The ninth edition of the congress, which aims to emphasise the importance of local history in contemporary historiography.

IX Congresso de História Local:

Conceitos, Práticas e Desafios na Contemporaneidade

O IX Congresso de História Local aspira acompanhar e estimular a renovação historiográfica em curso; assim, dá continuidade aos propósitos e dinâmicas iniciados em 2017, proporcionando um espaço de divulgação, de partilha e de problematização para todos/as quantos se dedicam a este ramo da historiografia, em diálogo permanente com a historiografia nacional e internacional. Tal como nas edições anteriores, o encontro pretende continuar a ser um contexto privilegiado para a reflexão sobre o conceito, as metodologias e as práticas da história local; por extensão, constitui-se como uma oportunidade para troca de experiências.

Do mesmo modo, os princípios subjacentes à organização do congresso fomentam a intervenção de estudantes de último ano de licenciatura e de primeiro de mestrado, com o intuito de obterem as primeiras experiências no meio académico.

>> Programa do congresso (PDF) <<

Chamada para comunicações

Convidam-se os interessados/as a apresentarem propostas de comunicação no domínio da história local, subordinadas à evolução analítica de comunidades e enquadradas pelas especificidades metodológicas e epistemológicas que caracterizam este campo de estudos. As propostas de comunicação sobre a história local na contemporaneidade podem ser concebidas em torno dos seguintes eixos temáticos, sem exclusão de outros tópicos:

• Transformações sociais e culturais;
• Imprensa local;
• Dinâmicas laborais e conflituosidade social;
• Reflexões sobre a teoria e metodologias da história local;
• A importância da história local no ensino secundário e superior;
• Temas e trabalhos subordinados à história de uma região;
• História e comunidade(s);
• Elite(s) e personalidades;
• Municípios e Poder Local;
• Instituições e associações locais;
• Organização, resistência e violência política na história local;
• A história das mulheres em contexto local;
• Territórios e património biocultural.

O encontro de 2025 será acolhido pela Câmara Municipal de Alpiarça. Seguindo o modelo dos eventos anteriores, esta edição contará com um painel exclusivamente dedicado à história deste município e do Ribatejo. Nesse sentido, convidam-se os historiadores/as, professores/as, investigadores/as e demais/as estudiosos da região a submeterem comunicações dedicadas à história de Alpiarça.

Envio de propostas

As propostas não deverão exceder os 3500 caracteres e contemplar o título do trabalho e uma biografia resumida do autor/a (máximo 750 caracteres).

As comunicações aceites resultarão em apresentações de 15 minutos.

Línguas de trabalho: Português e Inglês (não haverá interpretação simultânea).

O painel júnior é exclusivo para alunos/as de último ano de licenciatura e primeiro ano de mestrado; neste caso, a apresentação das propostas de comunicação deverá observar o mesmo procedimento, mas serão avaliadas separadamente.

Todas as propostas deverão ser submetidas através do formulário disponível 🔗neste link.

Inscrições

A inscrição no congresso é individual e gratuita e deverá ser feita através do formulário disponível 🔗neste link até ao dia 6 de Novembro de 2025.

Calendarização

Submissão de propostas: 7 Setembro 2025
Notificação de aceitação de propostas: 15 Outubro 2025
Divulgação do programa: 20 Outubro 2025
Prazo para inscrições: 6 Novembro 2025
Congresso: 7 – 8 Novembro 2025

Contacto: congressohistorialocal@gmail.com

Comissão Organizadora

Catarina Pimentel Neto (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Catarina Veiga dos Santos (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Diogo Ferreira (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Eunice Relvas (CEF — NOVA FCSH / GEO-CML)
Guilherme Sequeira (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Inês José ( IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST / CEF — NOVA FCSH)
João Francisco Pereira (CEF — NOVA FCSH / CEHR-UCP)
João Pedro Santos (IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Liliana Caldeira (CEF — NOVA FCSH / Câmara Municipal de Lagoa)
Maria Fernanda Rollo (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Maria Miguel Fresco (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Mariana Reis de Castro (IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST / CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Pedro Serra (CEF — NOVA FCSH)

Comissão Científica

Ana Cardoso Matos (CIDEHUS — Universidade de Évora)
Ana Paula Pires (CEF — NOVA FCSH / Universidade Açores)
António José Queiroz (CEFi  —UCP / CEPESE)
Diogo Ferreira (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Eunice Relvas (CEF — NOVA FCSH / GEO-CML)
João Miguel Henriques (CEF — NOVA FCSH / CMC)
Jorge Fernandes Alves (FLUP)
Luís Alberto Alves (CITCEM — FLUP)
Manuela Tavares Ribeiro (FLUC)
Maria Conceição Meireles (FLUP)
Maria Fátima Nunes (IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST)
Maria Fernanda Rollo (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Margarida Sobral Neto (FLUC)
Nuno Pousinho (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Paulo Jorge Fernandes (IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Paulo Miguel Rodrigues (CEF — NOVA FCSH / Universidade da Madeira)
Pedro Serra (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Sérgio Rezendes (CEF — NOVA FCSH)
Teresa Nunes (CEF — NOVA FCSH / FLUL)

On the occasion of Angola’s 50th anniversary of independence, the KNOW.AFRICA project proposes a lecture on the book ‘O Livro dos Nomes de Angola’ (The Book of Names of Angola), with the author, Aristóteles Kandimba.

O Livro dos Nomes de Angola

Comemorações dos 50 Anos da Independência de Angola

O projecto KNOW.AFRICA tem o prazer de anunciar a palestra e apresentação da obra O Livro dos Nomes de Angola, pelo autor e investigador Aristóteles Kandimba.

Neste encontro, integrado nas comemorações dos 50 anos da independência de Angola, Aristóteles Kandimba irá partilhar reflexões sobre a riqueza linguística, histórica e cultural dos nomes angolanos, promovendo o diálogo entre memória, identidade e conhecimento.

O Livro dos Nomes de Angola é uma obra que compila cerca de 3000 nomes tradicionais angolanos, provenientes de mais de dez línguas nacionais. A obra explora os significados, origens etimológicas, simbolismos, provérbios, topónimos, celebridades e personalidades da história e da mitologia associados a esses nomes. O livro constitui um acto de afirmação da identidade angolana, resgatando uma parte essencial da sua história cultural, enfraquecida e, por vezes, suprimida durante o período colonial.

>> Descarregar o programa (PDF) <<

Programa:

17h | Apresentação do projeto KNOW.AFRICA
17h15 | Apresentação da obra O Livro dos Nomes de Angola
18h | Beberete

[NEW DATE] The book about homosexuality during the Iberian dictatorships, which is based on Raquel Afonso‘s doctoral thesis developed at the IHC, will be launched at the Tigre de Papel bookshop in Lisbon, with a presentation by Sérgio Vitorino.

Memórias Dissidentes

Repressão e resistências quotidianas de homossexuais e lésbicas nas ditaduras ibéricas

Neste livro, resgatam-se histórias silenciadas de homossexuais e lésbicas que viveram sob as ditaduras ibéricas do século XX. A partir de uma antropologia que cruza ciência e militância, e entre arquivos e memórias vivas, reflecte-se sobre opressão, resistência, classe e género. Escovar a história a contrapelo é um gesto de memória e de justiça, que recupera passados para pensar o presente e imaginar futuros possíveis.

