. M., Material Alves, G. e Martins, M. D. (2022). “Estado, Nação e Etnicidades em Moçambique”. CEsA/CSG/ISEG/ULisboa – Documentos de Trabalho nº 186/2022
Historical Guide to an African Lisbon
Abstract:
Lisbon, a city of as many valleys and hills as there are myths surrounding its history and the people who invented it, stretches along the Tagus, where the river ends its course through Iberian land and plunges into the Atlantic Ocean. Lisbon was born on the hill of São Jorge Castle, where a Bronze Age settlement left its traces, which crossed with many other marks engraved by Greeks, Phoenicians, Lusitanians, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs, Jews and Christians. A long road of people and cultures, of stories and legends, of gods and heroes who, like Ulysses the mythical founder of the city – Olisipo – which owes its name to him, built and rebuilt this urban space. The aim of Historical Guide to an African Lisbon, XV-XXI Century is to show Lisbon’s Africanness, dispersed in a plurality of memories and immaterial and invisible traces in the days in which we live. History tells us about the settlement and life of thousands of Africans who for centuries took part in the process of building the Portuguese national fact. Travelling through the city, armed with historical knowledge, we are surprised by the vigorous African presence that invaded all spaces of Lisbon society, we reconstruct a hidden Lisbon, submerged by a centuries-old prejudice that still dominates our collective imagination and we understand, with greater clarity, not only behaviours, values, practices that remain in urban daily life, but also the constant reinventions of Portuguese and African identities, present in the country.
Quotation:
Castro Henriques, I. (2021). « Historical Guide to an African Lisbon, XV-XXI Century», versão revista e actualizada, Lisboa, Edições Colibri, 2021.
Jovens, processos identitários e sociedades em movimento
Abstract:
The Republic of Cape Verde gained independence in 1975 and embraced liberal democracy in 1991, which was regarded as an example in Africa of democracy and good governance. Still, taking advantage of the post-2008 global winds of protest, various types of public protests began to emerge in the country’s capital, with urban youth as the main protagonists. These protests coincided with a set of situations denounced by various reports and academic studies: situations of strangulation of civil society resulting from the bi-partisanship of social life; perception of urban insecurity and a generalized wave of corruption; citizens’ distrust of public and political institutions; commercialization of the vote; ambiguous relationship between political party activists and armed youth groups during elections; accusations of funding of political parties by national drug trafficking factions, etc. Jovens, processos identitários e sociedades em movimento: um olhar alternativo sobre os movimentos sociais urbanos emergentes na cidade da Praia – Cabo Verde, based on a set of ethnographic works developed since 2008 in the urban youth context of Praia, intends to analyse the context of the emergence of these new types of social and political protests organized in youth groups who call themselves sons and grandsons of Amílcar Cabral, supported by counter-colonial discourses, calling for a second liberation and (re)Africanization of the spirit and minds.
Quotation:
Lima, R.W. (2020). “Jovens, processos identitários e sociedades em movimento: um olhar alternativo sobre os movimentos sociais urbanos emergentes na cidade da Praia – Cabo Verde”. In: Jesus, L.S.B.; Barros, M.; Filice, R.C.G. (Orgs.), Tecendo redes antirracistas II: contracolonização e soberania intelectual. Fortaleza: Imprensa Universitária, p. 116-136.
Declinações: Identidades de Género e Construção da Nação em Filmes de Licínio Azevedo
Abstract:
Declinações: Identidades de Género e Construção da Nação em Filmes de Licínio Azevedo addresses the representation of gender differences in nation building in Mozambique in two fiction films by Brazilian-Mozambican filmmaker Licínio Azevedo, namely: Virgem Margarida (2012) and Comboio de Sal e Açúcar (2017). Focusing on different moments in the history of Mozambique, the films address little explored aspects of the crises and the historical, political, social and cultural changes experienced by the new independent country. Virgem Margarida focuses, in particular, on the experience of the re-education camps lived by women, while in Comboio de Sal and Açúcar the male characters of the Frelimo army involved in the civil war stand out. The two films bet on a representation of the genders – understood as social and cultural constructions – able to account for their differences, thus shattering, on the one hand, the monolithic image of women, and on the other, the Mozambican national identity itself. The films represent several possible “decliNations”, understood here in accordance with the multiple meanings of the word: refusals, deviations, or even “flexions of gender, number”, etc., of the Nation.
Quotation:
Falconi, J. (2019). Declinações: Identidades de Género e Construção da Nação em Filmes de Licínio Azevedo. Perspectiva Histórica 13: 81-105. http://www.perspectivahistorica.com.br/revistas/1563933990.pdf“
Mobilidades Contemporâneas no Contexto Pós-Colonial: Mbembe, Glissant e Mattelart
Abstract:
Taking up again the idea of subject derived from the reading of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concepts and worldviews will be mobilized that contribute to better understand contemporary mobilities. Reference is made to the process, the organization and the conditions in which current human mobilities are carried out to establish relationships between displacement, identity processes and narratives of belonging to places. In Mobilidades Contemporâneas no Contexto Pós-Colonial: Mbembe, Glissant e Mattelart we seek to observe this problematic from a paradigm interested in the possible positive effects, in the short and long term, of a change in the narrative on the international mobility of people. Armand Mattelart analyses, from the space of the city, the struggles of peoples and groups that question previously demarcated territories. To make his declared utopia viable, Édouard Glissant proposes the “creolisation of the contemporary world”, or the “All-World”, starting from the will born in the Caribbean archipelago, or rather, in mestizo America. Achille Mbembe, speaking of our condition of passers-by, of our common situation of vulnerability in the world, proposes a thought of passage, of crossing and circulation in which to inhabit is not to belong, refusing classifications that immobilise, in praise of an ethic that considers translation, misunderstandings and conflicts, recovering the body, the face, the word.
