The African press and resistance to colonialism, with Sandra Lobo
2025 has been marked by multiple celebrations of 50 years of independence for African countries previously subject to Portuguese colonialism. Sandra Ataíde Lobo, a researcher at CHAM - Centre for the Humanities, reflects on the role played by the press, journalists, and intellectuals in the construction of national identities and the independence processes of these nations. Addressing a period violently marked by censorship and other forms of institutional and personal repression, Sandra Ataíde Lobo recalls that, in these societies, writing often dialogued with orality and also asserted itself as a way of developing and disseminating subversive and revolutionary ideas. The interview is conducted by Isabel Araújo Branco.
Sandra Ataíde Lobo is a researcher at CHAM - Centre for the Humanities and one of the coordinators of the International Study Group on Colonial Periodicals of the Portuguese Empire. With a PhD in History and Theory of Ideas, she developed the project “The Home and the World: the Goan intellectual elite and the colonial periodical press” between 2019 and 2024. She is the editor-in-chief of the journal Práticas da História. Journal on Theory, Historiography and Uses of the Past. She researches, in particular, the Goan intellectual elites and their contribution to the construction of Goan cultural and political modernity, framed by the Portuguese and British empires, and by international and Indian anti-colonial movements. She has been interested in exploring the concept of the colonial press in its theoretical dimension and is beginning to broaden the scope of her study to the African press.
In the next episode, Rui Loureiro discusses the life and work of Garcia de Orta.
The theme tune for “CHAM Talks, a podcast for listening to science” uses “Bike Sharing To Paradise” by Dan Bordan (copyright-free).
Coordination
Isabel Araújo Branco (CHAM)
Organization
CHAM / NOVA FCSH
