Postcolonialism

Working Paper 199/2024: Literatura e Ecologia: Representações da água em romances angolanos e moçambicanos

Abstract:

This article offers a brief cartography of the narrative role of water in Angolan and Mozambican literature, through a comparative reading of four novels: O desejo de Kianda (1995) by the Angolan Pepetela; De Rios Velhos e Guerrilheiros. I. O Livro dos Rios (2006) by Luandino Vieira; Água. Uma novela rural (2016) and Ponta Gea (2017) both by the 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 analysis aims to demonstrate that water is a crucial element in narrating post-colonial Angolan and Mozambican societies.

Cite this Working Paper:

Falconi, Jessica (2024). “Literatura e Ecologia: Representações da água em romances angolanos e moçambicanos”. CEsA/CGS – Documentos de trabalho nº 199/2024

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

História de São Tomé e Príncipe de Meados do Século XIX ao Fim do Regime Colonial (1852-1974): As plantações, economia, cultura e religião

Abstract:

This book explains the reasons that led the Portuguese to recolonize the São Tomé and Príncipe islands from 1852 onwards and the strategies they adopted to institutionalize the new colonial order in the archipelago. They removed the natives from ownership of land and institutions and introduced the plantation economy model around which all economic and social life began to revolve, with the territory being divided between the populations of large plantations and the native populations. Work and land were exploited to the point of exhaustion, with mistreatment, racial discrimination, and a progressive decline in soil productivity. The production crisis emerged and exposed the limits of the plantation economy model. There were several attempts to forcefully hire native labor, which generated many conflicts and led to the “Batepá” massacre of 1953. This event raised the awareness of nationalists for the independence of the archipelago, which occurred on July 12, 1975. The book also addresses culture and religion as central elements that shape São Tomé and Príncipe society and identity.

Quotation:

Espírito Santo, A. (2023). História de São Tomé e Príncipe – De Meados do Século XIX ao Fim do Regime Colonial (1852-1974): As plantações, economia, cultura e religião. Lisboa: Nimba Edições.

África, o berço da modernidade: por uma visão pós-colonial da modernidade e do território

Abstract:

In África, o berço da modernidade: por uma visão pós-colonial da modernidade e do território. In Territórios, cidades e identidades africanas em movimento, the author starts by taking a brief look at what is conventionally called modernity and what constitutes the substratum on which the “West” anchors itself for a triumphant and universalist autonarrative. Various authors, mainly from the mid-eighties onwards, have sought to demystify the origins of Western civilisation and modernity, most notably the three volumes of Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (1987/1991/2006), by Martin Gardiner Bernal.2 Other authors have followed in Bernal’s footsteps to some extent, one of them being the philosopher and historian Enrique Dussel with his work Política de La Liberación: Historia Mundial y Crítica [Liberation Policy: World History and Critique] (2007): World History and Critique] (2007), in which, situated in the field of postcolonial theory, he argues that Hellenocentrism is the father of Eurocentrism and that, given that the so-called “Greek miracle” by the German Romantics of the eighteenth century does not exist, this means having to start “anew” the history of political philosophy. To this end, he considers it essential to redefine the beginning of modernity. It is worth pointing out that it is “postmodernity” – called the historical period that seeks to overcome, or surpasses, modernity – that will give rise, in Western academia and its satellites, not only to a debate about the “postmodern condition” – or about its being the “cultural logic of late capitalism” – but also about the “vision” of modernity itself. Although many prefer expressions other than “postmodern”, or change their preference -such as Zygmunt Bauman, who starts talking about “liquid modernity”, or Gilles Lipovetsky, who prefers the term “hypermodernity”, or others who talk about “incomplete modernity”, or “late modernity” or “alternative modernities”-, in essence they do not put the emphasis on a critical analysis of the hegemonic Anglo-Saxon periodisation of modernity.

Quotation:

Barros-Varela, O. (2022). África, o berço da modernidade: por uma visão pós-colonial da modernidade e do território. In Territórios, cidades e identidades africanas em movimento. Andréia Moassab, Marina Berthet (Orgs.), 11-31. Foz do Iguaçu: EDUNILA, 2022. ISBN: 978-65-86342-32-1

Literatures and Cultures of the Indian Ocean

Abstract:

Portuguese Studies is a biannual multi-disciplinary journal dedicated to research on the cultures, literatures, history, and societies of the Lusophone world. Ana Mafalda Leite, Elena Brugioni, and Jessica Falconi were the organizers of this issue of the journal, Literatures and Cultures of the Indian Ocean. The president of the Editorial Board for 2021 is Catarina Fouto, and the Journals editor is Emanuelle Rodrigues Dos Santos. The journal is published by the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA), an international organization with members in all parts of the world. The aim of the Association is to encourage and promote advanced study and research in the field of modern humanities. It is concerned to break down barriers between scholars working in different disciplines and to maintain the unity of humanistic scholarship in the face of increasing specialization. The present volume results frorn the scholarly work conducted by members of the research project NILUS — Narratives Ofthe Indian Ocean in the Lusophone Space. The main purpose of the project consisted in establishing a theoretical and disciplinary connection between Lusophone Literary, Visual and Cultural Studies and the transdisciplinary field Of Indian Ocean Studies. The project on the written and visual narratives hailing from, or related to, the territories formerly colonized by Portugal along the Indian Ocean, specifically Mozambique, Goa, and East Timor. This volume, therefore, constitutes an attempt to bridge a significant critical and disciplinary gap, motivated by an almost total lack of dialogue among the above-mentioned fields of study. This lack of dialogue becomes ever more apparent if we bear in mind the increasingly central role played by historical, anthropological, literary, and cultural studies of the Atlantic Ocean in addressing colonial and postcolonial cultural and identity-related outputs and relations from the territories that Out Of Portuguese colonial rule. Consider, for instance, the influence of the notion of Brown Atlantic (Atlântico Pardo), de,’eloped by the anthropologist Miguel Vale de Almeida as a counterpoint to Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic, or the use of the Portugal -Brazil-Angola triangulation in comparative and transnational- oriented literary and cultural studies.4

