Portuguese Studies Review, Vol. 10, No. 1
(Released September 2002. Subscription Year 2002)
















Nancy Bermeo
Princeton University
"Portuguese Democracy in Comparative Perspective"
Pp. 1-11

Abstract: This paper is the text of a talk given in honor of Prof. Douglas Wheeler on the occasion of his retirement from the faculty of the University of New Hampshire in April 2002. It begins by citing an essay that Prof. Wheeler wrote in 1980, in which he argued that four "master tensions" had plagued the First Republic, that they were still very much in evidence in the aftermath of the Salazar-Caetano regime, and that they would require at least partial resolution if Portugal's new democracy were to survive. The article then moves on to provide an update on one of Wheeler's master tensions–that of political factionalism. Using a variety of quantitative data, the article shows that political factionalism has diminished dramatically, that Portuguese democracy is much healthier than it had been in the past and, that by some measures, it is now much healthier than other Western European states with longer histories of democratic government.

Maria Eugénia Mata
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
"Do Political Conditions Matter? Nineteenth-Century Lisbon: A Case Study"
Pp. 12-25

Abstract: Do political conditions matter for the prosperity of a capital city? A study of Lisbon's case suggests the conclusion that the French Napoleonic military occupation, Brazil's independence, and domestic civil wars indeed triggered off a gloomy phase during the first half of the nineteenth century. The demographic stagnation marking the period was related to Lisbon's slow adaptation to the structural changes resulting from these political challenges. The demographic growth and prosperity that characterized the century's second half, as well as the early twentieth century, were related by contrast to the peaceful foreign and national environment Lisbon's civil society was able to enjoy. They also reflected the development of centralized state government, and the rules regulating local urban growth. Lisbon's role as the capital city of a new colonial empire seems to have been a less important factor.

José C. Curto
York University, Toronto
"'As If From a Free Womb': Baptismal Manumissions in the Conceição Parish, Luanda, 1778-1807"
Pp. 26-57

Abstract: This paper reconstructs and discusses the process of manumission in a slavocratic society that has so far remained outside the ambit of scholarly analysis: the Conceição Parish of Luanda, where the elites of colonial Angola resided. The sources on which it draws consists of 166 cases of slave enfranchisement at the baptismal font between 1778 and 1807, a particularly important period for both Luanda and Angola. Involving exclusively infants, this relatively small number of cases nevertheless relates to a far larger population pool, both enslaved and free, within the Conceição Parish. Thus, besides addressing the ritual incorporation of certain slaves into the Christian community, and the simultaneous freedom gained through the baptismal font, the study also provides otherwise unobtainable detailed insights into a specific slave and slave-holding society in West Central Africa.

Manolo Florentino and Cacilda Machado
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
"Ensaio sobre a imigração portuguesa e os padrões de miscigenação no Brasil (séculos XIX e XX)"
Pp. 58-84

Abstract: A high rate of social mobility has traditionally allowed Brazilians to move across social strata, thus making them into conjoint factors of the ceaseless reproduction of the racial "melting pot." For the same reason, however, and despite racial differences, Brazilians have engaged in a reaffirmation of social exclusion. The present study seeks to capture some aspects of this peculiar dynamic through an analysis of such issues in the context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro. The basic sources are (a) cartas de alforrias from the city's nineteenth-century parish registers, namely the baptisms of free persons in the Parish of Inhaúma—a body of nearly one thousand records documenting, in this rural community adjacent ot the city, the presence of a significant freeed population and of Portuguese migrants; and (b) interviews with Portuguese immigrants to Brazil. This material has made it possible to establish certain patterns that may be generalizeable to other Brazilian regions. Furthermore, the study explores various factors that contribute to our understanding of the logic behind Portuguese emigration to Brazil, and establishes certain linkages between these mechanisms and the dynamics of Brazilian racial blending.

Manuel Ennes Ferreira
Universidade Técnica de Lisboa
"Portugal and the Lusophone African Countries: Continuities and Disruptions"
Pp. 85-107

Abstract: More than twenty-five years have elapsed since the end of the Portuguese colonial empire in Africa, and both sides face a new economic and political environment. This paper asks the following main question: from the point of view of Portugal, can the economic relations between Portugal and its ex-colonies be said to have undergone significant quantitative and qualitative changes? In search of an answer, the study takes into account the background of the bilateral economic ties (1962-1973), the main characteristics of bilateral economic relations from independence until the year 2000, and the CPLP effect. This framework permits an analysis of economic continuities and disruptions. After decolonisation, the geographical reversal of Portuguese foreign trade and investment was the most notable feature, further accompanied by an erosion of this same trade and investment, even though historical factors seem to have played a major positive role in economic relations between Portugal and the Lusophone African Countries. On the other hand, it is possible to detect certain economic continuities, the main one being the significant import share, as well as investment share, that Portugal has maintained in these countries. The paper concludes with reflections concerning the prospects for future economic relations between Portugal and the LAC.

