Category: Event

Interdisciplinary Seminar Interculturalities and historical awareness: current challenges for citizenship

March 12, 2021 ZOOM 14:00 – 18:00

PROGRAM

Opening – Moisés de Lemos Martins – CECS

Cultural memory and historical awareness: a transdisciplinary domain? – Rosa Cabecinhas – CECS

Historiographic representations, transnational historical awareness and symbolic networks. Current definition problems and critical markers – Francisco Azevedo Mendes – LAB2PT

Historical awareness, narrative and identity – reflections and dialogues – Marília Gago – Institute of Education of the University of Minho and CITCEM – Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto

15:45 – 16:00 BREAK

Teaching History and the construction of national identity in the period after independence in Mozambique – Cassimo Jamal – Licungo University, Quelimane

The framing of the History of Africa in the Angolan education system. Practices and experiences – Jacob Lussento Cupata – Higher Institute of Educational Sciences of Cuanza Sul (ISCED / CS), University Katyavala Bwila (UKB), Angola

Cultural memory, identities and education: reflections from a reception study with secondary school students – Isabel Macedo – CECS

“Fake news” in the classroom: current historical method – Alberto Sá – CECS

Moderators: Sheila Khan – CECS and Alice Balbé – CECS

Free event, with mandatory registration until March 10th by the Form.

Organization:

“Memories, cultures and identities: how the past weights on the present-day intercultural relations in Mozambique and Portugal?”, Communication and Society Research Centre (CECS, University of Minho, Portugal)

Lab2PT – Landscape, Heritage and Territory Laboratory

Permanent Seminar on Communication and Diversity

Doctoral Program in Cultural Studies

The holding of the Interdisciplinary Seminar on Interculturalities and historical awareness: current challenges for citizenship was postponed due to the interruption of face-to-face activities due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This edition will be held in online format.

The next CECS’ Permanent Seminar in Post-Colonial Studies will take place on January 20 (3:00 pm), via the Zoom platform and will feature Dan Hicks (Oxford University), author of the book The brutish museums: the Benin bronzes, colonial violence and cultural restitution (Pluto, 2020). Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford, Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. This session of the Permanent Seminar on Post-Colonial Studies is also supported by the project Memories, cultures and identities: how the past weights on the present-day intercultural relations in Mozambique and Portugal?”  the platform Virtual Museum of Lusophony.

The author argues that the return of materials to the countries from which they were created and stolen would be the beginning of a process of cultural restitution. It would allow nations that were colonies to celebrate and question their own cultural heritage. But it would also force the acceptance of its own colonial past.

A museum is not an island, so it cannot be closed on itself. As it is integrated into society, it must know how to talk about what is happening today if it wants to remain relevant, dealing with the past no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

It was not by chance that the largest international museum organization, the ICOM-International Council of Museums, debated the issue in an assembly held in September 2019, in Japan. In question, was the redefinition of the museum concept itself, without reaching conclusions, such was the controversy of the matter, which is why the deliberation was postponed.

The fact is that, in most museums, there is a discourse that confirms that the objects on display belong to Europeans who seem to be consensual, as they refer to the period in which they were colonizers, although this does not entirely correspond to the truth. That is why it is the order of the day to return artifacts existing in museums to their countries of origin. In this regard, Dan Hicks wrote, in 2020, the book “The brutish museums: the Benin bronzes, colonial violence and cultural restitution”, where he argues that the return of materials to the countries where they were created and from where they were stolen, allowed these nations to celebrate and question their own cultural heritage. But it would also force them to accept their own colonial past.

This seminar seeks to establish a dialogue with the past, not only in a textual and theoretical sense but also by calling and summoning real voices that help us to dialogue with colonial experiences and their reflection in the postcolonial time of our global societies. In this sense, the Permanent Seminar of Postcolonial Studies is born under the sign of a civic and ethical memory duty, based on an intercultural dynamic and results from a partnership between the CECS, the Master of Sociology of the University of Minho and the EXCHANGE Project.

Do we recall that the call for papers for the II International Conference on Culture & Society – What Literacy (s) for Economic and Social Justice? ends on December 15, 2020. The conference will be held at the University Zambeze, in the city of Beira, Mozambique, on 27 and 28 May 2021, in partnership with the project Cultures Past & Present and the Center for Communication and Society Studies (CECS) of the University of Minho.