Quotation:

Leite, A.M.; Brugioni, E. & Falconi, J. (2021) (eds). “Literatures and Cultures of the Indian Ocean”, Portuguese Studies 37.2.

Beyond Nationhood: Other ‘Declensions’ in African Literatures

Abstract:

In the last two decades, Portuguese-speaking African literature, as a field of critical inquiry and object of academic study,1 has been undergoing a great expansion, with numerous dissertations, monographs, conference proceedings, special issues of journals, and articles produced in several countries. The article Beyond Nationhood: Other ‘Declensions’ in African Literatures traces the evolution of the national perspective in the studies of Lusophone African Literatures from the 1980s to the present. Based on a selection of collective and individual publications, as well as highlighting impor tant academic events for the area, the article seeks to identify lines of continuity and moments of rupture in the approach of these literatures based on the idea of Nation as a critical category and unity of analysis, from the consolidation of the link between literature and national independence affirmed after decolonization until the reception of post-colonial theories which occurred in the mid-1990s. Also, the article looks at the theoretical and disciplinary articulations between African Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Indian Ocean Studies and Comparative Litera tures, to provide a possible mapping of the most recent approaches that seek to build new critical cartographies for the studies of these literatures.

Quotation:

Falconi, J. (2021). Beyond Nationhood: Other ‘Declensions’ in African Literatures. Abriu: Estudos De Textualidade Do Brasil, Galicia E Portugal, (10), 9–38. https://doi.org/10.1344/abriu2021.10.1

East Timorese Literary Narratives (Twenty-First Century): Indian Ocean Crossings and Littoral Encounters

Abstract:

The aim of East Timorese Literary Narratives (Twenty-First Century): Indian Ocean Crossings and Littoral Encounters is to analyze the book Requiem para o Navegador Solitário (2007) [Requiem for the Lonely Sailor] by Luís Cardoso considering the maritime elements that emerge in the novel and combining Indian Ocean Studies with Gender Studies. Pointing to the Timorese imaginary and the female protagonist’s perspective, we will focus on the elements related to the island’s coast, such as the shore, the sea, ships, sailors, and the interconnection with other islands and territories during the colonial period. In fact, we believe that these elements integrate not only the geographical space of the narrative, but also the literary imaginary, as is the case, for example, of the metaphorical resources and the construction of the main character, Catarina. Considering that East Timor is located at the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean and taking into account the theoretical theory of Indian Ocean Studics, we intend to demonstrate that in this novel the ocean constitutes a visual and metaphorical transcontinental repertoire that relates to the Timorese cultural imaginary itself. We will analyze the connection between the existential trajectory of Catarina, the novel’s female protagonist, the history of East Timor and the Indian Ocean crossings. This text, written in Portuguese by a Timorese author, portrays the complex history of this territory during World War II and offers a unique perspective on Timorese history.

Quotation:

Spinuzza, G. (2021). East Timorese Literary Narratives (Twenty-First Century): Indian Ocean Crossings and Littoral Encounters. Portuguese Studies 37(2), 242-255. doi:10.1353/port.2021.0017.

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.

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“

A poesia de Glória de Sant’anna: um roteiro de leitura dos primeiros livros

Abstract:

Through in-depth analysis of thematic aspects of the work of Glória de Sant’Anna, a poet of Portuguese origin who lived for over two decades in Mozambique, we will analyze in A poesia de Glória de Sant’Anna: um roteiro de leitura dos primeiros livros the poetic imaginary based on natural elements, especially aquatic, which are resumed by the generation of post-independence poets. Through the articulation of thematic elements identifiable with water, we intend to contribute to the definition of a thematic core built around the imaginary of the Indian Ocean, which has been asserting itself since the colonial period and which constitutes one of the key thematic cores for understanding Mozambican poetry. In this essay, we intend to demonstrate that in the most intimate texts, the poet metaphorically reworks the oceanic imaginary, turning it into a universal space of identification between the lyric self and the vastness of the Indian Ocean horizon. This work is financed by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the NILUS-Narratives of the Indian Ocean in the Lusophone Space Project (PTDC/CPC-ELT/4868/2014). This text reworks an essay that will be published in a collection of texts in tribute to Glória de Sant’Anna (in press) and is the result of the research of the PhD thesis defended in 2017.

Quotation:

“Spinuzza, Giulia. A poesia de Glória de Sant’Anna: um roteiro de leitura dos primeiros livros. Mulemba, UFRJ, Brasil, vol. 11, n. 21, Dezembro 2019, p. 136 https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/mulemba/issue/view/1302/showToc”