O livro, uma edição da Tigre de Papel, será apresentado, nesta sessão, pela autora e por Sérgio Vitorino.

The book on women’s struggle against fascism and colonialism, edited by Regina Marques, Inocência Mata, Leonor Teixeira, Joana Dias Pereira and Raquel Ribeiro, will be presented at the Aljube Museum by Isabel Araújo Branco.

Mulheres na Luta contra o Fascismo e o Colonialismo

No dia 12 de Novembro, o Museu do Aljube vai acolher a apresentação do livro “Mulheres na luta contra o fascismo e o colonialismo“, por Isabel Araújo Branco, Regina Marques (dirigente do MDM), Olga Iglésias, Antonieta Rosa Gomes (investigadoras) e Isabel Van-Dunem (dirigente da OMA), com moderação Raquel Ribeiro (investigadora).

Este livro, editado pela Colibri, é o resultado do Congresso Internacional com o mesmo nome que teve lugar na Torre do Tombo em Novembro de 2024 e da responsabilidade de três instituições (MDM, CEComp — FLUL e IHC — NOVA FCSH) para o qual contou com um financiamento do Instituto Camões.

“Nos 50 anos do 25 de Abril e das independências das colónias portuguesas em África, as discussões agora publicadas neste livro demonstram a convergência entre a resistência antifascista em Portugal e os movimentos anticoloniais e pela independência em África. A literatura, as cartas clandestinas, a organização comunitária e militante, mas também dados concretos sobre a realidade da vida e do quotidiano das mulheres, emergem como ferramentas da sua resistência, revelando como as mulheres não só combateram a violência da colonização e do fascismo, mas estão também a construir novas identidades políticas e culturais. Um projecto promissor de articulações na senda de Abril.”

Mais informações sobre o livro

Irene Flunser Pimentel’s new book, about the relations between the Portuguese political police and the secret services of various countries, will be launched at FNAC Avenida de Roma, in Lisbon, with a presentation by José Pedro Castanheira.

Relações Perigosas

A cumplicidade da PIDE com as secretas ocidentais

As quase três décadas de relacionamento entre a polícia política da ditadura portuguesa, entre 1945 e 1975, com os seus vários nomes de PIDE e DGS, e as polícias e serviços secretos de países ocidentais durante a Guerra Fria permitem retirar uma conclusão central.

Ainda que vigorasse em Portugal uma ditadura colonial, tal não impediu que, no âmbito da NATO e da Interpol, as polícias e serviços secretos de informação de países ocidentais e democráticos colaborassem com a PIDE/DGS e trocassem informações entre si.

A PIDE – e depois a DGS – era, tal como o KGB soviético, uma polícia que zelava pela segurança interna e externa do Estado. Nesta última qualidade, relacionou-se com a CIA norte-americana, a Seguridad espanhola, o BND alemão, bem como com os serviços policiais e de informação europeus e dos países da NATO, nomeadamente de França, da Bélgica e dos Países Baixos.

Mais informações sobre o livro

Workshop that aims to place the OAU initiatives in their context and help consolidate analyses of its solidarity as a critical subject of the end of colonialism and white minority regimes.

The Organization of African Unity and the Struggle against Colonialism and Racism in Africa

The study of international organizations is an emerging field that covers a topic of growing importance in academia. In recent decades, the contributions of such organizations as actors in international relations have received increasing attention (Iriye 2004). Theoretical and empirical analyses seek to provide insights into the work of intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, or transnational networks. By expanding their geographical scope beyond national borders, scholars interested in international organizations have reflected the myriad ways in which they can be studied (Hurd 2012).

The Organization of African Unity (OAU), as a regional organization, has been the subject of ongoing research (Gassama 2015). However, a review of existing publications reveals that relatively few studies have addressed the OAU’s solidarity against colonialism and racism in Africa. Several reasons may explain this situation. Comparatively, the OAU has received less attention than other international organizations, notably the United Nations. Research has mainly focused on its establishment and achievements in conflict resolution, cooperation and development (Muchie et al. 2014; Naldi 1999). Difficulties in accessing primary sources may also have contributed to the diversion of interest from the OAU’s contribution to decolonization and the end of white minority regimes.

Writing on the subject has mostly been done at the time of the events and lacks historical perspective (Binaisa 1977; El-Khawas 1978). The accounts are limited in scope, discussing primarily the OAU’s support for the liberation movements of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa (Klotz 1995; Thomas 1996). With regard to the Portuguese colonies, with the exception of the work of Walraven (1999), it is difficult to find an overarching narrative, and the available information is mostly found in publications that do not focus on the topic as a primary concern (Sousa 2011; Tíscar Santiago 2013).

Thus, a more critical approach is needed to question what the OAU did to support the struggle against colonialism and racism in Africa, as well as the complexities and nuances involved. With this situation in mind, we intend to explore the OAU’s solidarity with the struggle against colonialism and racism in Africa in a workshop in-person and online that will take place in Lisbon, at the Institute of Contemporary History of the NOVA University of Lisbon, on 13 and 14 November 2025.

The workshop aims to place the OAU initiatives in their context and help consolidate analyses of its solidarity as a critical subject of the end of colonialism and white minority regimes. In addition, the workshop will contribute to rethinking the gaps in historiography by examining the OAU solidarity as a transnational phenomenon that transcended national boundaries.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute presentations on these and other topics:

• The extent to which the OAU played a role in ending colonialism and racism on the African continent;
• How the Liberation Committee was instrumental in the strategy of the OAU to undermine colonial rule and racist minority rule;
• How the attitudes of a number of states, due to inter-African competition, shaped the OAU’s policies on colonialism and racism;
• How the diplomacy of the OAU sought to shape the debate at the UN on colonialism and racism;
• How the OAU engaged with non-African countries as part of its support to the struggle for independence and against apartheid;
• How the organization worked as an intermediary in the support given by third parties to anti-colonial and anti-racist organizations;
• The importance of the relationship with the OAU for anti-colonial and anti-racist organizations to advance their agenda;
• The tensions and disagreements between the OAU and the anti-colonial and anti-racist organizations;
• The extent to which the anti-colonial and anti-racist organizations sought to use the OAU not only against the colonial and racist powers, but also to sideline competing groups.

Abstracts for presentations (200 words) and a biographical note (250 words) should be sent to: OAUconference@gmail.com

Deadline for submissions: 8 August 2025
Notification of acceptance: 15 August 2025

The organizers foresee the publication of the communications. The first draft of the papers is due on 30 January 2026.

>> Download the call for papers (PDF) >>

Organization:

Aurora Almada e Santos (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)

References:

BINAISA, Godfrey – «Organization of African Unity and Decolonization: Present and Future Trends» in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 432 (1977).
EI-KHAWAS, Mohamed A. – «The Quiet Role of OAU in Africa’s Liberation» in New Directions Vol. 5, Issue 2 (1978).
GASSAMA, Muhammad – From the OAU to the AU: The Odyssey of a Continental Organization. Paris: l’Harmattan, 2015.
HURD, Ian – Choices and Methods in the Study of International Organizations. Available at <URL:http://www.unstudies.org/sites/unstudies.org/files/hurd_jios.pdf>, on 18/03/2012.
IRIYE, Akira – Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
KLOTZ, Audie – Norms in International Relations: The Struggle Against Apartheid. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1995.
MUCHIE, Mammo et al. (ed.) – Unite or Perish: Africa Fifty Years after the Founding of the OAU. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa, 2014.
NALDI, Gino Joseph – The Organization of African Unity: An Analysis of its Role. London: Mansell, 1999.
SOUSA, Julião Soares – Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973). Vida e Morte de um Revolucionário Africano. Lisboa: Nova Vega, Lda, 2011.
THOMAS, Scott M. – The Diplomacy of Liberation: The Foreign Relations of the ANC Since 1960. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1996.
TÍSCAR SANTIAGO, María José – Diplomacia Peninsular e Operações Secretas na Guerra Colonial. Lisboa: Edições Colibri, 2013.
WALRAVEN, Klaas van – Dreams of Power: The Role of the Organization of African Unity in the Politics of Africa. 1963-1993. Leiden: African Studies Centre, 1999.