Quotation:
“Kowalewski, Daniele, Schilling, Flávia, Magalhães, Giovanna Modé, & Évora, Iolanda. (2019). Mobilidades Contemporâneas no Contexto Pós-Colonial: Mbembe, Glissant e Mattelart. Lua Nova: Revista de Cultura e Política, (108), 137-156. Epub November 28, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-137156/108“
Voices, Languages, Discourses: Interpreting the present and the memory of Nation in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe
Abstract:
Voices, Languages, Discourses: Interpreting the Present and the Memory of Nation in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe brings together a selection of interviews with writers and filmmakers from Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe in order to examine representations and images of national identity in these countries’ postcolonial narratives. It continues and completes the exploration of the postcolonial imaginary and identity of Portuguese-speaking Africa presented in the previous interview volume Speaking the Postcolonial Nation: Interviews with Writers from Angola and Mozambique (2014). Memory, history, migration and diaspora are central notions in the recreation and reconceptualisation of the nation and its identities in Cape Verdean, Guinean and São Tomense literary and film culture. By bringing together different generations of writers and filmmakers, with a wide variety of perspectives on the historical, social and cultural changes that occurred in their countries, this book makes a valuable contribution to current debates on post-colonialism, nation and identity in these former Portuguese colonies.
Quotation:
Leite, A., M., Falconi, J., Krakowska, K., Kahn, S., Secco, C. (2020). Voices, Languages, Discourses: Interpreting the Present and the Memory of Nation in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe. Oxford, United Kingdom: Peter Lang Verlag. Retrieved Oct 6, 2022, from https://www.peterlang.com/document/1055586
A Diáspora Cabo-verdiana e a Ideia de Nação
Abstract:
Starting from the notion of place as a horizon of connections, of productions of meanings and of struggles, the perspective we adopt highlights, on the one hand, a series of issues that have been little addressed, and, at the same time, shows its potential in the re-elaboration of the migratory phenomenon as a whole (which includes, for example, a psychosociology of the place of origin as a fundamental part of a diaspora nation as well). In addition to this interest from a social and academic place, there is no doubt that the topic “diaspora and nation”, when referred to Cape Verde, already arouses interest, that is, it is an impertinent (because provocative) subject, if we think about the mismatch between the geographical territoriality of the country (ten islands and 4033 km2 ) and the national (the islands and the diaspora). This means that it immediately indicates a challenge because geographical proximity is not adopted here as the criterion for defining a nation. On the contrary, in the case of Cape Verde, it is stated that the nation, in its definition, is only attainable if one also considers those who are physically distant from the territorial place called Cape Verde. A diáspora cabo-verdiana e a ideia de nação was delivered at the Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas USP Departamento de Geografia on 14.10.2009.
Quotation:
Évora, Iolanda. 2011. “A diáspora cabo-verdiana e a ideia de nação”. Comunicação apresentada na Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, USP Departamento de Geografia, Brasil.
Apresentação do GIS – Grupo Imigração e Saúde Parte 2: A utilidade do GIS para os imigrantes
Abstract:
GIS (Immigration and Health Group) proposes the involvement (virtual and real) of people, public and private institutions which, by their professional activity, develop research projects and tasks related to the health of the immigrant population. At this moment, GIS is already a reference as a privileged and credible source of information on health/immigration initiatives. With its functioning model – decentralised action, provided by the network structure, in which initiatives are suggested by all – it has promoted an intense exchange, which in the field of immigration and health, is perhaps unprecedented in Portugal, if we think of the scale of its reach and the number of members of the group. This exchange is made between its members, whose actions may be academic or more practical, therefore, of intervention in the field. An analysis of the profile of the GIS members shows that a significant part of them deal with the immigration/health theme at both possible levels of action, either at the academic or practical level of intervention. Because of this profile, and because GIS promotes the meeting of people and their institutions at both levels, we can say that GIS is an important practical-reflective proposal, therefore, an important contribution to a more reflected intervention and a reflection closer to reality, when it comes to immigration/health. Apresentação do GIS – Grupo Imigração e Saúde Parte 2 : a utilidade do GIS para os imigrantes was given at the II Forum Portuguese Healthy Cities Network Viana do Castelo 25-26 October 2007.
Quotation:
Évora, Iolanda. 2011. “Apresentação do GIS – Grupo Imigração e Saúde Parte 2 : a utilidade do GIS para os imigrantes”. Comunicação apresentada no II Fórum Rede Portuguesa de Cidades Saudáveis, Viana do Castelo.
