Exile and expatriation in the UK after 1945
British Art – Convergence
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Date
- 18:00 / Cancelled 18:00 / Sold out Monday, 18:00
Location
Room 2 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
This series of talks around the ‘British Art – Convergence’ exhibition explores the networks resulting from the flow of artists and cultural agents between Portugal and the United Kingdom.
In the first session of this cycle, researcher Pedro Aires Oliveira and sociologist Henda Ducados will discuss themes and events related to exile and expatriation in the UK after the Second World War.
Aires Oliveira will talk about the profound and rapid transformations in the cultural landscape of the United Kingdom, brought about by the new cosmopolitanism and economic dynamism of the post-war period, resulting from flows of immigrants from the former British colonies in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.
Encompassing the period between the 1950s and the 1970s, the talk will focus on exile and expatriation of Portuguese origin, as well as their socialisation networks and initiatives, both politically and culturally.
Highlighting the cultural trajectory of her father, Mário Pinto de Andrade, Henda Ducados will describe the process of collective awareness of the Cabral generation that began in Lisbon in the mid-1950s.
Ducados’ presentation will focus on the speech made in London in 1960 by Amílcar Cabral and Mário Pinto de Andrade, in the House of Commons. This intervention challenged Portugal in the eyes of international opinion, as a result of the non-compliance with the United Nations resolutions on the independence of the former Portuguese colonies.
The session will take place in Portuguese, with simultaneous translation into English and interpretation into Portuguese Sign Language.
Speakers
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Pedro Aires Oliveira
Pedro Aires Oliveira is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at NOVA University of Lisbon and a member of the Institute of Contemporary History – NOVA FCSH/IN2PAST. His research has focused on the history of colonialism and decolonization, and Portuguese-British relations in the 20th century, topics on which he has published extensively. In 2024, together with João Vieira Borges, he coordinated the book ‘Crepúsculo do Império – Portugal e as Guerras de Decolonização’ (Bertrand). He is currently about to publish the work ‘The Liberation of Portuguese Africa 1961-75. International Exile and Solidarity’, co-edited with Fernando Tavares Pimenta and Aurora Santos.
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Henda Ducados
Henda Ducados, daughter of French film-maker Sarah Maldoror and Angolan writer, poet and nationalist Mário Pinto de Andrade, spent her childhood with her sister Annouchka de Andrade between Morocco, Algeria and France. A graduate of Loyola University Chicago in Economics and the London School of Economics in Sociology, she held various senior management positions in Angola’s oil sector. Together with her sister, she founded the Association of Friends of Sarah Maldoror and Mário de Andrade in 2020, with the aim of contributing to the development, preservation and promotion of the political and cultural heritage of Sarah Maldoror and Mário Pinto de Andrade, two free thinkers who sought the emancipation of peoples through culture.
Programme
18:00 / Introduction
18:05 / The possibilities of cosmopolitanism: exile and expatriation in the UK after 1945, by Pedro Aires Oliveira
In the decades following the end of the Second World War, British society underwent enormous changes. Between 1945 and 1951, Clement Attlee's Labour government went on to build the so-called ‘welfare state’. In the following years, the country would reach new standards of prosperity and consumption, pass legislation more in tune with the aspirations of individual freedom, and take notable steps towards the liquidation of its vast overseas empire.
The latter development also meant the arrival of new flows of immigrants from the former colonies in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia, who in a few decades would completely change the cultural landscape of the United Kingdom. Focusing on the decades between 1950 and 1970, we will pay particular attention to expatriates and exiles of Portuguese origin, their local liaisons, as well as their socialisation networks and initiatives, both politically and culturally.
18:25 / About Mário Pinto de Andrade, by Henda Ducados
With the aim of highlighting Mário Pinto de Andrade's cultural journey, this talk describes the process of collective awareness of the Cabral generation that began in the mid-1950s in Lisbon. We will identify the denunciations made against the colonial power at international solidarity conferences and organisations. We will also highlight the intervention made in London in 1960 by Amílcar Cabral and Mário Pinto de Andrade, in the House of Commons, which challenged Portugal in the eyes of international opinion, as a result of the non-compliance with the United Nations resolutions on the independence of the former Portuguese colonies.
18:45 / Discussion
19:15 / Q&A
19:30 / Closing
Duration: 90 min.
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