THE MAKONDES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL MOZAMBICAN IDENTITY: HISTORICAL INTERACTIONS BETWEEN ART, CULTURE AND RESISTANCE

• Grant number: 12/07507-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2013
• End date: August 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History
• Principal Investigator: Maria Cristina Cortez Wissenbach
• Grantee: Lia Dias Laranjeira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/10262-5 - The history of the Makonde of Mozambique and its interface with art, culture and politics: a research of Portuguese documents from the colonial period and from art collections, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

This doctoral project, included in the Graduate Program in Social History (USP), focuses on the history of the Makonde ethnic group of Mozambique (Southern Africa) and its trajectory between the 20th and 21st centuries. This research highlights the perspective of resistance and the fight against colonialism of this group as well as its participation in the progress to independence. The project aims to understand the resonance of historical movements in the constitution of Makonde identity and the way it is expressed in artistic and cultural events, and extrapolated to form a national identity. It is intended to develop a historical narrative of the Makonde of Mozambique which contemplates the analysis of identity construction of the group from the ethnic and national points of view as well as the complex interplay of relations between these on the basis of documents and publications of the colonial period: in particular those produced by colonial administrators, officials of the colonial administration, members of FRELIMO, ethnologists and anthropologists; key informants: Reinata Sadimba, Matias Ntundo (both artists and members of FRELIMO in the liberation struggle in Mozambique), ex-combatants of FRELIMO involved with the organization and execution of the mapiko dance in Maputo, organizers of the National Festival of Mozambican Culture; and finally, their own artistic expression and production.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

LARANJEIRA, Lia Dias. Mashinamu na Uhuru: connections between the production of makonde art and political history of Mozambique (1950-1974). 2016. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.