The anti-colonial press and the press of the exile, in an attempt to understand both their political role and their intellectual impact, as well as the networks they reflected and mobilized, have deserved increasing multidisciplinary attention, especially with regard to the 20th century. Concerning those networks, it is worth mentioning the research that has been carried out on the transnational and transimperial confluences of exiled people and other migrants (such as students, writers, artists) towards metropolises marked by democratizing and avant-garde effervescence, such as London, Paris or Berlin after World War I, as well as their connection to the proliferation of newspapers, magazines, bulletins, pamphlets that fed (inter)nationalist militancy and linked debates and struggles.
Although both can be found in the same periodical, anticolonial press and exile press do not overlap as categories. The colonial question was one of the reasons for exile and the creation of periodicals in these contexts. The anticolonial press flourished under conditions of both legality and clandestinity inside and outside the empires of origin. They are, however, gathered by a close link between the places of publication and the political conditions for the exercise of the freedom of expression and of militancy. In other words, if the exile press denounces the lack of political freedom, the anti-colonial press emerges in different political conditions that determine its profile and places of publication, including places of exile. Regarding the idea and experience of exile, as well as its expression in the press, it is worth discussing the liminality of the experiences of occupation, dissent, clandestinity, and exile in relation to political expatriation. This is due as much to the similarity of their psychological impact as to the transitions that they tended to promote.
The end of the Second World War, with the inevitable fall of the European colonial empires, gave rise to the hope of reaffirming the democratic order and the right of peoples to self-determination. The following decades witnessed the spread of anti-colonial struggles and solidarities, in an international environment marked by the politics of blocs, to which the Non-Aligned Movement, following Bandung, opposed the idea of liberation from colonialism and the predetermination of the options of the so-called "Third World". In this geopolitical framework, the countries of the "Western" bloc were expected to adopt the values of liberal democracy and capitalism and, sooner or later, to recognize the principle of self-determination in political practice.
In a countercurrent tolerated by the Allies due to the circumstances of the Cold War, the Portuguese and Spanish dictatorships survived despite growing internal opposition. The former, in particular, refused to discuss decolonization. Against all evidence, Salazarism promoted the thesis that Portugal, guided by Catholic values and by the historically dominant principle of assimilation, had created the unique situation of a pluricontinental nation and state, a unity that none of the people involved wanted to undo. From the point of view of the Portuguese state, the colonial problem did not exist, and the movements that claimed it were positioning themselves against the will of the peoples, therefore any insurgencies could be described as terrorist. The radicalization of militancy, a consequence of the consciousness that had developed since the end of the Second World War, was justified by the long survival of the Portuguese dictatorship and its refusal to recognize the colonial problem. As for the case of Goa, the militancy of Goans who were in the anti-colonial camp intensified and a diplomatic conflict between Portugal and India began, which was far from resolved by the Indian troops' annexation of Goa in December 1961, rather, it dragged until 1974. It was also in 1961 that the war fronts in the African colonies were opened up by several uprisings. At the same time, the waves of exile that had been driven by the repressive policies of the dictatorship since 1926 intensified. These exiles, whether they were primarily against the dictatorship, for the end of colonialism, or a combination of both, shared the ideas of freedom and liberation.
The primordial focus of the congress will be the colonial question in the exile press since the end of World War II. For the first time, it will bridge the gap between the struggles against dictatorship and the end of colonialism in these periodicals. The aim is to encourage studies exploring ideas, images and debates on colonialism and colonial realities within the encounters and disagreements that marked the diversity of these periodicals. This focus reopens the discussion on the concept of the colonial press, which has been proposed by the group (https://www.gieipc-ip.org/about-the-colonial-periodical-press.html), now about the press in exile. With regard to the former Portuguese Empire, as the creation of the Correio Braziliense in London shows by inaugurating Portuguese language exile press (https://expoimprensacolonial.fcsh.unl.pt/br.html), it even emphasizes that the history of the press, from the first impulses, cannot dispense with the knowledge of the periodicals of the exiles and the place that the colonial debates occupied in them. Their stories follow the fluctuations that freedom of expression and militancy have suffered under successive regimes since the absolute monarchy. At the same time, they demonstrate the structural difficulty of successive powers in accepting free discussion about the end of the empire.
Finally, the Congress proposes a broad understanding of the periodical press, in line with the proposals of the IGSCP-PE. It shifts the focus from printing to periodicity, to the formats associated with the periodical press and to the search for readers. This means including studies of periodicals that circulated using different technologies and forms, considering the circumstances that motivated the use of these different resources as significant. In particular, periodicals, written or typed, reproduced by the same means, or by recurring to photocopies, or to stencil, with or without the use of mimeographs, sometimes including also collages of printed images or texts.