Round table discussion aimed at debating and deconstructing some of the myths surrounding 25 November 1975, questioning its place in the history of the Portuguese revolution.

O 25 de Novembro entre história, memória e mito

O 25 de Novembro de 1975 foi sempre uma data controversa. A multiplicidade de forças em acção e a complexidade do processo revolucionário tornam a sua análise particularmente resistente a interpretações lineares. Desde 1975, o significado do 25 de Novembro dependeu das diferentes posições dos protagonistas, das opções metodológicas das várias correntes historiográficas debruçadas sobre o período, e da própria memória social do PREC.

O cinquentenário, que se assinala este ano, é mais um exemplo das tentativas de rejeição e apropriação daquele momento, mas constitui também uma oportunidade para repensar o seu significado numa história mais vasta da revolução. Esta mesa-redonda reúne um conjunto de historiadores/as que se têm dedicado ao estudo do processo revolucionário de 1974-75, com o propósito de debater e desconstruir alguns dos mitos que rodeiam o 25 de Novembro, interrogando o seu lugar na história da revolução, bem como os sucessivos usos políticos feitos a partir da sua memória.

ENTRADA LIVRE

Participantes:

Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
António Louçã
David Castaño (IPRI — NOVA FCSH)
Irene Flunser Pimentel (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Fernando Dores Costa (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)

Workshop that intends to investigate the relation between “global infrastructures” and “practices of rent-extraction”, both historically and in the global present. Deadline: 15 September 2025

Infrastructures of Rent Extraction

According to a number of prominent analyses, the contemporary world-market is characterised by “a full-fledged comeback and proliferation of forms of rent” (Vercellone 2010; see also: Harvey 2015, Mezzadra & Neilson 2017, Purcell 2018, Christophers 2020, Standing 2020). This political and economic shift demands granular reflections, and it has stimulated widespread theoretical and political debates.

Building upon classical Marxist critiques of imperialism – which emphasized the role of the imperialist “rentier state” as “a state of parasitic, decaying capitalism” (Lenin 1917) – a number of critics have suggested that the growing centrality of rent-extraction in global cycles of capital accumulation indicates a significant shift in the history of the capitalist mode of production from ‘neoliberalism’ to ‘rentier capitalism’ (Christophers 2020, Sadowski 2020, Birch & Ward 2023; Borg & Policante 2024). The neoliberal market presents itself as an arena of free trade, competition, entrepreneurship, and frictionless mobility. Yet, as these authors emphasize, control over key assets – such as land, intellectual property, natural resources, logistical and digital infrastructure – is increasingly dominated by a restricted number of companies and individuals: rentiers, passively piling up the returns accruing from their ownership of essential conditions of (re)production: land, water, housing, utilities, infrastructures and platforms.

Others (more problematically, from our perspective) have gone as far as suggesting that the growth of rent relations can be interpreted as a shift from capitalism to techno-feudalism (Varoufakis 2023, Durand 2024, Mazzuccato 2019, Dean 2025). This narrative stresses that contemporary digital economies are no longer driven primarily by labor exploitation, but by monopolistic control over digital infrastructures and rent extraction. According to this approach, today’s tech giants resemble lords presiding over private infrastructural fiefdoms, continuously extracting value from us captured users. This dynamic is intricately linked to ‘platformisation’, whereby Big Tech firms charge ‘rent’ for providing access to monopolised digital platforms (Sadowski, 2020; Mezzadra et al. 2024).

By controlling different layers of the digital stack, Big Tech companies appear to be increasingly able to extract value from global production chains. GAFAM – and more precisely the Big Three of the Cloud (AWS, Google Cloud Provider and Microsoft Azure) – currently control two thirds of global Cloud capacity. Citizens, private firms, states, and international organizations increasingly rely on their services, renting stock capacity, algorithmic elaboration, and AI functions. Such a position of power is reinforced by their growing control over many of the infrastructures that support the digital – datacenters, submarine fiber cables, power plants etc. How do we make sense of the power of Big Tech, and the growing importance of what we may call imperative “infrastructure rents”, i.e. rent relations that have become increasingly compulsory, inescapable and designed within the very infrastructural fabric of the world market?

Moving away from “presentism” may help us to properly contextualize and historicize this contemporary conjuncture. Current analyses of Big Tech ‘rentierism’, for instance, has pushed many to turn back to classic studies on “rentier states” and “imperialist rent”. Samir Amin, for instance, focusing on the impact of colonial control over extractive and logistical infrastructures, stressed that “to the extent that monopolies operate in the peripheries of the globalized system, monopoly rent becomes an imperialist rent” (Amin 2019). Similarly, Hazem Beblawi’s classic “The Rentier State in the Arab World” (1987: 383) stressed the emergence of “extraverted states”, whose main lever of power is the control over infrastructures enabling the extraction of rents. In particular, according to Beblawi, “transit countries” such as Egypt have long relied on their control over key global infrastructures – such as ports, railways, oil pipelines, and the Suez Canal – to extract and distribute “external location rent”.

This analysis may provide a point of entry to reflect upon the growing competition to control key “global infrastructures” such as pipelines and ports, power cables and fiber optic networks, transcontinental railways and highways. For instance, Loftus, March and Purcell (2019, 2020) have shown how processes of financialization have enabled “apparently fixed and stable forms such as pipes, water treatment plants, and sewers to be transformed into liquid assets”, opening up new opportunities for rent-extraction. More generally, Ranabir Samaddar (2018: 110) suggests that “the logistical expansion of the city […] resurrects the rent factor from oblivion in a capitalist economy”; and urgently asks: “What does the revival of the rent question mean for postcolonial accumulation?” These analyses emphasize that global infrastructures play a fundamental role in planetary processes of value-capture and rent-extraction.

Expanding on these debates, the conference intends to investigate the relation between “global infrastructures” and “practices of rent-extraction”, both historically and in the global present. We welcome contributions that investigate the relation between historical processes of infrastructuralisation, financialisation, and rentierisation of the economy. We are particularly interested in furthering a collective reflection on the ways in which rent relations extend well beyond land markets and shape the global circulation and capture of value across logistical, extractive and digital infrastructures.

