The journal Cadernos de Estudos Africanos seeks contributions for a thematic issue on the African presence in contemporary Portuguese society. We start from a broad understanding of this sizeable populace, comprising not only people born in Africa or those who have lived there but also their descendants who identify themselves as Africans, Afro-Portuguese or retornados, irrespective of their nationality. Our aim is thus to portray a large and heterogeneous population (regarding the countries they come from, and the diversity of life courses, ethnic loyalties and cultural references) that nonetheless shares Africa as a common geographical reference. These groups include, but are certainly not limited to, the so-called second generation of African immigrants and those who have returned from the former colonies. In the Portugal of today, a person’s African heritage, or a prolonged residence in Africa, tend to be significant biographical elements, in addition to being key markers of a social and cultural alterity that is often racialized.

The journal Cadernos de Estudos Africanos seeks contributions for a thematic issue on the African presence in contemporary Portuguese society. We start from a broad understanding of this sizeable populace, comprising not only people born in Africa or those who have lived there but also their descendants who identify themselves as Africans, Afro-Portuguese or retornados, irrespective of their nationality. Our aim is thus to portray a large and heterogeneous population (regarding the countries they come from, and the diversity of life courses, ethnic loyalties and cultural references) that nonetheless shares Africa as a common geographical reference. These groups include, but are certainly not limited to, the so-called second generation of African immigrants and those who have returned from the former colonies. In the Portugal of today, a person’s African heritage, or a prolonged residence in Africa, tend to be significant biographical elements, in addition to being key markers of a social and cultural alterity that is often racialized.
It is hard to quantify accurately this Afro-Portuguese population. A part of it overlaps with the approximately 120,000 African nationals currently living in Portugal, most of whom come from the former Portuguese colonies of Cape Verde, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Mozambique (INE statistics, 2009). Most African immigrants live in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and hold poorly remunerated jobs. Labour migration from the former colonies to Portugal started in the 1960s. A significant number of those who were born in these five countries and their descendants have Portuguese nationality, making this population “invisible” in demographic statistics. Many of them can be also included in the group of so-called retornados who settled in Portugal after 1974 during the decolonisation process in Africa. It is estimated that 200,000 out of the 300,000 of these retornados were born in the former colonies.
For the majority of those whom we are tentatively naming Afro-Portuguese, African roots or ancestry play a critical role in defining their identity within Portuguese society, even if in different ways. Ethnic and racial categorisations, together with social stratification, work as boundary markers that account for the heterogeneity of this population. The relevance that these and other factors have in shaping the disparate Afro-Portuguese groups is under scrutiny. Also under examination are the interrelations of social boundaries and belongingness with differences in age, education, family organisation, and place in the domestic labour market and in transnational networks. Finally, we aim to develop a deeper knowledge not only of Afro-Portuguese groups in and of themselves, but also, using Mary Louise Pratt’s concept, of the ‘contact zones’ they inhabit within Portuguese society and where their differences, marked by asymmetrical relations of power, are confronted or transformed.

We welcome the submission of original papers on relevant topics (citizenship, cultural practices, education, ethnicity, identity, family, gender, labour, lifestyles, racism, religion, social mobility, transnationalism, etc.) based on recent research in the social sciences (anthropology, demography, economics, human geography, political science, sociology, etc.).
We also welcome reviews of books on the African presence in Portugal or in other countries published in the last five years.

Papers and book reviews may be written in Portuguese, English, French or Spanish and should follow the journal’s publishing guidelines, available at http://cea.iscte.pt/wp-content/uploads/28JULHO-VPNormas_editoriais_CEA.pdf .

After an initial screening, two referees will examine submitted papers and book reviews.

Manuscripts should be submitted by 15 May 2012.

Please email documents as Word files to ana.benard.costa@iscte.pt, joao.vasconcelos@ics.ul.pt and joao.carlos.dias@iscte.pt

A separate file should be included containing the following information:
a) identification of the author;
b) institutional affiliation;
c) current position;
d) institutional address;
e) email;
f) telephone and fax numbers.

Cadernos de Estudos Africanos can be found at:
Latindex | Repositório ISCTE-IUL | SciELO | Revues.org | Index Copernicus Internacional | SHERPA/RoMEU

Centro de Estudos Africanos - ISCTE/IUL
Av. das Forças Armadas
Edifício ISCTE, Sala 2N17
1649-026 Lisboa – Portugal
Tel: +351 217 903 067
Fax: +351 217 955 361
http://cea.iscte.pt

Lisbon, February 14, 2012