Dissensions of the Universal: A Study on the Formation of Nation in Angola

• Grant number: 13/23604-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: April 01, 2014
• End date: March 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Paula Montero
• Grantee: Ariel Rolim Oliveira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/18897-0 - Fighting unicity out: a study on the national formation in Angola, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The aim of this project is to examine how the Angolan civil war (1975-2002), which immediately followed the liberation war against the Portuguese, set the terms for the conception of the construction of a national state. I draw on approaches that view the issue of national formations as an agencing of differences in order to analyze the various narratives on the conflict that are related to different "codes of reporting" - discursive regimes based on different referents and semantic strategies. The opposition between MPLA and UNITA in Angola has produced two opposed forms of universalization and agencing of differences which are equally directed to the representation of a cohesive national identity. Different categories of differentiation (ethnicity, rural-urban opposition, race, ideological belongings, etc.) have been differently mobilized by each side of the conflict in different moments, both as claims for self-representation and as oppositions in the form of accusations. Categories of differentiation have been produced throughout the conflict as the strategies of the actors informed political agendas. In this processes, the opponents seem to have molded their irreconciliations one in relation to the other. This project intends to map this network of conflicting narratives in order to understand both its transformation concerning how to configure differences and its contribution to the formation of the Angolan national imaginary. The analysis shall focus on two aspects: the constitution of actors in conflict and the identification of codes of reporting. Leaders will be considered as privileged actors in the investigation of the intertwining of codes, and the idea of the "logics of practices" will make it possible to think of the different domains to which each of them refer jointly..

Academic Publications

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

OLIVEIRA, Ariel Rolim. Dissensions of the Universal: an itinerary of national imagination in Angola. 2017. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.