This talk will explore the many facets by which London became an important hub for activists engaged in the liberation struggles of Portuguese speaking Africa (as well as Goa, for a shorter period) in the 1960s and early 1970s, as well as opposition to Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano's dictatorship in the metropole.
It will place this topic in the wider context of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Portuguese regime since the end of the Second World War, surveying the attitudes of Tory and Labour governments vis-à-vis dissident individuals and groups and highlight the opportunities which the latter were able to exploit to further their causes in the UK, including access to the media, contacts with solidarity groups and networks, as well as members of Parliament. The role of some British mediators, as well as the instances of cooperation/disagreement between exile groups will also be discussed.
Speaker: Pedro Aires Oliveira is Associate Professor at the History Department of NOVA-FCSH and researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History. His main research topics are the History of International Relations, Colonialism and Decolonization, on which he has published various articles in international academic journals, as well as the book Os Despojos da Aliança. A Grã-Bretanha e a Questão Colonial Portuguesa 1945-75 (Tinta da China, 2007), a comprehensive study of the political interaction between the two countries in the colonial sphere. He has also published articles on Portuguese exile networks in the 1960s and 1970s, one of them specifically focusing those operating in the UK ('Generous Albion? Portuguese anti-Salazarists in the United Kingdom, c. 1960-74', Portuguese Studies 27, 2, 2011). His most recent book is Empires and Colonial Incarceration in the Twentieth Century (Routledge, 2021), co-edited with Philip J. Havik, Helena P. Janeiro and Irene Pimentel. With two other colleagues, he is currently preparing an edited volume on exile settings and the liberation struggles of Portuguese speaking Africa, due to come out in 2024 (Palgrave).
This research seminar has been organised by the Department of History with the support of the Centre for Memory and Conflict and the Instituto Camões.