Some possible questions that demand further reflection and analysis may be:

• What is the role played by global infrastructures in enabling practices of rent extraction by transnational corporations as well as national states?
• How is rent extracted in different geographical and historical contexts?
• What forms of labour(s) and knowledge(s) are mobilised in order to extract rents?
• How has the control over key infrastructures enabled the capture of value in colonial and post-colonial context?
• To what extent concepts such as ‘rentier capitalism’ and ‘techno-feudalism’ may further – or hinder – critical understandings of contemporary capitalism?
• How can we understand the relationship between ‘rentier states’, ‘rentier capitalism’ and ‘rentier imperialism’, both historically and in the present moment?
• Who has monopolistic control over key global infrastructures, and what sort of power results from such control?
• What forms of resistance to ‘rent extraction’ have been growing in recent years, from ‘rent strikes’ to cyberpiracy?

We welcome papers dealing with all these aspects from an interdisciplinary perspective. Interested scholars are invited to send an abstract and a short bio to Amedeo Policante [policante@fcsh.unl.pt] and Mattia Frapporti [mattia.frapporti2@unibo.it] by 15 September 2025. The final workshop will take place on 28 November 2025, at the University of Bologna.

>> Download the call for papers (PDF)

References:

– Amin, S. (2012). The surplus in monopoly capitalism and the imperialist rent. Monthly Review, 64(3), 78.
– Beblawi, H. (1987). The Rentier State in the Arab World. Arab Studies Quarterly, 9(4), 383–398.
– Birch, K., & Ward, C. (2023). Introduction: Critical approaches to rentiership. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 55(6), 1429-1437.
– Borg, E., & Policante, A. (2024). The Gene Editing Business: Rent Extraction in the Biotech Industry. Review of Political Economy, 1-36.
– Dean, J. (2025). Capital’s Grave: Neofeudalism and the New Class Struggle. Verso Books.
– Durand, C. (2024). How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-feudalism: The Making of the Digital Economy. Verso Books.
– Harvey, D. (2012). Ponzi Scheme Capitalism: An Interview with David Harvey by Steffen Böhm. Review31. [http://review31.co.uk/interview/view/16/]
– Lenin, V. (1917) Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, In: Essential Works of Lenin, New York, 1966, pp. 245-246.
– Christophers, B. (2020). Rentier capitalism: Who owns the economy, and who pays for it?. Verso Books.
– Mazzucato M (2019) Preventing digital feudalism. Project Syndicate. Available at: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/platform-economy-digital-feudalism-by-mariana-mazzucato-2019-10 (accessed 23 October 2024).
– Mezzadra, S., & Neilson, B. (2017). On the multiple frontiers of extraction: Excavating contemporary capitalism. Cultural studies, 31(2-3), 185-204.
– Mezzadra, S., Cuppini, N., Frapporti, M., Pirone, M., (2024). Capitalism in the Platform Age. Emerging Assemblages of Labour and Welfare in Urban Spaces. Berlin, Springer.
– Purcell, T. F., Loftus, A., & March, H. (2020). Value–rent–finance. Progress in human geography, 44(3), 437-456.
– Sadowski, J. (2020). The internet of landlords: Digital platforms and new mechanisms of rentier capitalism. Antipode, 52(2), 562-580.
– Samaddar, R. (2018). The logistical city. In India’s contemporary urban conundrum. Routledge, pp.104-115.
– Standing, G. (2021). The corruption of capitalism: Why rentiers thrive and work does not pay. Biteback Publishing.
– Varoufakis, Y. (2023) Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Melville House.
– Vercellone, C. (2010) The Crisis of the Law of Value and the Becoming-Rent of Profit. In Fumagalli, A. & Mezzadra, S. (eds.) Crisis in the global economy: Financial Markets, Social Struggles, and New Political Scenarios, Semiotext(e), pp. 85-118.

Workshop that seeks to examine critically the rich intellectual, political and cultural exchanges that took place in the context of revolution in and between Africa and Latin America. Deadline: 21 November 2025

Intellectual Exchanges Between Revolutionary Africa and Latin America, 1950-1990

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the independence of Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe from Portuguese colonial rule, following the independence of Guinea-Bissau two years’ prior. The violent struggles for the liberation of Portuguese-speaking Africa were articulated with the broader project of the African revolution, decolonisation on the continent and the wider struggle for the liberation of the Third World. More-than-national politics were variously expressed in the forms of négritude, pan-Africanism, the anti-apartheid movement, Afro-Asian solidarity, the global workers’ movement and tri-continentalism.

This workshop seeks to examine critically the rich intellectual, political and cultural exchanges that took place in the context of revolution in and between Africa and Latin America, 1950-1990. We posit that this period was characterised by an energetic, if flawed, search for a theory and practice of liberation adequate to the project of revolution and decolonisation in the Third World. Our approach proposes to consider the critical exchanges of ideas, themes and concepts that informed and underpinned the projects of liberation in Africa and beyond.

Our aim is to explore how these interactions can nuance our historical understanding of revolutionary exchange and shape our present conceptions of revolution and liberation on the continent and beyond.

>> Download the call for proposals (PDF) <<

Organisation:

Georgia Nasseh (University of Cambridge)
Giulia Dickmans (Freie Universität Berlin)
Raquel Ribeiro (NOVA FCSH)
Tom Stennett (Investigador independente)

Workshop aimed at researchers interested in applying social network analysis and other digital humanities tools to historical research.

Humanidades Digitais e Investigação:

Análise e visualização de redes

Com Anderson Pereira Antunes.

Este workshop visa:

• apresentar os princípios básicos da análise e visualização de redes sociais;
• demonstrar a diversidade de aplicação desta metodologia, sobretudo nas Humanidades;
• destacar como a visualização de redes amplia a comunicação científica (entre pares e para disseminação para o público não-académico);
• incentivar o uso crítico e criativo de novas metodologias e softwares como ferramentas de investigação.

Formato híbrido: Sala 295 do Colégio do Espirito Santo e online em https://meet.google.com/etg-bgfo-rrz

A participação é gratuita, mas é obrigatória inscrição prévia NESTE LINK.
Participação limitada a 50 pessoas no formato presencial.

Organização: IIFA e Instituto de História Contemporânea — Universidade de Évora

>> Descarregar folheto informativo (PDF) <<

This meeting seeks to encourage the participation and sharing of ideas calling on the voice of workers and the power of archives as a living tool for knowledge. Deadline: 10 November 2025

We are with you at home

Domestic work and collective action — Archives, memories, testimonies

In recent decades, the formation of a global economy of care and domestic services has become one of the central elements in understanding the transformations of work in capitalist societies (Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2002; Lutz, 2011). This process of “international division of reproductive labour” (Parreñas, 2001; Anderson, 2007) is an example of how historical inequalities have been reconfigured and deepened in the transition from colonial to postcolonial contexts (Cox, 2006; Sartri, 2008). The absence of public care policies, combined with labour market deregulation and labour shortages in the sector, has produced a scenario of labour and social precariousness in which gender, ethnicity and class intersect. Employers’ preference for migrant workers—often without residence permits—has allowed the formation of a new servile class, characterised by fragile ties, an almost complete absence of rights and low wages (Giordano, 2022).

This context of structural vulnerability fuels the idea that domestic and care work is marked by social invisibility and a supposed inability to mobilise collectively. However, this interpretation tends to obscure the long history of resistance and organisational experiences led by these workers. Since the 19th century, multiple examples of labour demands and struggles against oppressive practices demonstrate that the sector, far from being disorganised, has been the scene of various forms of mobilisation for better working conditions (Anderson, 2001; Boris and Nadassen, 2008; Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, 2010). To recover and reflect on this historical trajectory is not only an exercise of remembrance, but a necessary step to reinscribe domestic and care work in the global history of labour struggles, challenging narratives that seek to naturalise its subalternity.

