The thematic line “Uses of the Past: Memory and Cultural Heritage”, which gathers most of the IHC anthropologists, expresses their deep regret for the death of Benjamim Enes Pereira (1928-2020), who was one of the founders of modern Portuguese anthropology and a decisive figure in the studies of material culture, museology and heritage.

Benjamim Pereira, who from early on was part of the team that, throughout the country, collected many of the objects that served as the basis of the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology, which would be one of its founders, played a prominent role in the renewal of the anthropology of Portugal. The researchers of this line of the Institute of Contemporary History emphasize the importance of its legacy, decisive for the paths that they take today.