The conference is organized in the following thematic groups: Literature, Language, Cultures and Communication; Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy, and Intercultural Communication; Justice, Human Rights, Democracy and Citizenship; and, Culture, Economy and Human Development. Details of the submission can be checked here.

This initiative involves CHAM – Centre for the Humanities of FCSH-Universidade NOVA de
Lisboa / Universidade dos Açores, the Center for Multidisciplinary Studies (CEM) Eduardo
Augusto Kambwa of the Higher Institute of Educational Sciences of Luanda (ISCED-Luanda), the Literary and Artistic Movement Lev´Arte of Angola, the Center for Legal, Economic and Social Research (CIJES) of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH) of Zambeze University, the Higher Institute of Sciences and Technologies Alberto Chipande (ISCTAC), of Mozambique, and the Communication and Society Research Centre (CECS).

This scientific event sets up a space for dialogue and for the construction of international networks, addressing contemporary themes that are transversal to various areas of knowledge. From linguistic to legal-economic and socio-cultural policies in the Portuguese-speaking countries to the critical problematization of the concept of Lusophony, from the press, intellectual history, books and culture, publishing, the arts to the impact of female writing on the understanding of the thought expressed in the Portuguese language. The conference also aims to pay tribute to Heliodoro Baptista (poet) and Romualdo Johnam (musician).

On November 23, 2020, an online meeting of the team of researchers from the Cultures Past & Present project was held with the director Catarina Alves Costa moderated by Alice Balbé. The session was about the most recent film, the documentary Viagem aos Makonde/A Journey to the Makonde’s ( (2020) and Margot Dias archives, the publication of the book and DVD Margot Dias. Ethnographic Films (1958-1961), in 2016, a co-edition between Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema, I.P. and the National Museum of Ethnology, organized by Catarina Alves Costa and Paulo Ferreira da Costa.

The documentary Viagem aos Makonde (2020) was funded by DOC TV from the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), produced by Midas Filmes. Developed within the framework of the ARCHÉ Universities Award for Best Project, DOCLISBOA 2018 Best Documentary Award and Popular Jury Award at the International Film Festival of the Ethnographic Film of Recife, Brazil (2019). The CPLP Audiovisual program seeks to encourage exchange and encourage audiovisual production in Portuguese-speaking countries. The initiative includes Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Portugal, East Timor, Guinea Bissau, as well as Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Catarina Alves Costa is a director and anthropologist. She made, among other films, Viagem aos Makonde/ A Journey to the Makonde’s (2020) Pedra e Cal (2016), Falamos de António Campos (2010), Nacional 206 (2009), O Arquiteto e a Cidade Velha (2004), Mais Alma (2000), Swagatam (1998), Senhora Aparecida (1994) and recently shared the realization of A Ramadan in Lisbon (2019). Graduated in Social Anthropology, she did her Master’s at the Granada Center for Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester, with a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Ph.D. at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa with the thesis Camponeses do Cinema. Representations of Popular Culture in Portuguese Cinema. In 2000 she founded, with Catarina Mourão, the production company Laranja Azul where films by Daniel Blaufuks, Sílvia Firmino, and João Ribeiro, among others, were produced, among others. She is an Assistant Professor at Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Coordinator of the Master in Anthropology – Visual Cultures. Coordinates the Audiovisual Laboratory, Pole FCSH of the Network Center in Anthropology / CRIA. She organized the Ethnographic Archives of Margot Dias filmed in Mozambique and Angola between 1958 and 1961 for the Cinematheque / Museu do Cinema. She also teaches at the masters and doctorates at the University of São Paulo, in Brazil, and at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Barcelona. Among others, she received the Best Documentary Award at the Recife Ethnographic Film Festival (2019), Critics Award in the Paths of Portuguese Cinema (2009), Planéte Award at the Bilan du Film Ethnographique (1999), the Society for Visual Excellence Award Anthropology American Anthropological Association Film Festival, USA and the 1st Prize of the festival VII Rassegna Internazionale di Documentari Etnografici (1996).

The list of panels and papers approved for presentation at the VI International Congress on Cultures is now available. This year’s edition will be held online on November 18-20, 2020.

