Ideologies of Exceptionality and the Legacies of Empire in Portugal

Beyond Nation and Empire? Questioning the Role of Religious Missions under Portuguese Colonial Rule at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

“…The latter, more consequential for the Portuguese national and colonial contexts, has been frequently detached by Portuguese historiography from its global links to the Holy See and other Catholic decision centres, such as the headquarters of religious congregations working in missions settled in Portugal's empire. Another issue is the central role of national aspects in understanding the missionary phenomenon, which, to a certain extent, reproduces the arguments linked to the ideas of the exceptionality and specificity of the Portuguese case (Jerónimo and Pinto 2015). Those particularities include Portugal's multi-century colonial and missionary experience among non-European peoples and the Crown's Royal Patronage (Padroado Régio or Real), a system set in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and resiliently defended as a historical right, a relic of a glorious past and proof of the nation's pioneering commitment to the European civilising project (Cordeiro 1883;Barbosa 1995;Costa 2000;Gonçalves 2001).…”

“…At the turn of the century, several moments showed the relevance of the diplomatic and inter-imperial dimensions of the missionary context, combining and overlapping different scales. Missions also reveal international, transnational, and global perspectives (Jerónimo 2012;Jerónimo and Dores 2017).…”

Decolonizing colonial heritage: New Agendas, actors and practices in and beyond Europe

“…It became a world empire that formally lasted until 1999 (when Macau's sovereignty transferred to China), but was largely dismantled soon after the Carnation Revolution on 25 April 1974, which ended over 40 years of fascist dictatorship. The regime forged by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar reinvigorated the co-construction of imperialistic and nation-statebuilding narratives that are intertwined in a way that endures to this day (Pinto and Jerónimo 2015). It determined the production of a selective and politically targeted version of colonial history that entails 'amnesic consequences' (Cardina 2016).…”

Filhos da terra: Identidades mestiças nos confins da expansão portuguesa , by António Manuel Hespanha

“…Different priorities appear to be at play here: Hespanha's supra-regional work is instructive of the broader profile of mestiço communities, but Thomáz and other expansion historians have more to say about local specificities, including, significantly, through their use of non-European sources. There is clearly merit in both approaches, especially since they provide a mutually reinforcing counternarrative to the tenets of Salazarism and "luso-exceptionality" (about which, see Pinto & Jerónimo 2015). Misspellings and linguistic errors are unavoidable in a book that covers such a broad geographical scope, yet they are surprisingly few in number.…”