African women’s trajectories and the Casa dos Estudantes do Império

ABSTRACT

This article compares the trajectories of different women who crossed the Casa dos Estudantes do Império (CEI), a formal institution created in Lisbon by students from the colonies with the support of the Portuguese dictatorial regime in 1944, that became a platform for anti–colonialism. Due to the role played by the CEI in the political and social paths of the leaders of African national liberation movements, historiography has privileged masculine accounts. In contrast, the roles and lives of women linked to the CEI remain unexplored or approached from a vision of “methodological nationalism”, with few exceptions. Addressing these trajectories from a transnational and “Afro–Iberian” lens and through the scrutiny of several sources allows us to reflect on a diversity of gender, race, class, and political ideology. The final aim is to illuminate some aspects of the Afro–Iberian mosaic from a gendered and postcolonial perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• Gendering anticolonialism
• archives
• lusophone Africa
• African women
• gender
• Casa dos Estudantes do Império

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article was supported by the Research and Development project I+D+i “Africans and Maghrebis in the Iberian Peninsula (1850–1975). A history on the margins of Spain and Portugal” (AFROIBERIA), dir. Y. Aixelà-Cabré, PID2019-108397GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and “FEDER Una manera de hacer Europa”.

2 It should be noted that the relevance of the CEI in the formation of the political consciences of the Africans who passed through it represents a unique case in the Iberian Peninsula. A similar institution in Spain, the Colegio Mayor Nuestra Señora de África, founded in Madrid in 1964 by the Dirección General de Plazas y Provincias Africanas (Santana Pérez 2007, 32), also existed during a slightly later period but has so far not received the attention it deserves, probably because it did not have the same impact on the politicization of the Africans who frequented it.

3 In 1957/58, Maria Natália Cardoso de Silva Antunes, known as Carocha, was a board member, and Inácia Olímpia de Oliveira directed the newsletter, although she gave up after four issues, due mainly to the lack of member collaboration (Oliveira 1959, 28).

4 “Uma mulher de Angola” (“A Woman from Angola”), 10/12/1975, RTP1, available at https://arquivos.rtp.pt/conteudos/uma-mulher-de-angola/.

5 CONCP was held in 1961 in Casablanca, bringing together representatives of the main liberation movements of the Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia (Goa).

6 For a detailed biographical profile of Noémia de Sousa, see Owen 2019.

7 PT-TT-PIDE-SC-PC2756-CI(2)-NT-7229, sheet 52.

8 Letter from Lúcio Lara to Viriato da Cruz, 19/09/59, quota 0006.000.083, tchiweka.org.

9 PT-TT-PIDE­-E-010-128-25578

10 PT-TT-PIDE-SC-PC-2756-(CI)2-NT-7229, sheet 14.

11 For an analysis of the magazine, see Carmo 2019.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Secretaria de Estado de Investigacion, Desarrollo e Innovacion [grant number PID2019-108397GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033].