Can a cultural re-reading of the past and its mediations in the present elucidate how historical knowledge is produced in current contexts of political change? The EU-funded MICoMe project answered these questions by examining how knowledge about the past is produced in contemporary Portugal. To do so, it analyzed individual and collective engagements with material and visual traces left by two entangled historical events: the 1974 Carnation Revolution, and the return of Portuguese colonial settlers. To gather empirical data regarding how film, photography and documents from institutional and family archives are animated to produce new narratives about the recent past, the project draws on ethnographic, archival and multimodal methods.

This interdisciplinary project examined how knowledge about the past is produced in contemporary Portugal by analyzing individual and collective engagements with material and visual traces left by two entangled historical events: the 1974 Carnation Revolution and the return of Portuguese colonial settlers to the metropole. Both revolution and return were outcomes of the Portuguese Colonial War, known in the former colonies as the “Liberation Wars,” which resulted in the constitution of new African nations. Drawing on ethnographic, archival, and multimodal methods, this project gathered empirical data regarding how film, photography and documents from institutional and family archives are animated in order to produce new narratives about the recent past. In doing so, it conceptualized how knowledge about Portugal’s transition to democracy and, by extension, its relationship to the (de)colonial project is produced and mediated.

MICoMe put forth novel theories regarding history and memory not separate entities, but rather co-constituting spheres of knowledge production and meaning making. As such, it developed innovative methodological approaches to understanding how contradictory and, at times, oppositional memories regarding the recent past are negotiated through public and private engagements with visual and material traces left by experiences with revolution and return. By juxtaposing colonial memories and militant imaginaries, this project posited that a cultural re-reading of the past and its mediations in the present can elucidate how historical knowledge is produced in in current contexts of political change while also unsettling closed narratives regarding empire, decolonization and political transition.

• Douglas, Lee. 2023. The Probable Revolution: Archival Images, (Im)materiality, and the Reactivation of Portuguese Militant Cooperative Cinema. Romanic Review, 114(2), pp. 360-379. ISSN 0035-8118 [Article]

Marie Sklowdowska Curie Individual Fellowship
Grant agreement ID: 895197
1 January 2022 - 31 December 2023

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/37989