The Cultures Past & Present project will be present in panel 4 “Memory, art, museology and cultural expressions”, to be held on November 20, at 12:00 (GMT). This panel seeks to stimulate the debate on the role of cultural, artistic and educational products in the (re) construction of individuals’ social memory. It is intended to question images, narratives and sounds disseminated by these products, as well as processes of dissemination and mediation of these productions and their impact on the reformulation of the world, and of the artistic and cultural expressions themselves. Researchers Moisés de Lemos Martins, Rosa Cabecinhas, Isabel Macedo and Alice Balbé (Cultures Past&Present project), Madalena Oliveira and Cláudia Martinho (Audire project), Rita Ribeiro and Carmo Lorena (Festivity project), both from the Communication and Society Research Center (CECS), from the University of Minho, will be on the panel table.

In addition to panel 4, researcher Moisés de Lemos Martins, Full Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences will participate, along with Miriam Tavares (CIAC / University of Algarve) and Messias Bandeira (IHAC / UFBA), in panel 3 “The three Cultures and digital technologies: a new healthy coexistence? ”.

In the Working Groups, researchers Martins Mapera, Armindo Armando and Pedrito Cambrao (both from the Zambezi University), discuss National Unity in Cultural Diversity: what challenges for Mozambique? In addition to this communication, researcher Martins Mapera will also present the research MWARUSI: a utopia for the empowerment of women, together with Rosa Gimo, Júlio Macário and Nelson Moda. Both in GT2 – Cultural Diversity, Rights, Gender and Sexuality.

In Working Group 4 – Culture, Science, Health, Ways of Life and Consumption, which brings the impacts of the pandemic by Covid-19 on the production of knowledge, the researcher from CECS and the project Vítor Sousa, presents with Pedro Rodrigues Costa (CECS / UM), Edson Capoano (CECS / UM) and Carlos Pimenta (UPorto) the research: Not even death unites us. The future of humanity in post-Covid-19.

The International Congress on Cultures is an annual initiative of the Network of Universities dedicated to the study of Cultures that includes universities in Portugal, Brazil and Mozambique, namely: Universidade do Minho, Universidade da Beira Interior, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Universidade Federal do Recôncavo Bahia and Zambezi University.

Call for papers to the VI International Congress on Cultures was postponed to October 23, 2020. The proposals must be collective (from 3 to 5 authors), in table format. Congress is part of the initiatives of the Network of Universities dedicated to the study of Cultures and will be held online from 18 to 20 November 2020.

More information here.

Researchers from the Cultures Past & Present project organize two panels at the III International Conference on Activism in Africa. The call for papers is open until October 31, 2020. The central theme of the event is Peace, Rights and new solidarity networks through an interdisciplinary approach, and will be held in Brazil, in the city of Recife, on September 14-16, 2021.

The panel entitled Memory policies and discursive strategies in cinema/Políticas da memória e estratégias discursivas no cinema was proposed by researchers Isabel Macedo, Ana Cristina Pereira e Rosa Cabecinhas.

The panel entitled The colonial past as a problem not closed in contemporary times. ‘Artivism’ as a contribution to mental decolonization and as a intercultural possibility/ O passado colonial como problema não encerrado na contemporaneidade. O “artivismo” enquanto contributo para a descolonização mental e como possibilidade intercultural/ , was proposed by researcher Vítor de Sousa.

The proposals must be submitted in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. For those who are not in English, a translation of the tittle must be provided (for advising in the conference’s website). All the proposals shall be submitted through the form: https://forms.gle/PKDCCG98QTK67Ldk6

The Conference was scheduled for February 23-25, 2021, due to the health and safety conditions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic was postponed to September 2021.

Call for papers to the VI International Congress on Cultures until October 15th, 2020. Under the theme “Cultures for life in an anguished world” this year’s edition will be held online due to travel restrictions and health protocols public, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, from 18 to 20 November 2020.

The Congress is part of the initiatives of the Network of Universities dedicated to the study of Cultures focused on debates, research, and organization of activities in the field of culture, bringing together universities from Brazil, Mozambique, and Portugal, namely the University of Minho, the University Zambeze, the University of Beira Interior, the Federal University of Bahia and the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia.

Proposals must be collective (from 3 to 5 authors), in table format, within five macro themes:

1 – Culture, Politics, Democracy and Combating Inequalities and Oppression
2 – Cultural Diversity, Rights, Gender and Sexualities
3 – Culture, Development, Networks and Technologies
4 – Culture, Science, Health, Ways of Life and Consumption
5 – Culture, Communication, Arts, Sensitivity and Popular Knowledge

Other work proposals such as book launches, cultural products, and artistic presentations should also be submitted until October 15th. Registration for general participation starts on October 25th. More information on the event website.