The Internationalisation Of The Native Labour Question In Portuguese Late Colonialism 1945 1962

This volume addresses the ways the 'native labour' question in the Portuguese late colonial empire in Africa became a recurrent topic of international and transnational debate and regulation after the Second World War. As other European colonial empires were tentatively transforming their labour and social policies in the aftermath of the war, the Portuguese Empire in Africa resisted significant changes in this domain, preserving a strict dual labour regime. As a result, a growing number of individuals, networks and institutions abroad engaged with labour and social realities in Portuguese African colonies, giving origin to a series of instances of denunciation of labour-related abuses. Portuguese authorities responded to these initiatives by selectively engaging with international norms, languages and mechanisms. However, as global decolonisation gained momentum, international and transnational events and processes would significantly constrain Portuguese imperial and colonial decision-making procedures, with the aim of retaining the empire. Therefore, the 'native labour' question became in its own right a crucial political and diplomatic element of the broader struggles over the meaning of Portuguese imperial legitimacy. As this volume argues, these historical processes are critical to properly understanding the history of Portuguese late colonialism and its protracted trajectory of decolonisation. José Pedro Monteiro is a Research Fellow at the Communication and Society Research Centre - University of Minho, Portugal. His current research project focuses on the politics of citizenship in the Portuguese late colonial empire. He has been working, for the last few years, on the intersections between international and imperial histories and historiographies. With Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo, he co-edited Internationalism, Imperialism and the Formation of the Contemporary World (Palgrave, 2017). He is currently the coordinator of the research project "Humanity Internationalized: Cases, Dynamics, Comparisons (1945-1980)", funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. .

This volume addresses the ways the ‘native labour’ question in the Portuguese late colonial empire in Africa became a recurrent topic of international and transnational debate and regulation after the Second World War. As other European colonial empires were tentatively transforming their labour and social policies in the aftermath of the war, the Portuguese Empire in Africa resisted significant changes in this domain, preserving a strict dual labour regime. As a result, a growing number of individuals, networks and institutions abroad engaged with labour and social realities in Portuguese African colonies, giving origin to a series of instances of denunciation of labour-related abuses. Portuguese authorities responded to these initiatives by selectively engaging with international norms, languages and mechanisms. However, as global decolonisation gained momentum, international and transnational events and processes would significantly constrain Portuguese imperial and colonial decision-making procedures, with the aim of retaining the empire. Therefore, the ‘native labour’ question became in its own right a crucial political and diplomatic element of the broader struggles over the meaning of Portuguese imperial legitimacy. As this volume argues, these historical processes are critical to properly understanding the history of Portuguese late colonialism and its protracted trajectory of decolonisation.

"For several decades conflicts within states rather than between them have been the prevalent form of organised political violence worldwide. Most intra-state conflicts since 1945 have originated in insurgencies, not just against incumbent regimes but, more often, against those regimes' external sponsors, whether imperial governments or dominant regional powers. This Handbook focuses on the former group, on the insurgencies and counter-insurgencies fought out as European overseas empires collapsed. Seeking to identify the causal dynamics and violence processes of such violent decolonization, the Handbook will address the most taxing problems in conflict limitation: how to constrain the actions of insurgents and counter-insurgents in asymmetric 'guerrilla wars'; how to mitigate the consequences of proxy involvement in intra-state conflicts; and how to protect civilians in war zones where combatant-non-combatant distinctions have broken down. Underlying these questions is a unifying theme - and a core Handbook objective - the need to recognize the cultural practices of insurgent movements and counter-insurgent forces as a prerequisite to comprehending their violence"--