DOMESTIC AND ARCHIVAL WORK

The title of this meeting is taken from a letter sent by a domestic worker to her union, kept in an archive, with no date, no sender or recipient, only a handwritten note: archive. It reads: ‘And never think you are alone, we are with you in the house where we work.’

We took inspiration for this meeting from this short excerpt, part of a text that describes, in the first person, the early migration to the city of Lisbon to work in someone else’s home at the age of seven.

Work on the archives of women workers’ organisations and the increased focus on trade unionism in the domestic service sector has received growing attention in recent years, throughout the world, partly driven by a renewed interest in the intersection of gender, class and migration inequalities in the sphere of paid domestic work. At this meeting, which will take place on 6 and 7 February 2026 in Lisbon, we are opening a space for, based on the project A Voz das Trabalhadoras (The Voice of Women Workers: The Archives of the Domestic Service Union [1974-1992]), to gather contributions from different geographical areas and fields of practice that intersect around domestic work, care and cleaning — and their articulation with forms of collective action, cooperativism, trade unionism, and memory construction.

Thus, with immersion in trade union archives and experiences of self-management and cooperativism in domestic service as our main starting point, we invite submissions of proposals that focus on the various repertoires of organisation and struggle adopted by workers in this sector/activity, focusing on oral history or archival research, the narration of experiences and self-representations of working conditions and contexts.

A TRANSNATIONAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE

Seeking to establish a transnational and interdisciplinary dialogue on these experiences, contributions are welcome in the following areas:

1. Archival practices of/on domestic work;
2. Migratory flows, citizenship, gender, and racialisation in domestic, cleaning, and care work;
3. Collective action, cooperativism, and trade unionism in domestic work.

This meeting seeks to encourage the participation and sharing of ideas among activists, artists, researchers, workers and trade unions — calling on the voice of workers and the power of archives as a living tool for knowledge, learning and transformation.

Call for papers

We therefore invite proposals from different disciplinary fields and with different methodological approaches, welcoming the intersection of perspectives. The Meeting welcomes proposals from:

a) artists (performance, theatre, audiovisual);
b) researchers, archivists, activists and students;
c) domestic and care workers (collectives, cooperatives, trade unions)

Who, where, how?
Send short abstracts (max. 500 words) with a brief biography by 10 November 2025. Submissions to: encontro.trabalhodomestico2026@gmail.com.

Accepted languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English.

Venues: NOVA FCSH, Cape Verde Cultural Centre (Lisbon)

Organisation: CICS.NOVA and IHC

>> Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

Organising Committee

Ackssana Silva
Elsa Nogueira
Inês Brasão
José Soeiro
Mafalda Araújo
Nuno Ferreira Dias

This conference aims to open the space for dialogue on how Digital Humanities can boost plural approaches to history, memory, heritage, and creativity. Deadline: 5 December 2025

Crossing Oceans: Digital Humanities in Dialogue

We are pleased to announce the international conference Crossing Oceans: Digital Humanities in Dialogue, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and digital humanists from all around the globe. This event seeks to create a space of truly transoceanic dialogue to discuss the present and future of Digital Humanities.

The conference invites participants to rethink methodologies for work in the Humanities at a time when digital transformations are reshaping how we investigate, interpret, and share knowledge. The digitization of archival materials, alongside the proliferation of born-digital records, has multiplied the sources available for historical, literary, and cultural analysis. Today, researchers have at their disposal a wide range of digital tools and software that allow them to organise, interpret, manipulate, share, and store data in increasingly diverse ways, opening new pathways for both collaborative and innovative research. At the same time, the emergence of artificial intelligence challenges us to critically assess both the possibilities and the risks of automated tools in the construction of knowledge.

Call for papers

By crossing oceans and perspectives, this conference aims to open the space for dialogue on how Digital Humanities can boost plural approaches to history, memory, heritage, and creativity, while also confronting questions of accessibility, ethics, and epistemic justice, as when we use these tools to give voice to new agents previously made invisible by traditional historiography, for instance.

On this conference, we welcome contributions on topics including but not limited to:

• Methodological innovations in Digital Humanities research.
• The impact of AI on the Humanities and critical approaches to its use.
• Digitization projects and the challenges of working with born-digital materials.
• Digital strategies for reaching non-academic audiences.
• Tools and projects that facilitate collaborative and transnational projects.

Submission period: 20 October – 5 December 2025

Participation: Free of charge, registration required

Language: English (presentations in other languages may be considered)

🔗 Conference website

🔗 Registration and proposal submission

🔗 Call for papers (PDF)

Organisation

Organising Committee

Ana Chambel (University of de Évora)
Anderson Antunes (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Sara Albuquerque (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)

Scientific Committee

Anderson Antunes (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Daniel Alves (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Santiago Perez (CEComp — FLUL)
Sara Albuquerque (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Silvia Valencich Frota (CEComp — FLUL)

Executive Committee

Ana Chambel (University of de Évora)
Anderson Antunes (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Diana Barbosa (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Sara Albuquerque (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Paula Gentil Santos (University of Évora)

This conference is inspired by the KNOW.AFRICA project (https://doi.org/10.54499/2022.01599.PTDC), which investigates nineteenth-century Portuguese scientific expeditions in Angola by highlighting the invisible contributions of local agents who made travelling and collecting possible. In this project, we analyse how cooks, guides, interpreters, porters, local rulers, and others, collaborated with the construction of knowledge and the formation of scientific collections. Through the use of Digital Humanities methods and tools – such as GIS mapping, network analysis and visualisation, databases, and interactive digital timelines – KNOW.AFRICA aims to explore how digital tools can assist in the construction and dissemination of historical knowledge. By combining archival research with digital tools, the project not only advances academic debates on colonial science but also develops outputs aimed at wider publics, including digital exhibitions, podcasts, and interactive maps and timelines. In this way, KNOW.AFRICA aims to use the Digital Humanities as a way to bridge research and dissemination, turning historical inquiry into a shared, multidisciplinary and collaborative process.

Two-day conference on the alter-lives of independence movements that explores the evolution and transformation of anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles. Deadline: 13 February 2026

The Alter-lives of Independence Movements:

Frustrated Hopes, Renewed Utopias

Decades after formal decolonisation, anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism have remained a wellspring of inspiration and contestation. Studies about anticolonial thought, the 1955 Bandung Conference, and transcontinental solidarity movements have proliferated in academia and activist networks, providing the basis of theories and practices of resistance in contemporary times. Nevertheless, the ideas and the movements they inspired did not perish with the epoch that produced them. They evolved and acquired alternative lives in the period of nation-building and world-making, whether in extended or distorted forms. On the one hand, there were local and transnational efforts to sustain and enrich the revolutionary impulse through embracing the anticolonial spirit in various areas such as development, education, and diplomacy. As international institutions such as the UN welcome additional member states, Europeans and non-Europeans travelled to decolonised states like Algeria and Angola to learn and further cultivate ideas in building new societies. On the other hand, some dominant groups that took over the independent states capitalised on the anti-colonial pride to justify authoritarian and anti-democratic rule. Their utopian visions led to the systematic oppression of opposing forces and reproduced the hierarchical international state model. The fear of neocolonialism and disillusionment propelled both the former coloniser and colonised to reorganise their strategies and desires in the face of an emerging world order.

