A Restituição Cultural Como Dever de Memória

Vítor de Sousa; Sheila Khan; Pedro Schacht Pereira

doi:10.17231/comsoc.41(2022).4039

Authors

Vítor de Sousa Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6051-0980
Sheila Khan Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal/Escola de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8391-8671
Pedro Schacht Pereira Department of Spanish and Portuguese, College of Arts and Science, The Ohio State University, Ohio, United States of America https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4691-6749

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.41(2022).4039

Abstract

The Duty of Memory, the title that Primo Levi (2011) gave to one of his books, embodies the whole logic that underlies cultural restitution in a process that is underway, aimed at promoting the repair of the damage caused by colonialism. Although reparation will never be completely achieved, the attitude underlying it may reduce resentment in a sign based on diversity and not, as has almost always been the case, on a unilateral logic stemming from a western gaze. Through the use of memory, Levi focused on the holocaust — from which he coined the expression “duty of memory” — he gave his testimony as a Jew who was a prisoner of the Nazis so that nothing similar would ever happen again. An urgent duty of memory is to repair atrocities committed in colonial times through the use of violence by those who colonised. Therefore, the “duty of memory” represents the ethical responsibility never to forget...

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Author Biographies

Vítor de Sousa, Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

Vítor de Sousa has a doctorate in communication sciences (theory of culture) from the University of Minho, with the thesis Da “Portugalidade” à Lusofonia (From “Portugality” to Lusophony), and holds a master’s degree and a degree in the same area. His research focuses on national identity, memory, cultural studies, media education and theories of journalism. He is a researcher at the Communication and Society Research Centre (University of Minho). He coordinated the cultural studies group (2021–2022) and is a co-coordinator of the Permanent Seminar on Post-Colonial Studies at the Communication and Society Research Centre. He is part of the project Memories, Cultures and Identities: The Past and Present of Intercultural Relations in Mozambique and Portugal and the Virtual Museum of Lusophony. He is a member of the Portuguese Association of Communication Sciences, where he coordinates the working group on intercultural communication (2022–2023), the European Communication Research and Education Association and the Modern Language Association of America

Sheila Khan, Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal/Escola de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal

Sheila Khan is a sociologist, researcher at the Communication and Society Research Centre at the University of Minho, visiting assistant professor at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, and contributor to the panel of the Debate Africano (African Debate) programme on RDP Africa. She is a PhD in ethnic and cultural studies from the University of Warwick. Her most recent publications are: Portugal a Lápis de Cor. A Sul de uma Pós-Colonialidade (Portugal in Crayon. To the South of a Post-Coloniality; Almedina, 2015); Visitas a João Paulo Borges Coelho. Leituras, Diálogos e Futuros (Visits to João Paulo Borges Coelho. Readings, Dialogues and Futures; with Nazir Can, Sandra Sousa, Leonor Simas-Almeida and Isabel Ferreira Gould, Colibri, 2017); O Mundo na Europa: Crises e Identidade (The World in Europe: Crisis and Identity; with Rita Ribeiro and Vítor Sousa, Húmus, 2020); Racism and Racial Surveillance. Modernity Matters (with Nazir Can and Helena Machado, Routledge, 2021); and Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida: Tecelã de Mundos Passados e Presentes (Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida: Weaver of Past and Present Worlds, with Sandra Sousa, in press).

Pedro Schacht Pereira, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, College of Arts and Science, The Ohio State University, Ohio, United States of America

Pedro Schacht Pereira is an associate professor of Portuguese language literature in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Ohio State University. He was part of the team that created, in 2012, the PhD Programme in Lusophone world studies at the same university. He holds a bachelor of arts in philosophy from the University of Coimbra (1993) and a PhD in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies from Brown University (2005). He researches the representation of blackness in Portuguese literature, Black-authored Portuguese literature, colonialism and post-colonialism in Portuguese literature.

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