Branwen Gruffydd Jones
University of Sussex, UK
"Globalisation and the Freedom to be Poor: From Colonial Political Coercion to the Economic Compulsion of Need"
Pp. 108-128

Abstract: Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique was notorious for its coercive practices against the peasantry. Today, however, rural poverty reduction is central to government policy. To what extent do the recent developments really represent a radical departure from Mozambique's colonial past? This article examines the current discourse and practice of rural development policy in a historical perspective. An explicit comparison between the present conjuncture and that of Portuguese colonial rule enables a better comprehension of the real nature and determinants of social change in rural Mozambique today. A historical consideration of the changing nature of social relations of production, both local and global, suggests that current rural development policy is the equivalent, under global conditions of capital accumulation, of the rural labor regime of the Portuguese colonial empire.

João Paulo Borges Coelho
Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo
"African Troops in the Portuguese Colonial Army, 1961-1974: Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique"
Pp. 129-150

Abstract: The colonial powers systematically included Africans in the wars waged to preserve their order. Portugal was not an exception in this respect. Since 1961, with the beginning of the liberation wars in her colonies, Portugal incorporated Africans in her war effort in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique through a process enveloped in an ideological discourse based on "multi-racialism" and the preservation of the empire. African engagement varied from marginal roles as servants and informers to more important ones as highly operational combat units. By the end of the Portuguese colonial war, in 1974, African participation had become crucial, representing about half of all operational colonial troops. This paper explores in a comparative framework the three cases of Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, seeking the rationale behind the process and the shapes it took. The abrupt end of the colonial war, triggered by a military coup in Portugal, paved the way for the independence of the colonies, but left a legacy difficult to manage by the newly independent countries. Shedding some light on the destiny of the former African collaborators during this period, the paper suggests that they played a role in the post-independence civil conflicts in Angola and Mozambique.

Alda Romão Saúte
Pedagogic University, Maputo
"The Anglican Mission of Santo Agostinho-Maciene and Its Relations to the Portuguese Colonial State, 1926/8-1974"
Pp. 151-184

Abstract: The paper examines O Estado Novo (The New State) strategies to control and contain the efforts of Anglican missionaries and Mozambicans in the realm of religion and education, and the ways in which missionaries, teachers, catechists and community members sought to reain some degree of autonomy as well as to exploit Portuguese policies for their own ends. The study begins with the premise that the Anglican mission constituted a contested and negotiated terrain where Maciene teachers, catechists, priests, students, community members, missionaries and Portuguese colonial officials fought over aims, syllabi, subjects, meanings, and the power of the religious and educational processes.

Based on over 100 interviews and extensive fieldwork in Gaza, Maputo and Inhambane Provinces, the study demonstrates that while on the surface the battle was won by the Portuguese state and the Roman Catholic Church, the educational and religious activities of the Anglican mission of Maciene district continued. The Anglican English hierarchy, carrying on its struggle in ever closer cooperation with the Mozambican personnel (teachers, priests, and catechists) resisted, accommodated, manipulated, and negotiated Portuguese colonial education and religious legislation both to defend their own interests and to benefit the Mozambican believers. Centralization of educational work, sponsorship of study grants, training of teachers, "Daily Catechism Schools," hidden elementary education and Sunday schools were among the initiatives used to circumvent and survive the Portuguese colonial regime.

Phillip Rothwell
Rutgers University
"Momplé's Melancholia: Mourning for Mozambique"
Pp. 185-193

Abstract: This article offers a close reading of the short story "Stress," by the Mozambican author Lília Momplé. It suggests that Momplé uses the symptoms of melancholia to signal a betrayal of and by the mother country. The analysis uses Julia Kristeva's work, Black Sun, to offer a reading of Momplé's text in which foreign intrusion onto the Mozambican cultural and economic landscape is deemed to lead to a breakdown in meaning in the post-civil-war nation. Momplé's portrayal is a pesimistically valid cultural configuration of the inevitable trend towards globalization now dominant in Mozambican society. A consequence of that trend, which systematically relies on economic inequality, is a loss of individual national identity and the immense relative poverty that serves as the backdrop to Momplé's story.

Sonny B. Davis
Texas A & M University
"The Torre do Tombo Archives"
Pp. 194-199

Book Reviews
Winius, George D. Studies on Portuguese Asia, 1495-1689. Variorum Collected Series CS 732. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2001 (Ivana Elbl); De Castelnau-L'Estoile. Les Ouvriers d'une vigne stérile. Les Jésuites et la conversion des Indiens au Brésil, 1580-1620. Lisbonne-Paris: Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian-Commission Nationale pour la Commémoration des Découvertes Portugaises, 2000 (Javier Villa-Flores); Lusotopie. Enjeux contemporains dans les espaces lusophones. Issue 2000. Lusophonies asiatiques, Asiatiques en lusophonies. Paris: Editions Karthala, 2000 (Philippe Forêt); Corkill, David. The Development of the Portuguese Economy: A Case Study of Europeanization. London: Routledge, 1999 (Eric Baklanoff); Noa, Francisco Pedro dos Santos. A Escrita infinita: Ensaios sobre literatura moçambicana. Maputo: Livraria da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 1998 (Don Burness).

© 2002 Portuguese Studies Review. All rights reserved.