Project description
Novel theories regarding history, memory and visual culture
Can a cultural re-reading of the past and its mediations in the present elucidate how historical knowledge is produced in current contexts of political change? The EU-funded MICoMe project will answer these questions. Specifically, it will study how knowledge about the past is produced in contemporary Portugal. To do so, it will analyse individual and collective engagements with material and visual traces left by two entangled historical events: the 1974 Carnation Revolution, and the return of Portuguese colonial settlers. To gather empirical data regarding how film, photography and documents from institutional and family archives are animated to produce new narratives about the recent past, the project will draw on ethnographic participant observation, life history and oral history methods, as well as photo/object-elicitation strategies.
Objective
This interdisciplinary project examines how knowledge about the past is produced in contemporary Portugal by analyzing individual and collective engagements with material and visual traces left by two entangled historical events: the 1974 Carnation Revolution and the return of Portuguese colonial settlers to the metropole. Both revolution and return were outcomes of the Portuguese Colonial War, known in the former colonies as the “Liberation Wars,” which resulted in the constitution of new African nations. Drawing on ethnographic participant observation, life history and oral history methods, and photo/object-elicitation strategies, this project gathers empirical data regarding how film, photography, and documents from institutional and family archives are animated in order to produce new narratives about the recent past. It thereby conceptualizes how knowledge about Portugal’s transition to democracy and, by extension, its relationship to the (de)colonial project is produced and mediated. In doing so, MICoMe puts forth novel theories regarding history and memory not separate entities, but rather co-constituting spheres of knowledge production and meaning making. As such, it develops innovative methodological approaches to understanding how contradictory and, at times, oppositional memories regarding the recent past are negotiated through public and private engagements with visual and material traces left by experiences with revolution and return. By juxtaposing colonial memories and militant imaginaries, this project posits that a cultural re-reading of the past and its mediations in the present can elucidate how historical knowledge is produced in in current contexts of political change while also unsettling closed narratives regarding empire, decolonization and political transition.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
1099 085 Lisboa
Portugal