Joana Pereira Leite
Brief Paper 2/1996: A Emergência Improvável de Empresários Nacionais nos Países da África Subsaariaana: Notícia dos primeiros balanços das políticas de liberalização
Abstract:
About fifteen years after the Bretton Woods institutions started imposing market discipline on the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, the assessment of the liberalisation experience should not be indifferent to political leaders and economic players in the region. In fact, everything indicates that the policies of return to the market advocated by the neo-liberal theses, with the aim of overcoming the financial and economic crisis which, at the beginning of the 1980s, called the nationalisation model into question, did not produce the expected results. One of the vectors of this strategy was the transition from state-managed economies to price-regulated economies. Taking into account the validity of the neoclassical theses, the aim was the automatic establishment of the necessary conditions for the emergence of modern entrepreneurs. These would be the only agents capable of ensuring the restructuring of a weakened economic fabric after a long period of predatory management by the state, and invaded by growing dynamics of informality. A emergência improvável de empresários nacionais nos países da África Subsaariaana: notícia dos primeiros balanços das políticas de liberalização is not intended to recall the “formal/informal” debate, so dear to the economic literature of the last two decades. Bearing in mind the extreme economic complexity of African societies, the aim is simply to highlight some relevant, though not always evident, aspects of recent reflection on the difficult emergence of the African business class in the context of adjustment policies.
Quotation:
Leite, Joana Pereira. 1996. “A emergência improvável de empresários nacionais nos países da África Subsaariaana : notícia dos primeiros balanços das políticas de liberalização”. Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão – CEsA Brief papers nº 2-1996
Brief Paper 2/1995: A Constituição do Estado Moderno em África: O problema das fronteiras: a propósito de um artigo de Wole Soynka
Abstract:
The constitution of the modern state in Africa is inevitably linked to the Berlin Conference and, inevitably, it is also loaded with a symbology that characterises it as one of the main events in the historiography of modern Africa. This idea seems a little exaggerated to us, as Elikia M ‘BOKOLO points out in “Afrique Noire Histoire et Civilisations”, since, if on the one hand, the Conference was essentially the result of a German initiative, a power which, compared to its European counterparts, had fewer interests in Africa, on the other, it in fact corresponded, roughly speaking, to the regulation of questions arising from the commercial exploitation of the territories that each country claimed for its sphere of influence. In fact, this question of effective occupation became the core of other questions at the heart of the game of European powers and the confrontation of their interests, but it was, above all, the origin of a polemic that has not ceased to disturb international public opinion to this day, also becoming, on the African side, one of the main points as regards its political, economic and social evolution. In fact, the problem of the intangibility of borders has become, especially in recent times and after the rise to independence of most African nations, one of the most worrying issues for national entities and international bodies. A constituição do Estado Moderno em África : o problema das fronteiras : a propósito de um artigo de Wole Soynka was elaborated within the scope of the course História de África of the Master in International Development and Cooperation taught at the ISEG/UTL, of which Prof. Joana Pereira Leite is in charge.
Quotation:
Borges, João Melo. 1995. “A constituição do Estado Moderno em África : o problema das fronteiras : a propósito de um artigo de Wole Soynka”. Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão – CEsA Brief papers nº 2-1995
Working Paper 183/2021: Dans le Dernier Sursaut de l’Estado da Índia (1951-1961): Témoignages inédits de deux femmes portugaises
Abstract:
During the last decade of Estado da Índia, the testimonies of two Portuguese women who embark on a trip to Goa have caught our attention, getting us to write Dans le dernier sursaut de l’Estado da Índia (1951-1961) : témoignages inédits de deux femmes portugaises. Born in 1926 and part of the first generation of Estado Novo, the authors belong to an educated elite and share an acute political awareness of the regime, choosing even to engage in the metropolis opposition movements. They left Portugal for Goa, the territory of their political exile, a society totally alien to them and an important moment of personal experience. The last decade of the Portuguese domination sign the last burst of Estado da Índia which is moving towards the return of its territories to the Indian Union in 1961. The stories left by these two women articulate a history of the Portuguese empire, learned on school benches, portraying an experience of the Salazarist regime and the confrontation of the authors’ experience in Goa. There they make their way on a tightrope, created both by the distance to the colonial administration and by the difficult penetrability of Goan society. In this interface and stemming from an everyday of existential precariousness, they get to know this society and engage in the cultural and political challenges that cross it. Back in Portugal and later on, one of the authors write her memories and the other wish for the exposure of the letters, that she daily written to her family . The memoirs and letters constitute a counterpoint testimony, on the one hand to that of the Portuguese of the Empire (whose statuses and belonging were defined in a colonial society) and, on the other, to that of the diasporas belonging to the Empire (Portuguese, Goans , Indians) by where it is also interesting to read the center from its periphery. Their testimonies and their reflections have very current accents on the way of writing, of thinking and living on existential, material, and symbolic borders that both separate and unite people.
Quotation:
Khouri, Nicole e Joana Pereira Leite (2021). “Dans le dernier sursaut de l’Estado da Índia (1951-1961) : témoignages inédits de deux femmes portugaises”. Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão – CEsA/ CSG –Documentos de Trabalho nº 183/2021.
