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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | African Studies in Portugal & the Lusophone world |
| Author: | Nobrega, Alvaro Correia de |
| Year: | 2002 |
| Periodical: | African Research and Documentation |
| Issue: | 90 |
| Pages: | 71-89 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Portugal Portuguese-speaking Africa |
| Subjects: | African studies African studies collections |
| Abstract: | In Africa there are still six countries in which Portuguese is understood and spoken to a certain degree. They are Angola, Mozambique, S. Tomé and Principé and Cabo Verde (in all these three the language is now really a creole language), and Guinea-Bissau. The author paints a rather gloomy picture of present Portuguese position in Africa and African Studies. The once great influence of Portugal has shrunk to virtually nothing. This state of affairs was accelerated by the sudden coup d'état in Portugal on the 25 April, 1974, necessitating the precipitate departure of Portugal from all its former colonial possessions. Since then, Portuguese culture in Africa has been devalued, a process not helped by the behaviour of the Portuguese-speaking mestizo elites in many of the countries they had once occupied. After the coup, many experts on Africa were treated with contempt as colonial exploiters by the adherents of the new order in Portugal and their knowledge despised. Consequently, the reservoir of knowledge about Africa in Portugal has considerably diminished. Only recently, in the 1980s and 1990s since Portugal joined the European Union, has there been something of an upsurge in interest. There are still huge archives, many of them not even sorted. The author ends with a list of the most important library and institutional collections in Portugal. He also mentions the Memory of Africa digitization project which is collecting the reminiscences of people who have lived in Africa. Bbiliogr. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