This two-day conference on the alter-lives of independence movements explores the evolution and transformation of anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles. It focuses on the events and reflections about the early years of independence, a period of turbulent transition from colonial domination to self-governing nation-states, and of tumultuous beginnings of a new international order. We introduce the concept “alter-lives” to denote the process of altering imaginaries and practices that emerged during the colonial period in responding to uncertain futures, including the political uses of anticolonial memories and/or histories. It also refers to alternative relations forged between and among the former colonisers and colonised after independence. Thus, using “alter-lives” as a conceptual ground, this conference engages in the following questions: first, how have anticolonial thinking and practices evolved domestically and transnationally? Second, what were the structural and agential forces behind these evolutions? Third, how were anticolonial memories and histories politicised to achieve certain ends? Fourth, what difficulties did these agents face in realising their envisioned future? Lastly, how have alterations and alternatives affirmed and/or challenged the revolutionary ideas of the independence struggles?

Call for papers

We welcome theoretical and praxis-oriented proposals to gather scholars, activists, and artists from various disciplinary backgrounds and acquire a broad comparative perspective. Possible
areas include, but are not limited to:

• Transnational solidarities and resistance, such as North-South and South-South cooperation
• Nation-building
• Anticolonial thought and figures
• Diplomacy and international affairs
• Pedagogy and knowledge transmission
• Literary and artistic representations, such as documentaries, films, and novels
• Rhetorics of failure, frustrated political projects

Please submit your abstract (300 words max.) by 13 February 2026 to jiw.hopesandfears@gmail.com.

Decisions will be communicated by the first week of March 2026.

>> Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

This event is organised as part of the Joint International Workshop “Hopes and Fears. Anti-colonial and Postcolonial Imaginaries in the Lusotopy and Beyond”, that gathers the Institute of Contemporary History — NOVA University Lisbon / University of Évora, the University of São Paulo, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Conference that seeks to challenge historical revisionism, amplify marginalised voices, and foster transnational dialogues on reconciliation, accountability, and restorative justice. Deadline: 30 November 2025

The Public History of Difficult Pasts

8th International Conference on Public History

IFPH 2026

The 8th International Conference on Public History, organised by the International Federation for Public History, IFPH, will take place in Lisbon from September 7 to 11, 2026. It will be hosted by IN2PAST – the Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability and Territory, a transdisciplinary consortium of seven research centres, at the Almada Negreiros College on the Campolide Campus of NOVA University Lisbon.

In a time of escalating attacks by right-wing movements on memory, diversity, human rights, democracy, and history itself, the IFPH reaffirms its commitment to fostering critical engagement with the ways societies confront, interpret, and relate to their difficult pasts and challenging presents. The IFPH strongly condemns book banning, the censorship of historical narratives, the surveillance of students and educators, the targeting of sites of remembrance, and the imposition of ideological agendas — particularly right-wing distortions — that not only threaten academic freedom but undermine the very principles upon which public history is built. Against this backdrop, the conference seeks to challenge historical revisionism and silencing, to amplify marginalised voices and memories, and to promote transnational dialogues on reconciliation, accountability, and restorative justice.

Public History has long addressed global historical processes such as colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and the genocide of Indigenous peoples, as well as phenomena that emerge in multiple contexts, including armed conflicts and dictatorships. It embodies both a political and ethical commitment to examining how difficult pasts have been lived and remembered by different communities and individuals, ensuring that their perspectives are acknowledged and respected. At the same time, engaging with these histories through Public History raises significant challenges. Sharing authority with specific communities and amplifying marginalised narratives may unintentionally silence other voices, while also presenting complex ethical dilemmas. Furthermore, Public History operates within the public sphere, engaging diverse audiences and navigating competing representations of the past in an era increasingly marked by the political instrumentalisation of history and the spread of revisionist and denialist discourses.

Call for contributions

This conference seeks to challenge historical revisionism, amplify marginalised voices, and foster transnational dialogues on reconciliation, accountability, and restorative justice. We invite contributions that explore:

Historical Contexts and Global Processes

• • Colonialism and its enduring legacies
  • The transatlantic slave trade and its commemorations
  • Indigenous genocide and cultural destruction
  • Armed conflicts, civil wars, and their aftermath
  • Dictatorships, authoritarianism, and state violence
  • Mass atrocities and crimes against humanity

Contemporary Challenges and Methodological Innovations

• • Countering historical denial and revisionism
  • Navigating contested memories and competing narratives
  • Sharing authority with affected communities
  • Ethical dilemmas in representing traumatic pasts
  • Digital humanities, media, and social networks
  • Museum practices and memorial sites
  • Archives, and archival activism
  • Educational approaches to sensitive histories

Voices and Perspectives

• • Survivor testimonies and intergenerational trauma
  • Community-based historical projects
  • Oral history and marginalised narratives
  • Gender, sexuality, and intersectional approaches
  • Youth engagement with difficult pasts
  • Transnational and comparative perspectives

Justice and Reconciliation

• • Truth commissions and transitional justice
  • Reparations and historical redress
  • Memorialisation and commemoration practices
  • Restorative justice approaches
  • Healing and collective memory
  • Building inclusive historical narratives

Calendar

Opening of the Call for Presentations: 30 September 2025
Deadline for Application: 30 November 2025
Deadline for reviewers to do their reviews: 31 January 2026
Call for posters: January 2026
Results of the Call for Presentations will be announced by March 2026
Programme of the conference shall be available around June 2026
Deadline for registration for on-site attendance: August 2026
Conference: 7-11 September 2026

Submission of proposals

🔗 Submit your panel proposal HERE.
🔗 Submit your paper proposal HERE.
🔗 Submit your Working Group proposal HERE.

>> Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

Picture: Peniche Fortress, Fortim Redondo, site of the infamous isolation cells (‘Segredo’) (Credit: © Paulo)

Workshop that seeks to examine critically the rich intellectual, political and cultural exchanges that took place in the context of revolution in and between Africa and Latin America. Deadline: 21 November 2025

Intellectual Exchanges Between Revolutionary Africa and Latin America, 1950-1990

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the independence of Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe from Portuguese colonial rule, following the independence of Guinea-Bissau two years’ prior. The violent struggles for the liberation of Portuguese-speaking Africa were articulated with the broader project of the African revolution, decolonisation on the continent and the wider struggle for the liberation of the Third World. More-than-national politics were variously expressed in the forms of négritude, pan-Africanism, the anti-apartheid movement, Afro-Asian solidarity, the global workers’ movement and tri-continentalism.

This workshop seeks to examine critically the rich intellectual, political and cultural exchanges that took place in the context of revolution in and between Africa and Latin America, 1950-1990. We posit that this period was characterised by an energetic, if flawed, search for a theory and practice of liberation adequate to the project of revolution and decolonisation in the Third World. Our approach proposes to consider the critical exchanges of ideas, themes and concepts that informed and underpinned the projects of liberation in Africa and beyond.

Our aim is to explore how these interactions can nuance our historical understanding of revolutionary exchange and shape our present conceptions of revolution and liberation on the continent and beyond.

