Call for papers: The Portuguese Atlantic: Africa, Cape Verde and
Brazil, 07/05
Date and place: 6 July - 10 July 2005
Mindelo, São Vicente, Cape Verde Islands
The conference held at King's College in London in September
2004, entitled Creole societies in the Portuguese and Dutch
colonial empires, focussed on the emergence of Creole
societies in Africa and the Indian Ocean. The Conference
proposed for Cape Verde will now shift the focus to the
Atlantic.
The historiography of the last forty years has shown clearly
that Africa, far from being an isolated backwater, cut off
from human development, has been a crossroads, mediating
contact with a wide range of peoples and cultures. One
result of this has been the emergence of contact societies
where Africans met, absorbed and engaged with others from
outside the continent. Most - but not all - of these
societies were involved in trade and most developed
distinctive characteristics as a result of this encounter.
Many were highly mixed brokerage societies like those of the
West and East African islands and coastal regions; others,
such as those of the Zambesi prazos were more territorially
based, while the Coloureds of South Africa were pastoralists
or developed as artisans and wage earners within a white
dominated colonial society. What links these disparate
groups is that they and their contemporaries often stressed
the mixed nature of their cultural heritage and maintained
ties, however tenuous, across the seas. The Conference will
therefore also look at the connections these societies
maintained with the African diaspora(s) in the Atlantic and
the Americas.
Could this be called creolisation? The debate is a lively
one with many Africanists hostile to the use of such a
term. Yet 'hybridity' and 'creole identities' are widely
accepted terms and receive much attention in the context of
the Caribbean and America (North and South); they form a
significant strand of the 'new' British imperial history and
in the development of the concept of a 'shadow empire' in
Portuguese historiography. In a wider context the
Conference will also make a significant contribution to the
urgent discussions - academic and practical - on identity,
culture, nationalism, ethnicity and political power which
are of critical importance in the twenty-first century.
With some particular exceptions, this debate has largely
taken place without much input from Africanists, as if the
continent had little to contribute to the discussion of such
issues.
This Conference aims to fill this gap by exploring
African 'creole' societies and the communities with which
they maintained contacts in the Americas. Questions such as
how these societies developed, how issues of identity were
negotiated and re-negotiated, what roles they played in
economic, political, cultural and social histories of
Africa, the US and Brazil and what lasting impact they have
had, will be central to the Conference. The concept of
a 'Black Atlantic' will be extended from its original focus
on the Anglophone world to the Lusophone Atlantic and will
look at the economic, cultural and social contacts
maintained between Africa, the United States and Brazil,
often using the 'creole' islands of the Atlantic as the
conduits of migration and cultural exchange.
The Conference will result in a volume which will contribute
to the debate on development and cultural exchange in the
Atlantic community and on the historic links between Africa,
the creole societies, the United States and Brazil.
Logistics:
- There will be no Conference fee
- Those attending the Conference must find their own travel
and accommodation costs. (The Conference organisers can
make a hotel booking at a cost of 50Euros per night and can
arrange air tickets if this is required)
- Visits to São Vicente and the other islands can be
arranged
Paper Titles and Abstracts
Those wishing to attend the conference should send the title
of their proposed paper and a 300 word abstract by 22 April
2005
Contact details:
Those interested should contact Professor M.Newitt,
Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, King's
college, Strand, London WC2R 2LS: tel 020 7848 1827:
E- mail: malyn.newitt@kcl.ac.uk
Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.