An Oral History of the Portuguese Colonial War

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Ângela Campos

   Pages 1-17

3. War Memory Theory

   • Ângela Campos

   Pages 19-36

4. The Public Memory of the Portuguese Colonial War

   • Ângela Campos

   Pages 37-108

5. Interviewing Ex-combatants of the Portuguese Colonial War

   • Ângela Campos

   Pages 109-127

6. Experiences of War

   • Ângela Campos

   Pages 129-201

7. Living the Aftermath

   • Ângela Campos

   Pages 203-283

8. Conclusion

   • Ângela Campos

   Pages 285-300

9. Back Matter

   Pages 301-341

   PDF

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.

• Portuguese Colonial War
• oral history of soldiers
• post-war memories and experiences
• Portuguese Africa
• methodology of oral history

“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)

• University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom

  Ângela Campos

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.

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