>> Download the call for proposals (PDF) <<

Organisation:

Georgia Nasseh (University of Cambridge)
Giulia Dickmans (Freie Universität Berlin)
Raquel Ribeiro (NOVA FCSH)
Tom Stennett (Investigador independente)

This meeting seeks to encourage the participation and sharing of ideas calling on the voice of workers and the power of archives as a living tool for knowledge. Deadline: 10 November 2025

We are with you at home

Domestic work and collective action — Archives, memories, testimonies

In recent decades, the formation of a global economy of care and domestic services has become one of the central elements in understanding the transformations of work in capitalist societies (Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2002; Lutz, 2011). This process of “international division of reproductive labour” (Parreñas, 2001; Anderson, 2007) is an example of how historical inequalities have been reconfigured and deepened in the transition from colonial to postcolonial contexts (Cox, 2006; Sartri, 2008). The absence of public care policies, combined with labour market deregulation and labour shortages in the sector, has produced a scenario of labour and social precariousness in which gender, ethnicity and class intersect. Employers’ preference for migrant workers—often without residence permits—has allowed the formation of a new servile class, characterised by fragile ties, an almost complete absence of rights and low wages (Giordano, 2022).

This context of structural vulnerability fuels the idea that domestic and care work is marked by social invisibility and a supposed inability to mobilise collectively. However, this interpretation tends to obscure the long history of resistance and organisational experiences led by these workers. Since the 19th century, multiple examples of labour demands and struggles against oppressive practices demonstrate that the sector, far from being disorganised, has been the scene of various forms of mobilisation for better working conditions (Anderson, 2001; Boris and Nadassen, 2008; Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, 2010). To recover and reflect on this historical trajectory is not only an exercise of remembrance, but a necessary step to reinscribe domestic and care work in the global history of labour struggles, challenging narratives that seek to naturalise its subalternity.

DOMESTIC AND ARCHIVAL WORK

The title of this meeting is taken from a letter sent by a domestic worker to her union, kept in an archive, with no date, no sender or recipient, only a handwritten note: archive. It reads: ‘And never think you are alone, we are with you in the house where we work.’

We took inspiration for this meeting from this short excerpt, part of a text that describes, in the first person, the early migration to the city of Lisbon to work in someone else’s home at the age of seven.

Work on the archives of women workers’ organisations and the increased focus on trade unionism in the domestic service sector has received growing attention in recent years, throughout the world, partly driven by a renewed interest in the intersection of gender, class and migration inequalities in the sphere of paid domestic work. At this meeting, which will take place on 6 and 7 February 2026 in Lisbon, we are opening a space for, based on the project A Voz das Trabalhadoras (The Voice of Women Workers: The Archives of the Domestic Service Union [1974-1992]), to gather contributions from different geographical areas and fields of practice that intersect around domestic work, care and cleaning — and their articulation with forms of collective action, cooperativism, trade unionism, and memory construction.

Thus, with immersion in trade union archives and experiences of self-management and cooperativism in domestic service as our main starting point, we invite submissions of proposals that focus on the various repertoires of organisation and struggle adopted by workers in this sector/activity, focusing on oral history or archival research, the narration of experiences and self-representations of working conditions and contexts.

A TRANSNATIONAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE

Seeking to establish a transnational and interdisciplinary dialogue on these experiences, contributions are welcome in the following areas:

1. Archival practices of/on domestic work;
2. Migratory flows, citizenship, gender, and racialisation in domestic, cleaning, and care work;
3. Collective action, cooperativism, and trade unionism in domestic work.

This meeting seeks to encourage the participation and sharing of ideas among activists, artists, researchers, workers and trade unions — calling on the voice of workers and the power of archives as a living tool for knowledge, learning and transformation.

Call for papers

We therefore invite proposals from different disciplinary fields and with different methodological approaches, welcoming the intersection of perspectives. The Meeting welcomes proposals from:

a) artists (performance, theatre, audiovisual);
b) researchers, archivists, activists and students;
c) domestic and care workers (collectives, cooperatives, trade unions)

Who, where, how?
Send short abstracts (max. 500 words) with a brief biography by 10 November 2025. Submissions to: encontro.trabalhodomestico2026@gmail.com.

Accepted languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English.

Venues: NOVA FCSH, Cape Verde Cultural Centre (Lisbon)

Organisation: CICS.NOVA and IHC

>> Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

Organising Committee

Ackssana Silva
Elsa Nogueira
Inês Brasão
José Soeiro
Mafalda Araújo
Nuno Ferreira Dias

This conference aims to open the space for dialogue on how Digital Humanities can boost plural approaches to history, memory, heritage, and creativity. Deadline: 5 December 2025

Crossing Oceans: Digital Humanities in Dialogue

We are pleased to announce the international conference Crossing Oceans: Digital Humanities in Dialogue, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and digital humanists from all around the globe. This event seeks to create a space of truly transoceanic dialogue to discuss the present and future of Digital Humanities.

The conference invites participants to rethink methodologies for work in the Humanities at a time when digital transformations are reshaping how we investigate, interpret, and share knowledge. The digitization of archival materials, alongside the proliferation of born-digital records, has multiplied the sources available for historical, literary, and cultural analysis. Today, researchers have at their disposal a wide range of digital tools and software that allow them to organise, interpret, manipulate, share, and store data in increasingly diverse ways, opening new pathways for both collaborative and innovative research. At the same time, the emergence of artificial intelligence challenges us to critically assess both the possibilities and the risks of automated tools in the construction of knowledge.

Call for papers

By crossing oceans and perspectives, this conference aims to open the space for dialogue on how Digital Humanities can boost plural approaches to history, memory, heritage, and creativity, while also confronting questions of accessibility, ethics, and epistemic justice, as when we use these tools to give voice to new agents previously made invisible by traditional historiography, for instance.

On this conference, we welcome contributions on topics including but not limited to:

• Methodological innovations in Digital Humanities research.
• The impact of AI on the Humanities and critical approaches to its use.
• Digitization projects and the challenges of working with born-digital materials.
• Digital strategies for reaching non-academic audiences.
• Tools and projects that facilitate collaborative and transnational projects.

Submission period: 20 October – 5 December 2025

Participation: Free of charge, registration required

Language: English (presentations in other languages may be considered)

🔗 Conference website

🔗 Registration and proposal submission

🔗 Call for papers (PDF)

Organisation

Organising Committee

Ana Chambel (University of de Évora)
Anderson Antunes (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Sara Albuquerque (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)

Scientific Committee

Anderson Antunes (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Daniel Alves (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Santiago Perez (CEComp — FLUL)
Sara Albuquerque (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Silvia Valencich Frota (CEComp — FLUL)

Executive Committee

Ana Chambel (University of de Évora)
Anderson Antunes (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Diana Barbosa (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Sara Albuquerque (University of Évora / IHC / IN2PAST)
Paula Gentil Santos (University of Évora)

This conference is inspired by the KNOW.AFRICA project (https://doi.org/10.54499/2022.01599.PTDC), which investigates nineteenth-century Portuguese scientific expeditions in Angola by highlighting the invisible contributions of local agents who made travelling and collecting possible. In this project, we analyse how cooks, guides, interpreters, porters, local rulers, and others, collaborated with the construction of knowledge and the formation of scientific collections. Through the use of Digital Humanities methods and tools – such as GIS mapping, network analysis and visualisation, databases, and interactive digital timelines – KNOW.AFRICA aims to explore how digital tools can assist in the construction and dissemination of historical knowledge. By combining archival research with digital tools, the project not only advances academic debates on colonial science but also develops outputs aimed at wider publics, including digital exhibitions, podcasts, and interactive maps and timelines. In this way, KNOW.AFRICA aims to use the Digital Humanities as a way to bridge research and dissemination, turning historical inquiry into a shared, multidisciplinary and collaborative process.

