Events
International Symposium | ISMA'21: The media in the construction of the Portuguese Empire and Modern Nations
06-07.05.2021 | 14:00-18:30 | online
In recent years, there has been an increasing number of publications on the importance of music in the construction of representations within the scope of the Portuguese colonial empire during the twentieth century. The multiple perspectives on different musical practices have illustrated their role in the consolidation of colonial power, in the creation of "empire" imaginary, in the legitimation of political movements, in the construction of independent nations and in the political, social and cultural reconfigurations of the post- independence. At the same time, the understanding of the role of the media in these processes has also been strengthened. We know today that channels where music had a fundamental presence, such as radio, cinema and the recording industry, among others, were structuring for the daily lives of the population, contributing decisively to political and social processes that marked the historical course of colonial relations and they also guided the formation of ideologies that promote national independence, being effective devices for their maintenance.
Given the knowledge that has been produced in these areas, it is important to deepen the role of these media channels as new contexts of musical production. In the first decades of the twentieth century, mediation processes in the imperial space, such as broadcasting, cinema, the circulation of iconography and literature, the phonographic industry, among others, opened space for new ways of conceiving existing musical practices. Also, the dissemination of genres and repertoires associated with popular music has transformed local performing contexts, adapting them to cosmopolitan imagery and the circulation of products on a global scale. The relationship between music and the media contributed decisively to the reformulation of performative and social categories, and to the implementation of cultural policies.
Through this meeting, it is intended to promote interaction between researchers whose work intersects with these processes of mediation of music, in order to deepen its articulation with the configuration of the Portuguese Empire's imaginary, the post-colonial context and the way in which these may have contributed to the construction of realities organized around dichotomies such as "colony" / "metropolis", "colonized" / "colonizer", "tradition" / "modernity" and "rural" / "urban", or concepts such as as "culture", "lusotropicalism" and "heritage".
Organizing committee
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