COLONIAL CRISIS AND MIMETIC ENCOUNTERS IN HISTORICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Principal Investigators: Ricardo Roque e Patrice Ladwig (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Alemanha)
Team: Ricardo Roque, Cristiana Bastos e Carmo Daun e Lorena (ICS-ULisboa); Patrice Ladwig, Christoph Kohl and Oliver Tappe (MPI).
Funding: DAAD (Alemanha)/CRUP (Portugal). Referência Accão Integrada Luso-Alemã, A-07/2011.

This project sought to explore from the perspective of historical anthropology the varied indigenous and colonial experiences of, and strategies for dealing with, crises resulting from colonial encounters. Colonial crisis will be approached not simply as a negative and destructive notion, but also as a cross-cultural juncture for the reconfiguration of social relationships. We also especially focused on the mimetic dimension of colonial encounters and strategies, and considered both the practical and imaginary aspects of mimesis as cross-cultural processes. Thereby we aim at achieving a more thorough understanding of the complex and multifaceted relationships between colonizers and colonized beyond simple ideas of oppression, resistance and the destruction of indigenous cultures. This collaborative project involving German and Portuguese anthropologists a included three researchers working on Southeast Asia (Laos, Thailand and East Timor) and two colleagues working on Africa (Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde).

IMAGEM: Dessay de Arabó, 1895. Fonte: ACTD