Two-day conference on the alter-lives of independence movements that explores the evolution and transformation of anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles. Deadline: 13 February 2026

The Alter-lives of Independence Movements:

Frustrated Hopes, Renewed Utopias

Decades after formal decolonisation, anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism have remained a wellspring of inspiration and contestation. Studies about anticolonial thought, the 1955 Bandung Conference, and transcontinental solidarity movements have proliferated in academia and activist networks, providing the basis of theories and practices of resistance in contemporary times. Nevertheless, the ideas and the movements they inspired did not perish with the epoch that produced them. They evolved and acquired alternative lives in the period of nation-building and world-making, whether in extended or distorted forms. On the one hand, there were local and transnational efforts to sustain and enrich the revolutionary impulse through embracing the anticolonial spirit in various areas such as development, education, and diplomacy. As international institutions such as the UN welcome additional member states, Europeans and non-Europeans travelled to decolonised states like Algeria and Angola to learn and further cultivate ideas in building new societies. On the other hand, some dominant groups that took over the independent states capitalised on the anti-colonial pride to justify authoritarian and anti-democratic rule. Their utopian visions led to the systematic oppression of opposing forces and reproduced the hierarchical international state model. The fear of neocolonialism and disillusionment propelled both the former coloniser and colonised to reorganise their strategies and desires in the face of an emerging world order.

This two-day conference on the alter-lives of independence movements explores the evolution and transformation of anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles. It focuses on the events and reflections about the early years of independence, a period of turbulent transition from colonial domination to self-governing nation-states, and of tumultuous beginnings of a new international order. We introduce the concept “alter-lives” to denote the process of altering imaginaries and practices that emerged during the colonial period in responding to uncertain futures, including the political uses of anticolonial memories and/or histories. It also refers to alternative relations forged between and among the former colonisers and colonised after independence. Thus, using “alter-lives” as a conceptual ground, this conference engages in the following questions: first, how have anticolonial thinking and practices evolved domestically and transnationally? Second, what were the structural and agential forces behind these evolutions? Third, how were anticolonial memories and histories politicised to achieve certain ends? Fourth, what difficulties did these agents face in realising their envisioned future? Lastly, how have alterations and alternatives affirmed and/or challenged the revolutionary ideas of the independence struggles?

Call for papers

We welcome theoretical and praxis-oriented proposals to gather scholars, activists, and artists from various disciplinary backgrounds and acquire a broad comparative perspective. Possible
areas include, but are not limited to:

• Transnational solidarities and resistance, such as North-South and South-South cooperation
• Nation-building
• Anticolonial thought and figures
• Diplomacy and international affairs
• Pedagogy and knowledge transmission
• Literary and artistic representations, such as documentaries, films, and novels
• Rhetorics of failure, frustrated political projects

Please submit your abstract (300 words max.) by 13 February 2026 to jiw.hopesandfears@gmail.com.

Decisions will be communicated by the first week of March 2026.

>> Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

This event is organised as part of the Joint International Workshop “Hopes and Fears. Anti-colonial and Postcolonial Imaginaries in the Lusotopy and Beyond”, that gathers the Institute of Contemporary History — NOVA University Lisbon / University of Évora, the University of São Paulo, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Conference that seeks to challenge historical revisionism, amplify marginalised voices, and foster transnational dialogues on reconciliation, accountability, and restorative justice. Deadline: 30 November 2025

The Public History of Difficult Pasts

8th International Conference on Public History

IFPH 2026

The 8th International Conference on Public History, organised by the International Federation for Public History, IFPH, will take place in Lisbon from September 7 to 11, 2026. It will be hosted by IN2PAST – the Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability and Territory, a transdisciplinary consortium of seven research centres, at the Almada Negreiros College on the Campolide Campus of NOVA University Lisbon.

In a time of escalating attacks by right-wing movements on memory, diversity, human rights, democracy, and history itself, the IFPH reaffirms its commitment to fostering critical engagement with the ways societies confront, interpret, and relate to their difficult pasts and challenging presents. The IFPH strongly condemns book banning, the censorship of historical narratives, the surveillance of students and educators, the targeting of sites of remembrance, and the imposition of ideological agendas — particularly right-wing distortions — that not only threaten academic freedom but undermine the very principles upon which public history is built. Against this backdrop, the conference seeks to challenge historical revisionism and silencing, to amplify marginalised voices and memories, and to promote transnational dialogues on reconciliation, accountability, and restorative justice.

Public History has long addressed global historical processes such as colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and the genocide of Indigenous peoples, as well as phenomena that emerge in multiple contexts, including armed conflicts and dictatorships. It embodies both a political and ethical commitment to examining how difficult pasts have been lived and remembered by different communities and individuals, ensuring that their perspectives are acknowledged and respected. At the same time, engaging with these histories through Public History raises significant challenges. Sharing authority with specific communities and amplifying marginalised narratives may unintentionally silence other voices, while also presenting complex ethical dilemmas. Furthermore, Public History operates within the public sphere, engaging diverse audiences and navigating competing representations of the past in an era increasingly marked by the political instrumentalisation of history and the spread of revisionist and denialist discourses.

Call for contributions

This conference seeks to challenge historical revisionism, amplify marginalised voices, and foster transnational dialogues on reconciliation, accountability, and restorative justice. We invite contributions that explore:

Historical Contexts and Global Processes

• • Colonialism and its enduring legacies
  • The transatlantic slave trade and its commemorations
  • Indigenous genocide and cultural destruction
  • Armed conflicts, civil wars, and their aftermath
  • Dictatorships, authoritarianism, and state violence
  • Mass atrocities and crimes against humanity

Contemporary Challenges and Methodological Innovations

• • Countering historical denial and revisionism
  • Navigating contested memories and competing narratives
  • Sharing authority with affected communities
  • Ethical dilemmas in representing traumatic pasts
  • Digital humanities, media, and social networks
  • Museum practices and memorial sites
  • Archives, and archival activism
  • Educational approaches to sensitive histories

Voices and Perspectives

• • Survivor testimonies and intergenerational trauma
  • Community-based historical projects
  • Oral history and marginalised narratives
  • Gender, sexuality, and intersectional approaches
  • Youth engagement with difficult pasts
  • Transnational and comparative perspectives

Justice and Reconciliation

• • Truth commissions and transitional justice
  • Reparations and historical redress
  • Memorialisation and commemoration practices
  • Restorative justice approaches
  • Healing and collective memory
  • Building inclusive historical narratives

Calendar

Opening of the Call for Presentations: 30 September 2025
Deadline for Application: 30 November 2025
Deadline for reviewers to do their reviews: 31 January 2026
Call for posters: January 2026
Results of the Call for Presentations will be announced by March 2026
Programme of the conference shall be available around June 2026
Deadline for registration for on-site attendance: August 2026
Conference: 7-11 September 2026

Submission of proposals

🔗 Submit your panel proposal HERE.
🔗 Submit your paper proposal HERE.
🔗 Submit your Working Group proposal HERE.

>> Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

Picture: Peniche Fortress, Fortim Redondo, site of the infamous isolation cells (‘Segredo’) (Credit: © Paulo)