Reminiscences of the Angolan Landscape in the Postmemory of the “Retornados”: A Study in Vila Real (Portugal)

Abstract

After the fall of the Portuguese Estado Novo in 1974 and considering the situation of violence related to the Colonial War, the African countries occupied by Portuguese colonization began to be declared independent. This situation led to a sudden abandonment of possessions and the return of thousands of Portuguese families to Portugal, which caused a series of economic and social problems in the former metropolis. The issue of the “retornados”, as individuals returning from Africa named in this context, constitutes a present and sensitive point in Portuguese society that has been analyzed using different approaches. The present research aims to analyze how the Angolan landscape is remembered by the children of “retornados” from Angola established in the Trás-os-Montes region, namely in the Municipality of Vila Real (Portugal). The research methodology is applied, exploratory in terms of objectives, with qualitative approach, and bibliographic and documentary in terms of technical procedures. It considers three sets of main sources: literary, written local empiric and oral history sources, analyzed in the light of the concepts of environmental history, post-memory and environmental memory. The results allow us to infer the reminiscence of the landscape and natural aspects of Angola in the generational transmission related to the trauma of the return and in the (re)construction of the “retornados”’ identity.