Returnees, Displaced or Refugees? Decolonization of Portuguese Africa (1974- 1977)

Authors

  • Alexandra Marques Universidade de Lisboa

Keywords:

Displaced, Returnee, Decolonization, Portugal

Abstract

The hypothesis of this article focus on the Portuguese former settlers from Angola and Mozambique (who were born or settled in the overseas territories) have not been felt as returnees in their nationality country because they having been forced to leave the two former colonies before independence due to the violent armed conflict in Angola and the social emergency state occurred in Mozambique. Many of those Portuguese who left Africa defined themselves as displaced persons who were involuntarily transported to a country with which they had little or no affinities. They did not feel as repatriated, but as unwanted foreigners, a kind of “outsiders”, despite they spoke the same language and knew the legislation. Portugal was a strange place to them, where their behavior and mentality were negatively pointed to remark that they were different from the others Portuguese.

Author Biography

  • Alexandra Marques, Universidade de Lisboa
    Nascida em Lisboa (em Janeiro de 1968), é licenciada em História e jornalista de Política Nacional desde 1991. Em Fevereiro de 2010 ingressou no Programa de Doutoramento Interuniversitário em História no Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, enquanto bolseira da Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado português. Autora da narrativa história Segredos da Descolonização de Angola, publicado em Portugal em Maio de 2103, a sua dissertação Deixar África (1974-1977): Experiência e Trauma dos Portugueses de Angola e Moçambique (cujá defesa está prevista para o Verão de 2014) dará origem ao livro homónimo a publicar na Primavera de 2915. A área de interesse académico foca-se no estudo dos deslocados de guerra do século XX, em três fases cronólogicas: os deportados do Holocausto (1933-48), os migrantes da descolonização (1945-75) e os refugiados da África Central (1975-2000).

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Published

2013-03-05

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2013)

Section

Research articles

License

All articles are published under an Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. Authors retain copyright over their work.