'Studying Land and Colonialism in Mozambique – Evidence from the region of Manica and Sofala under the rule of the Mozambique Company, c.1890s-c.1940s'

This talk will be focused on the research I developed at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais of the University of Lisbon between 2008 and 2013, culminating in a PhD thesis on land and colonialism in Mozambique, recently published as a monograph in Portugal. I will discuss the goals of this research, the historiographical questions it tried to address, and some of its results. But I will also address some of the challenges it faced and what they can tell us about studying the land question in Mozambique and in territories under Portuguese colonial rule more broadly.  

Bárbara Direito is currently a research fellow at the Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia (Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology), at NOVA University (Lisbon, Portugal). In the past years, her work has focused on the history of colonial Mozambique and specifically on the land question, on which she recently published a monograph (2020) as well as papers in Portuguese and international journals. More recently she has been focusing on the history of livestock in Southern Mozambique, combining insights from agrarian history, the history of veterinary medicine and environmental history.

The African Legal History Seminars are monthly seminars organised by the research groups of Mariana Armond Dias Paes, Raquel Sirotti and Inge Van Hulle. Their aim is to show the study of African Legal History from an interdisciplinary perspective and to explore new and creative ways to approach the topic. The fourth seminar takes place online on Wednesday 16 March 2022 at 4 pm when Barbara Direito (research fellow at the Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology, at NOVA University, Lisbon, Portugal), will give a talk on  'Studying Land and Colonialism in Mozambique – Evidence from the region of Manica and Sofala under the rule of the Mozambique Company, c.1890s-c.1940s"

To get the Zoom link, please write and email to: sirotti@lhlt.mpg.de