Language policies and nationalist movements: zones of historical interaction between Tanzania and Mozambique (1961-1969)

Author(s)

Felipe Barradas Correia Castro Bastos

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2018-02-23

Examining board members

Omar Ribeiro Thomaz; José Luís de Oliveira Cabaço; Raquel Gryszczenko Alves Gomes; Héctor Rolando Guerra Hernandez

• Advisor: Omar Ribeiro Thomaz

Abstract

Different Mozambican political organizations in East Africa have merged together in 1962 under the leadership of Eduardo Mondlane to form the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO) in Tanganyika, engaging two years later a liberation war against Portuguese colonialism. The problem this research assesses lies upon a historiographical commonplace regarding the early years of Mozambican liberation struggle: was there unanimity over the choice of the Portuguese language as FRELIMO¿s official language? As Portuguese language was not shared among its founding members in Dar es Salaam nor amidst most Mozambican refugees politically mobilized in Tanganyika, we seek to historically assess how the choice was made to promote Portuguese as an element of sociopolitical integration and nation-building in the liberation movement. Therefore, three main analytical axes are devised to study the fields of historical interaction upon which language policies were formulated (FABIAN, 1986). The first is dedicated to formulate definitions of the "language question", a historically-conceived perception about problems originating from the establishment of hegemonic political entities (whether colonial or not) over a multilingual population. The second is intended to recompose, through the analysis of the Tanzanian historical context and the phenomenon of Portuguese assimilationist policies, the linguistic and colonial situation (TUMBO, 1976) that were present in the process in which the formation of Mozambican nationalisms occured, including an analysis of the multilingual mobilization deployed by FRELIMO¿s base committees in Tanganyika¿s countryside. The third axis condensates an assessment of educational projects put forward by FRELIMO to promote instruction in Portuguese language during the 1960s in the Mozambique Institute in Dar es Salaam, and the closure of this institution as a result of internal conflicts that shook the liberation movement, occasion when English-language medium of instruction was required. The objectives are articulated to comprehend how the different groups that composed FRELIMO participated in the historical process in which the choice for Portuguese language was made. The historiographical output sought by this research consists in the analysis of different linguistic situations as a necessary element to deeper and more plural understandings of historical phenomena that pertained to the decolonization of Africa. Lastly, this research seeks to affirm that denying or ignoring the linguistic diversity inherent to the contexts in which nationalist fronts were formed exposes historical analysis to the risk of producing interpretative simplifications (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/22864-5 - Language policies and Nacionalist movements: fields of historical interaction between Tanzania and Mozambique (1961 - 1969)
• Grantee: Felipe Barradas Correia Castro Bastos
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master