History of Portuguese Anthropology and Ethnographic Archives (19^th-21^st century)

It seeks to identify its protagonists and research themes and the theoretical and methodological contributions of a learned tradition whose challenges during this period concerned the construction of the “nation”, the construction of the “empire” or both (Stocking, 1982; Leal, 2000, 2006, 2008; Viegas & Pina-Cabral, 2014). It should be noted that ethnographic and protoanthropological production from the 15^th to 18^th centuries is not taken into account. The chronology considered dates back to the 19^th century; the research theme then focuses on the 20^th century, not forgetting contemporary Portuguese anthropology. This period alone may give rise to important debates. In fact, Portuguese colonialism – especially late imperialism – coincides with a fundamental part of anthropological production, namely in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; all the figures and institutions that contributed to ethnographic knowledge in the former Portuguese colonies were confronted with the ambiguities of colonial situations. These ambiguities, moreover, persist in one way or another, and concern both the Portuguese context and that of the former colonies: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe became independent in 1975, only after the famous 1974 Carnation Revolution (which ended 48 years of dictatorship in Portugal); East Timor also became independent in 1975, but was invaded by Indonesia and only became independent again in 2002. The Portuguese enclaves of Goa, Daman and Diu were integrated into the Indian Union in 1961.

This challenge is important because it makes this research theme – like others in the context of BEROSE which refer to former colonial contexts – not only a meeting point for encyclopaedic publications, but also a platform with critical analysis of different anthropological currents and debates.

The research theme also aims to spotlight figures whose trajectories are, as yet, underexamined and who contributed to the development of knowledge about Portuguese contexts or those colonized by Portugal during the period following the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. The same applies to institutions and publications. The aim is to aggregate and problematize both ethnographic knowledge and anthropological ideas in their different fields, from classification to museology, from salvaging ethnographic enterprises to comparison. This will be done without neglecting international influences, and taking also into account the anachronisms of a country that was both imperial and peripheral.

The historiography of Portuguese anthropology is unanimous in identifying the central figures of this tradition – particularly with regard to studies on the “Portuguese people” at the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th century: the names of Teófilo Braga, Adolfo Coelho, Consiglieri Pedroso, Leite de Vasconcelos and Rocha Peixoto are essential references (Pina-Cabral 1991; Bastos and Sobral 2017: 2; Leal 2000: 29).

However, the anthropologist who has caused rivers of ink to flow is undoubtedly Jorge Dias, who was at the epicentre of the renewal and modernization of the discipline in the second half of the 20^th century. It was around this figure that a remarkable team of anthropologists developed, who made a unique contribution to the knowledge of Portuguese rural traditions. A central figure in the Centro de Estudos de Etnologia Peninsular (Centre for the Study of Peninsular Ethnology), Jorge Dias’ name was linked to the creation of the Museu de Etnologia do Ultramar (Overseas Museum of Ethnology) in 1965 (Leal 2000; Pereira 1989) and its subsequent reorientation towards the “representation of all cultures” (Pereira 198: 580). Although in different ways, João de Pina-Cabral (1991), João Leal (2006), José Manuel Sobral (2007), Jorge de Freitas Branco (2014), Cristiana Bastos and Sobral (2017) concur that Jorge Dias acts as a fundamental, yet not uncontroversial character (West 2006 ; Sobral 2007) in the development of Portuguese anthropology.

The role played by those whom João Leal (2006) calls “foreigners” in Portugal must also be taken into account: some were effectively foreign anthropologists who worked in Portugal in the late 1970s, but there were also Portuguese anthropologists who returned home after the Revolution of 25^th April, 1974 – they had completed their university studies elsewhere and contributed to the reformulation of the master’s degree in anthropology at the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas Ultramarinas (Higher Institute for Overseas Social and Political Sciences) (Branco 2014: 368). The activity of both groups was decisive in integrating Portuguese anthropology into international debates on the discipline.

Looking at the developments of Portuguese anthropology through the history of its institutionalization is also, as foreseen in this research theme, a good way to deepen the understanding of the contexts where ethnographic and anthropological knowledge production occurred. Thus, we intend to address anthropologists’ practices (Sanjek 1990) and contribute to the debates on the importance of safeguarding ethnographic materials and the anthropologists’ archives (Almeida & Cachado 2016, 2019).

Recent articles on the Portuguese anthropological tradition, published in the 2010s, also seek to reflect the diversity of the branches that have developed lately. Cristiana Bastos and José Manuel Sobral not only list the anthropologists of their generation and their respective contributions, but also address the next generation (Bastos and Sobral 2017). It is our ambition to provide a historical perspective on contemporary anthropology, its production and main fields of current research. While Portuguese anthropology focused mainly on the rural country until 25^th April, 1974, the fact is that this trend continued after the revolution and into the early 1990s. It is only from the 1990s on that Portuguese anthropology broached urban contexts (Cordeiro 2003). By also focusing on contemporary Portuguese anthropology, our ambition is to contribute to the knowledge of the different ways of doing anthropology today, which are increasingly disperse in different universities, departments and research centres.

In short, the research theme History of Anthropology and Portuguese Ethnographic Archives (19^th-21^st centuries) seeks to:
– Foster better knowledge, both in Portuguese-speaking and international contexts, of the history of Portuguese anthropology;
– Strengthen the safeguarding of Portuguese ethnographic archives;
– Contribute to a broader mapping of the ethnographic contexts chosen and worked on by Portuguese anthropologists, as well as the methodologies, theoretical frameworks and academic settings for knowledge production;
– Stimulate the production of biographical articles on Portuguese anthropologists and ethnographers or those working in Portuguese contexts, as well as articles relating to institutions such as museums, scientific journals or research centres.

Sónia Vespeira de Almeida
Rita Ávila Cachado

References cited

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