Legacies of the Portuguese Colonial Empire: Nationalism, Popular Culture and Citizenship

Decolonization represented the end of colonial rule, but did not eradicate imperial and colonial categories and mythologies. Situated in the wider context of European colonial legacies, this book looks at the legacies of the Portuguese empire in today’s Portugal.

Using an interdisciplinary agenda, with contributions from experts in the fields of history, anthropology, literature, and sociology, the several case studies included in the volume look at a wide range of colonial legacies. These include a set of commemorative practices that feed on imperial mythologies, old colonial and racial classifications that condition citizenship rights, and post-imperial modes of culture consumption. Legacies of the Portuguese Colonial Empire is the first book written so far in English on this topic, enabling the Portuguese case to enter into a broader dialogue with other national experiences relating to the legacies of colonialism and empire in today’s Europe.

Nuno Domingos is Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal. His publications include: Football and Colonialism: Body ad Popular Culture in Urban Mozambique (2017) and Resistance and Colonialism: Insurgent Peoples in World History (2019) (with M. B. Jerónimo and R. Roque).

Elsa Peralta is Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Comparative Studies (CEC), University of Lisbon, Portugal. She is the co-editor of Heritage and Identity: Engagement and Demission in Contemporary Society (2009) and curated the exhibition ＂Return - Traces of Memory＂ (City of Lisbon, 2015).