Communication and Diversity Seminar: Historical memory and Mozambican students’ perceptions of the production and circulation of knowledge

The next ‘Communication and Diversity’ seminar, organised jointly by the Virtual Museum of Lusophony and the CONCILIARE project, will be dedicated to the theme ‘Historical memory and Mozambican students’ perceptions of the production and circulation of knowledge’. The session will take place on 29 June at 3.30 pm in Meeting Room 1 of the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Minho, in Braga.

The event will feature two lecturers from Licungo University (Mozambique). Armindo Armando will present the paper “Memories and controversies regarding Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique: perceptions of university students in Sofala”, and Marlene Vanessa Marques Jamal will present the paper “Lusophone scientific production and circulation in academic education: narratives of students at Licungo University (Mozambique)”. The session will be chaired by Tássia Murad Abreu, a visiting researcher at the Centre for Communication and Society Studies (CECS) at the University of Minho and a PhD candidate at the Federal University of São João del-Rei (Brazil).

Attendance is free, and the seminar is open to the entire academic community and the interested public.

Armindo Armando holds a PhD in Language, Culture and Society, specialising in Cultural Hermeneutics, Anthropology and Sociology. He is a researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and a member of the Scientific Board at Licungo University, Mozambique. He holds a postdoctoral qualification in Political and Humanitarian Studies from Fernando Pessoa University in Portugal and works as a consultant on development projects in Africa.

He will deliver the first presentation: “Memories and controversies surrounding Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique: perceptions of university students in Sofala”.

The paper presents the findings of a study analysing memories and controversies surrounding Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique, based on the perceptions of university students in Sofala province. The study falls within the field of social memory, representations of the past and postcolonial studies, and seeks to understand the processes through which colonialism is remembered, reinterpreted and contested within the contemporary Mozambican academic sphere. The findings show that memories of Portuguese colonialism among university students in Sofala constitute a dynamic field of symbolic contestation and the production of historical meaning, in which the colonial past is continually reinterpreted in the light of contemporary experiences and debates on identity, memory and postcolonial relations.

Marlene Vanessa Marques Jamal holds a PhD in Language, Culture and Society, specialising in Cultural Hermeneutics, Anthropology and Sociology; she is a researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Education, Licungo University, where she also serves as Scientific Director.

She will deliver the second presentation: “Lusophone Scientific Production and Circulation in Academic Education: Narratives of Students at Licungo University (Mozambique)”

This study falls within the field of communication and society and analyses the narratives of students at Licungo University in Mozambique regarding scientific production and circulation within the Portuguese-speaking world, focusing on their academic training pathways and their experiences of engaging with scientific knowledge produced in different Portuguese-speaking contexts. It is based on the understanding that university education constitutes a dynamic process of constructing and negotiating knowledge, in which students are not merely recipients of knowledge, but active agents in its interpretation, reconfiguration and articulation with their academic, social and cultural trajectories. The paper discusses how the circulation of Lusophone scientific output is experienced in students’ everyday academic lives, enabling a situated analysis of the processes of knowledge globalisation from the Mozambican context.

Tássia Murad Abreu is a visiting researcher at the Centre for Communication and Society Studies (CECS) at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Minho. She is a PhD candidate in Social Psychology at the Federal University of São João del-Rei (UFSJ). She holds a Master’s degree in Arts, Urbanities and Sustainability from the Federal University of São João del-Rei (UFSJ). Her current research, entitled “REdesCOBRIMENTOs – body-clothing-environment relations – sustainable poetics”, focuses on Latin American Critical Social Psychology from a decolonial and counter-colonial perspective.

[Posted: 16-06-2026]