Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

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Cabecinhas, R. & Abadia, L. (eds.) (2013)Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approachesBraga: University of MinhoISBN: 978-989-8600-04-2pp. 146 -158The Works of Sísifo: Memories and Identitiesof the Portuguese in Africa according toFiction Films of the Twentieth CenturyMaria Manuel BaptistaUniversity of Aveiro, Portugalmbaptista@ua.ptAbstractThe genealogy of Lusophony may be seen as an intersection of different memories, shapedthrough several temporal strata. The disparate senses of identity that are evoked by thosememories are multiple and frequently opposite. The different narratives, that circulateon a given and identified cultural and linguistic space, always use the metaphor of themirror, where people is seen through the dualities of ‘we/others’, ‘inside/outside’, ‘civilized/wild’, etc. Far from being a schema only applied to the colonizer/colonized, this paperfocuses on how Portuguese identities still live under several aporia in these post-colonialtimes. It’s inside these dynamic oppositions, mixing imagery, symbols and the reality thatidentities are built and rebuilt, nowadays under the strong influence of cultural industriesthat reflect, feed and transform our imagination. It is on this theoretical ground that wewill try to understand two particular dimensions of the Portuguese colonial memories,which have left a deep and a long lasting trace in our colonial narratives, and also incolonialist and ‘retornados’ (returnees) identities.Our study will focus on three movies made in Portugal during the 20th century. Weconclude that the first and second examples (Chaimite and O Zé do Burro, respectively),compile an individual story and memory of the subjects and the groups which alwaysserve the memories of the History of Portugal and of the Portuguese.On the contrary, the film that we analyzed which was made post-April 25th, Tempestade daTerra, addresses the History, the individual story and the national memory that comprisesmultiple individual stories and diverse memories.Finally, our study reveals the possibility of representing the reality of colonialism and postcolonialismin terms of the great diversity of relations between one side and the other.KeywordsLusophony, memories, identity, (post-)colonialism, Portuguese moviesIntroductionFar from being a static repository of information, memory is one of the fundamentalelements which constitutes identities, whether individual or collective. In terms of individualand collective memories, it may also be said that one inspires the other, and vice-versa,as they cyclically convene in tasks which reconstruct this sense of memory (Candau, 1996).This paper consists of the analysis of the relationships between identity and memory, as akind of task which is very close to the works of Sísifo, in the context of the constitution of
The Works of Sísifo: Memories and Identities of the Portuguese in Africa according to Fiction Films of the Twentieth CenturyMaria Manuel Baptistaautonomous subjects and communities which are free and self-regulated. Memory functionsnot only with self-identity but also with the identity of the other which is constantly mediated,regulated, thought and frequently legitimised and established in power relationshipcontexts where subjects and the communities interact. In their diversity, cultural productsexpress and sometimes stabilize, through distinct languages, the state of those power relations.At times, they question them, other times they can justify and naturalise them, whetheror not this is a conscious objective (Cabecinhas, 2007). One of the most impressive examplesof self-identity and self-memory manipulation (and thus, simultaneous manipulation of theother identity and memory) was the process of colonisation, which the Europeans broughtto bear in various corners of the world, and in its most intense form, at the end of the nineteenthand twentieth centuries in Africa.This current study is specifically dedicated towards analysing the relations betweenthe memory and the identity of the colonial Portuguese in Africa, based on the manner inwhich they were represented in Portuguese cinema until the end of the twentieth century.Three examples were chosen (two feature-length fictional films and one comedy), whichwe considered pertinent in terms of how the Portuguese represented their own identity asagents of civilisation for the African people. Without being an analysis of the importanceof cinema, as a creator and an activator of images, identities and memories, this study alsointends to underline the fecundity of this area of research, which, in Portugal, takes its firststeps towards a serious and systematic investigation in the area of Cultural Studies, andmore specifically, in the dominion of post-colonial Portuguese studies 1 .From colonialism to post-colonialism: memories, images and representations ofidentitiesThe colonising presence of the Portuguese in Africa during the twentieth century greatlyinterests us, in two major areas: firstly to understand the way in which the memory and thePortuguese cultural identity was transformed during this century, specifically in terms of thePortuguese who went to Africa and established themselves there, and on the other hand, theway in which the new land was reinvented, in their memory identities, auto and hetero representations,when they had to return to the Metrópole, following the Revolution of the 25 th ofApril, 1974 (Lourenço, 1983).But, as identity is always created in a relationship context, considering that it is onlywith the other that it can be constructed and defined (Baptista, 2007), we also need tounderstand and discuss the image and the representation of the other African, which wouldhave been predominantly – and sometimes simultaneously -‘indigenous’, ‘black’, ‘mulatto’, oreven ‘assimilated’ (Cunha, 1994, 1995), as defined by the Portuguese of the Colonial Empire,in the territory that was subsequently designated as Províncias Ultramarinas. 2In effect, from a global perspective and from the point of view of the question thatinterests us in this context, the cultural identity of the Portuguese in Africa during the1 A very interesting study which inaugurated this subject of research in Portugal in terms of Cultural Studies and Post-ColonialCultural Studies (Vieira, 2011).2Províncias Ultramarinas is a Portuguese term to describe the Overseas Territories belonging to Portugal.Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches147
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Cinematic Landscape and Social Memo
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comprises both remembering and forg
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include important questions related
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Part ICognitive and Emotional Proce
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Narratives and Social Memory from t
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The Lay Historian: How Ordinary Peo
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Emotional Processes in Elaborating
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Transitional Justice Processes, Sha
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The Past and the Present (re)Visite
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Part IIMedia(ted) Narrativesand Pub
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Hard News Cognitive Shift: from Fac
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The Subject-Matter of Audiovisual H
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Part IVEthnic, National and Suprana
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Narratives of Redemption: Memory an
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Memory and the Flows of Identity in
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‘Diaspora Space’ as Heard and O
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Colonial Missions in the North Amer
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Part VSocietal Issues, Collective A
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Collective Mobilization and the Soc
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Narratives as Prison ‘Escapes’:
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Drawings and Narrative: the Inmates
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Comissões Unitárias de Mulheres d
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