Access the call for papers at our Home blog.
Although both can be found in the same periodical, anticolonial press and exile press do not overlap as categories. The colonial question was one of the reasons for exile and the creation of periodicals in these contexts. The anticolonial press flourished under conditions of both legality and clandestinity inside and outside the empires of origin. They are, however, gathered by a close link between the places of publication and the political conditions for the exercise of the freedom of expression and of militancy. In other words, if the exile press denounces the lack of political freedom, the anti-colonial press emerges in different political conditions that determine its profile and places of publication, including places of exile. Regarding the idea and experience of exile, as well as its expression in the press, it is worth discussing the liminality of the experiences of occupation, dissent, clandestinity, and exile in relation to political expatriation. This is due as much to the similarity of their psychological impact as to the transitions that they tended to promote.
The end of the Second World War, with the inevitable fall of the European colonial empires, gave rise to the hope of reaffirming the democratic order and the right of peoples to self-determination. The following decades witnessed the spread of anti-colonial struggles and solidarities, in an international environment marked by the politics of blocs, to which the Non-Aligned Movement, following Bandung, opposed the idea of liberation from colonialism and the predetermination of the options of the so-called "Third World". In this geopolitical framework, the countries of the "Western" bloc were expected to adopt the values of liberal democracy and capitalism and, sooner or later, to recognize the principle of self-determination in political practice.
In a countercurrent tolerated by the Allies due to the circumstances of the Cold War, the Portuguese and Spanish dictatorships survived despite growing internal opposition. The former, in particular, refused to discuss decolonization. Against all evidence, Salazarism promoted the thesis that Portugal, guided by Catholic values and by the historically dominant principle of assimilation, had created the unique situation of a pluricontinental nation and state, a unity that none of the people involved wanted to undo. From the point of view of the Portuguese state, the colonial problem did not exist, and the movements that claimed it were positioning themselves against the will of the peoples, therefore any insurgencies could be described as terrorist. The radicalization of militancy, a consequence of the consciousness that had developed since the end of the Second World War, was justified by the long survival of the Portuguese dictatorship and its refusal to recognize the colonial problem. As for the case of Goa, the militancy of Goans who were in the anti-colonial camp intensified and a diplomatic conflict between Portugal and India began, which was far from resolved by the Indian troops' annexation of Goa in December 1961, rather, it dragged until 1974. It was also in 1961 that the war fronts in the African colonies were opened up by several uprisings. At the same time, the waves of exile that had been driven by the repressive policies of the dictatorship since 1926 intensified. These exiles, whether they were primarily against the dictatorship, for the end of colonialism, or a combination of both, shared the ideas of freedom and liberation.
The primordial focus of the congress will be the colonial question in the exile press since the end of World War II. For the first time, it will bridge the gap between the struggles against dictatorship and the end of colonialism in these periodicals. The aim is to encourage studies exploring ideas, images and debates on colonialism and colonial realities within the encounters and disagreements that marked the diversity of these periodicals. This focus reopens the discussion on the concept of the colonial press, which has been proposed by the group (https://www.gieipc-ip.org/about-the-colonial-periodical-press.html), now about the press in exile. With regard to the former Portuguese Empire, as the creation of the Correio Braziliense in London shows by inaugurating Portuguese language exile press (https://expoimprensacolonial.fcsh.unl.pt/br.html), it even emphasizes that the history of the press, from the first impulses, cannot dispense with the knowledge of the periodicals of the exiles and the place that the colonial debates occupied in them. Their stories follow the fluctuations that freedom of expression and militancy have suffered under successive regimes since the absolute monarchy. At the same time, they demonstrate the structural difficulty of successive powers in accepting free discussion about the end of the empire.
Finally, the Congress proposes a broad understanding of the periodical press, in line with the proposals of the IGSCP-PE. It shifts the focus from printing to periodicity, to the formats associated with the periodical press and to the search for readers. This means including studies of periodicals that circulated using different technologies and forms, considering the circumstances that motivated the use of these different resources as significant. In particular, periodicals, written or typed, reproduced by the same means, or by recurring to photocopies, or to stencil, with or without the use of mimeographs, sometimes including also collages of printed images or texts.
Access the call for papers at our Home blog.
Promotores | Promoters
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O CHAM - Centro de Humanidades é financiado pela Fundação para Ciência e a Tecnologia, I. P. | UID/HIS/04666/2013, UID/HIS/04666/2019, UIDB/04666/2020 e UIDP/04666/2020
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Parceiros | Partners
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O IHC é financiado por fundos nacionais através da FCT — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., no âmbito dos projectos UIDB/04209/2020, UIDP/04209/2020 e LA/P/0132/2020
