Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DISSERTAÇÕES NA BDTD/UFG
( ) Mestrado ( ) Doutorado
Abstract:
THE PORTUGUESE-AFRICAN SOCIETY IN RIO DE JANEIRO (1930-1939): A
SIDE OF THE PORTUGUESE COLONIALISM IN BRAZIL
The aim of this study is to analyze the colonial project of the Portuguese-African Society in Rio de
Janeiro through the analysis of the twenty editions of its Bulletin (1931-1939), as well as books,
booklets and other types of publication made by the members of the Society. In order to do so, we
initially investigate the conditions from which the “imperial nationalism”, of which the Bulletin is
a strong expression, emerged. In the following chapters, we seek to understand the many
peculiarities of the Bulletin by evidencing the trajectory of the Portuguese-African Society in Rio
de Janeiro in its two main moments: from the veiled criticism to the Salazar government and the
search for a strong “panluso coalition” (1931-1934), to the rejection of the Estado Novo in the final
years of the Bulletin (1935-1939). We grasp these transformations by inspecting varied sources,
mainly the editorials of the Bulletin. Next, we explore the political senses of the “pan-lusitanism”
within the larger logic of the “pan-ethinicisms”, also discussing the pan-lusitan discourse shown in
the “Cartilha Colonial” by Augusto Casimiro and in the Bulletin. After that, we analyze the
colonial project of the republican military-administrators and correspondent members of the
Society, emphasizing the criticism these people made to the colonial practices of the Salazarism
and the idealized mirroring in the “Norton de Matos model”. Finally, we investigate the
relationship between the historiography of colonialism and the Africanist studies with the ideology
of “imperial vocation”, present in the hegemonic colonial knowledge in the 30s. All in all, the
careful examination of the discourse of the Bulletin and other publications by the Society allow us
to visualize the particularities of the republican colonialism in the middle of the Salazarist political
hegemony in the 30s. This discourse can be considered a vanguard of the colonial reformism,
which will become stronger in the 50s. The defeat of the project of the colonial reformism in the
30s is an expression of the fact that, in times of Estados Novos, the “democratic” rhetoric (even if
restricted to discourse) has no place.