Catarina Laranjeiro was awarded an Honourable Mention, in the category “Best Doctoral Thesis in Cultural Studies”, of the Virgínia Quaresma International Prize in Cultural Studies.

The thesis, titled “Entre as Imagens e os Espíritos: encontros com a memória da guerra de libertação na Guiné-Bissau” [Between Images and Spirits: encounters with the memory of the war of liberation in Guinea-Bissau], was defended in the Doctoral Program in Post-Colonialisms and Global Citizenship, of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra, in 2018. In it, the researcher considered images as instruments of memory in order to analyse the filmography produced in the liberation war in Guinea-Bissau.

In 2021, Catarina Laranjeiro will start a new project at the IHC on the relationship between the colonial legacy of images and the production of popular cinema in the African continent, after obtaining a contract under the Stimulus for Scientific Employment, financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology.

The biennial prize is awarded by the University of Aveiro, with the support of the International Network in Cultural Studies and the National Network in Cultural Studies and sponsorship by the Regional Directorate-General for Culture. The prize was awarded to Sara Vidal Maia, with the thesis “Relações de Poder e Identidade(s) de Género: A sociedade ‘matriarcal’ de Ílhavo na década de 1950” [Relations of Power and Gender Identity(s): The ‘matriarchal’ society of Ílhavo in the 1950s] (Doctoral Program in Cultural Studies at the Universities of Aveiro and Minho, 2016). Lélian Silveira and Walter Chile also received honourable mentions. Eduardo Lourenço received the Carrer Prize posthumously.