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Copyright of Cadernos de Estudos Africanos is the property of Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Africanos do ISCTE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cadernos de Estudos Africanos is the property of Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Africanos do ISCTE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cadernos de Estudos Africanos is the property of Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Africanos do ISCTE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cadernos de Estudos Africanos is the property of Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Africanos do ISCTE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cadernos de Estudos Africanos is the property of Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Africanos do ISCTE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cadernos de Estudos Africanos is the property of Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Africanos do ISCTE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cadernos de Estudos Africanos is the property of Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Africanos do ISCTE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims to find the reasons why South African senior military officials were eager to reach an agreement with Portugal to set up a plan for the defence of Southern Africa in 1970, which culminated in the ALCORA alliance. Notwithstanding regional and global settings, stemmed from Cold War, and other political factors, it is possible to argue that the Exercise ALCORA resulted from South Africa’s mistrust of the Portuguese ability to defeat insurgents in Angola and Mozambique. The argument considers the year from 1968 to 1969 as pivotal between the informal collaboration relationship and the perceived requirement to establish a formal one. We conclude that due to Angola’s and Mozambique’s strategic value, we may admit that South Africa wanted to have control over her future in leading a military arrangement that would evolve into the economic, social and political dimensions. Since Exercise ALCORA’s focus was counterinsurgency, a military agreement as its first step was logical, notwithstanding the problem of racial policies.

Forced labor in colonial Angola was infamous for its cruelty, even among colonial regimes in Africa. As a result of civil war, however, little research has appeared that explores how former laborers remember their servitude in shared stories and oral narratives. Collecting these memories is critical for Angolan historiography because the last generation of forced laborers (from the 1950s) is dying at increased rates. Based on an extensive oral history project conducted by the author in Benguela, Huambo, and Bié provinces (February-June 2006), this paper analyzes how Angolan forced laborers remember their servitude and recounts their various strategies for survival, including personal stories of escape and the encoding of resistance in song. In addition to documenting and analyzing common tropes among their memories, this paper argues that the gendered nature of their work regimes determines (and differentiates) the memories of these men and women nearly a half-century later.Memories of colonialism are also complicated by the tremendous suffering of the civil war years, and the failure of independent Angola to meet many of the expectations generated by independence. This paper argues that current realities influence how and what former laborers remember about forced labor and Portuguese colonialism.

The post-war transition in Angola has involved small shifts in strategies of elite accumulation to maintain the status quo and deepen the internal concentration of power and wealth. This paper hypothesizes that Angola is at the beginning of a fundamental political-economic shift – away from the peripheral rentier economy and towards an indigenous system of capitalist accumulation. Recent developments in the oil and oil services sectors such as the push for increased local content, or “Angolanisation”, show that the elite is engaged in a process of reinventing itself. Unfortunately, the tendency of the transition is towards the further entrenchment of the power of the Angolan elite and increasingly unequal distribution of wealth under the emerging social relations of production and accumulation.

This paper aims to present a social political approach of the constraints and challenges arising from the peace process of Cabinda Agreement negotiated in Brazzaville, on July 13-15, 2006, and signed on August 1st of the same year between the Government of Angola and the Cabindan Forum for Dialogue (FCD), in an attempt to resolve the territorial independentist/separatist dispute initiated since 1975.

Today’s Angolan youth’s experiences of life are shaped both by conflict and new hopes. This applies to those who were born and raised in rural areas – the most affected by war – as well as to urban youth, with more access to modernity but whose future is equally under permanent threat. War and uncertainty affect the way young people face the future, limiting their possibilities takeoff making decisions about their lives. Peace has brought about new opportunities but also many challenges. Based on qualitative data collected in Angola, this paper analyses the challenges young people are facing nowadays in Angola, their expectations and aspirations for the future, and how the idea of modernity is shaping them.

Christianity is one of the hallmarks of European presence in the cultural space of Central Africa. Since the baptism of the ruler of Mbanza Kongo, in 1491, symbols, rituals, ceremonial practices were incorporated in some societies, to the point that some authors speak of an “African Christianity.” This paper focuses on three guides for missionary action prepared by Capuchins friars who have gone through the region between the last quarter of 17th century and the 18th mid-century. Its analysis allows us to reconstruct the evangelization program in African lands and the anthropological thought that underlies it, but above all to shed light on the dynamism of African societies and the problems and resistance raised to the Catholic proposal.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the importance of the Benguela Railway (CFB) for Angola’s regional development, particularly in its central highlands. The research methodology is based on quantitative and qualitative analysis. Quantitative data were collected and an semi-structured interview was conducted with statistical and content analysis. We observe that the CFB contributed to a profound transformation of economic geography, connecting regions and assuring markets for manufactured products from the industries of more developed countries. Also, the CFB has initiated new settlements that have led to present towns and cities. We conclude that, in a near future, CFB may have a fundamental role in the Angolan economic development and diversification, particularly in its central highlands.

This paper aims to analyze the configuration of a narrative of exceptionality by UNITA during the Angolan war of independence. Data derived from an analysis of 14 editions of Kwacha-Angola, UNITA’s official information bulletin, were used to identify three strategies of equalization and differentiation employed by UNITA in relation to its opponents to achieve international support: the elaboration of vocabularies of motive, the definition of an inaugural date, and the narration of UNITA’s calvaries, which was formalized in the idea of a “long march”. The data suggest that these strategies consolidated a narrative of overcoming, which was integrated in the group’s culture and activated in contexts of crisis.