The Portuguese Colonial War and the African Liberation Struggles: Memory, Politics and Uses of the Past presents a critical and comparative analysis on the memory of the colonial and liberation wars that led to a regime change in Portugal and to the independence of five new African countries: Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe. Covering more than six decades and based on original archival research, critical analysis of sources and interviews, the book offers a plural account of the public memorialization of this contested past in Portugal and in former colonized territories in Africa, focusing on diachronic and synchronic processes of mnemonic production. This innovative exercise highlights the changing and crossed nature of political memories and social representations through time, emphasizing three modes of mnemonic intersections: the intersection of distinct historical times; the intersection between multiple products and practices of memory; and the intersection connecting the different countries and national histories. The Portuguese Colonial War and the African Liberation Struggles: Memory, Politics and Uses of the Past is the major and final output of the research developed by CROME – Crossed Memories, Politics of Silence, a project funded by a Starting Grant (715593) from the European Research Council (ERC). The book advances current knowledge on Portugal and Africa and deepens ongoing conceptual and epistemological discussions regarding the relationship between social and individual memories, the dialectics between memory, power and silence, and the uses and representations of the past in postcolonial states and societies.

This book assesses the dynamics, challenges and achievements of the development processes of three Portuguese-speaking Small Island Developing States (PSSIDS) - Cabo Verde, São Tome and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste. Important lessons are drawn from those processes, which are relevant for policymakers, as well as for their bilateral and multilateral development partners, including international organizations such as United Nations or the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. To that end, the book includes contributions to the academic literature about SIDS, an area of research that has been significantly overlooked. The conclusions would be of interest to readers as a lead up to the fiftieth anniversary of their independence.

This volume brings together reflections on citizenship, political violence, race, ethnicity and gender, by some of the most critical voices of our times. Detailed and wide-ranging individual reflections, take the writings of prominent Ugandan political theorist Mahmood Mamdani as a touchstone for thinking about the world from Africa. Contributors apply this theory to argue that we cannot make sense of the political contentions of difference, identity and citizenship today without understanding the legacies of colonial rule on our world. Chapters examine the persistence of the past, and how we must reckon with its tragedies, its injustices, and its utopias in order to chart a new politics; the politics of possible futures that are more inclusive and more egalitarian, and that can think of difference in more equitable ways. In a time when the call to decolonize knowledge, and politics rings loud and clear, this is both a timely and a crucial intervention.

Looking at decolonization in the conditional tense, this volume teases out the complex and uncertain ends of British and French empire in Africa during the period of ‘late colonial shift’ after 1945. Rather than view decolonization as an inevitable process, the contributors together explore the crucial historical moments in which change was negotiated, compromises were made, and debates were staged. Three core themes guide the analysis: development, contingency and entanglement. The chapters consider the ways in which decolonization was governed and moderated by concerns about development and profit. A complementary focus on contingency allows deeper consideration of how colonial powers planned for ‘colonial futures’, and how divergent voices greeted the end of empire. Thinking about entanglements likewise stresses both the connections that existed between the British and French empires in Africa, and those that endured beyond the formal transfer of power. Praise for Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa '…this ambitious volume represents a significant step forward for the field. As is often the case with rich and stimulating work, the volume gestures towards more themes than I have space to properly address in this review. These include shifting terrains of temporality, spatial Scales, and state sovereignty, which together raise important questions about the relationship between decolonization and globalization. By bringing all of these crucial issues into the same frame,Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa is sure to inspire new thought-provoking research.' - H-France vol. 17, issue 205

This open access edited volume offers an analysis of the entangled histories of education and development in twentieth-century Africa. It deals with the plurality of actors that competed and collaborated to formulate educational and developmental paradigms and projects: debating their utility and purpose, pondering their necessity and risk, and evaluating their intended and unintended consequences in colonial and postcolonial moments. Since the late nineteenth century, the “educability” of the native was the subject of several debates and experiments: numerous voices, arguments, and agendas emerged, involving multiple institutions and experts, governmental and non-governmental, religious and laic, operating from the corridors of international organizations to the towns and rural villages of Africa. This plurality of expressions of political, social, cultural, and economic imagination of education and development is at the core of this collective work.