Springer An Oral History of the Portuguese Colonial War: Conscripted Generation (Palgrave Studies in Oral History)

This oral history of ex-combatants of the Portuguese colonial war places the reader face-to-face with the men who were conscripted to fight the last and bloodiest of the West’s colonial wars in Africa, namely in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau (then Portuguese Guinea), between 1961 and 1974. At the forefront of this work are the lived experiences of a wide range of Portuguese veterans, framed by broader insights about the post-war public memory of this event in Portugal. Moving away from stereotypical and polarized images of these ex-combatants, An Oral History of the Portuguese Colonial War: Conscripted Generation explores the memories and consequences of this war for these veterans and their society. Seeking to understand why Portuguese ex-combatants often feel neglected and historically unrecognised, this book presents a thorough portrait of a continually shifting – and at times paradoxical – individual and collective remembrance process. Review “A very important book that raises many fascinating questions about the role of memory in contemporary Portuguese history.”( Professor Martin Evans, University of Sussex, UK) “Taking us beyond a recovery approach, this book is a significant intellectual contribution to the field of oral history. The profound value of Campos’s subtle interpretations of the veterans’ shame (and silences) is to critically challenge the reader to think beyond the victim/perpetrator binaries that dominate other post-war studies.” (Professor Sean Field, University of Cape Town, South Africa) “Campos deals with a traumatic period in history and with its difficult memory in a sensitive, even-handed way, even though she does not feign an impossible ‘neutrality.’ Objectivity is something else, and this her work displays abundantly, both in her respectful attitude toward interviewees and her full and competent use of archival and printed sources.” (Professor Alessandro Portelli, University of Rome, Italy) From the Back Cover This book explores the lived memory of the Portuguese colonial war (1961-1974) through the analysis of thirty-six oral history interviews with ex-combatants of this conflict. The meanings that the combatants attributed to their war experiences then and now are the book’s analytical focus. This project seeks to answer the following questions: how has the public memory of this colonial conflict developed in Portugal from 1974 to approximately 2010? what issues does an oral historian encounter when conducting interviews with veterans on a past that remains traumatic for many? what were – and are – the most significant aspects of the war experience and its aftermath for the veterans? how do the veterans perceive their group identity and their historical situation? and what innovative perspectives does oral history offer to the historiography of the Portuguese colonial war? About the Author Ângela Campos is a Research Fellow in Science Policy Research at the University of Sussex, UK. She serves on the executive council of the International Oral History Association and is a member of the Oral History Society. Her research focuses mainly on veterans' lived experiences of war, having published internationally about this topic since 2006.