"The project's overarching objective was successfully attained — to study alternative histories of social emancipation, formed through subaltern and violent historical processes, and its potential contribution to knowledge creation and sharing between societies, opening up space for more critical and democratic views of the world.
The act of interviewing, publishing and disseminating these preliminary research results contributed to the goal of democratising knowledge production and access, and this was acknowledged by the interviewees and public present in the scientific and public events where the research was presented.
The research, interdisciplinary and multi-sited (Mozambique, Timor-Leste and Portugal), used a methodological approach combining history, post-colonial studies, education and memory studies. The project collected oral histories on the movement of ideas and people between Timor-Leste and Mozambique, interviewing 26 people in Timor-Leste, Mozambique and Portugal: East Timorese diaspora in Mozambique during the Indonesian occupation (1975-1999) and Mozambicans who were part of the solidarity networks during that period. The archival work done in Mozambique and Portugal complemented the oral history research and inserted these individual and collective histories in the broader historical contexts of national development and education policies in Mozambique, as well as in the international south-south cooperation and Asia-Africa solidarity connections.
EDULIBERA results were communicated with broad audiences and the dissemination of research results through publications, participation in international conferences and seminars/workshops held in Mozambique and Timor-Leste — a testament to the action’s relevance and the interest it sparked both in academia and beyond.
The researcher collaborated in the organisation of international seminars and conferences (the Timor-Leste Studies Association conference and the Memory, Archives and Knowledge conference marking the 20th anniversary of the Timor-Leste's referendum for self-determination); she organised a special issue in a peer-reviewed journal (eCadernos CES), co-coordinated peer-refereed conference proceedings and designed an e-learning seminar (CLACSO - Council of Latin American Social Sciences/Centro de Estudos Sociais platform). Several of these events and activities resulted in collaborations and networking with academics in Australia, Timor-Leste, Japan, Canada, Mozambique, which reinforced her longer-term integration in the academic profession and independence as an early career researcher. As a result, two conference papers were presented which will result in publications in 2021 at the conference proceedings and at a peer-reviewed publication. Also, the researcher published articles which build on previous research done in the areas of memory, reconciliation and human rights ideas in Timor-Leste.
Moreover, the sustainability and continuity of the research is further ensured by the researcher's new six-year long contract with the Portuguese national funding Agency for science, research and technology (FCT) on a related theme — ""Transnational histories of solidarity in the south - researching 'other' knowledges and struggles for rights across the Indian ocean"", in particular on Mozambique and Timor-Leste solidarities in the area of education. The website of the project ""Solidarities in the South — Intertwined Histories"" (
https://solidarsul.org/(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)) will continue to be regularly updated to communicate both EDULIBERA’s and the new project's results throughout the next 6 years."
