Biography

Zélia Pereira has a PhD in Information and Documentation Sciences from the University of Évora. She has a degree in History from the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon and a master’s degree in Contemporary Social History from Iscte-IUL, as well as a postgraduate qualification in Information and Documentation Sciences. She has collaborated and participated in research projects in the field of history, most recently at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, between 2018 and 2022, on the transnational aspects of East Timor’s self-determination. She was an archivist at the Mário Soares and Maria Barroso Foundation and is currently a senior technician at NOVA School of Science and Technology‘s Library, Archive and Culture Office.

Her research in the field of history centres on contemporary colonial and post-colonial issues, with a special focus on the transnational contexts of Timor Leste’s self-determination process, and she was one of the recipients of the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Prize from the Portuguese Diplomats’ Trade Union Association. She is particularly interested in the political contours of the East Timorese question and the international solidarity movement. In the field of information science, she has addressed various aspects of the production and use of archival information, particularly from personal archives.

Research fields

• Contemporary history
• Diplomatic relations
• Colonialism and postcolonialism
• Archival science

Selected publications

• Pereira, Zélia & Rui Graça Feijó. Timor-Leste: Do Colonialismo Tardio à Independência. Porto / Lisbon: Edições Afrontamento / Instituto Diplomático, 2023. [link]
• Pereira, Zélia & Rui Graça Feijó (Eds.). Timor-Leste’s Long Road to Independence. Transnational Perspectives. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. [link]
• Pereira, Zélia. “Reality Overlapping Principles? Portugal and the Self-Determination of Timor-Leste (1976–91).” Indonesia 115 (2023): 11-30. [link] 🔓
• Pereira, Zélia, “Personal archives and the shaping of collective memory in Portugal: results of a national census,” in Recovered voices, newfound questions: family archives and historical research, coordinated by Maria de Lurdes Rosa, Rita Sampaio da Nóvoa, Alice Borges Gago and Maria João da Câmara, 141-162. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2019. [link]🔓

Main projects

• Coordinator of the project “DecTiL — Auditing Decolonization in Timor-Leste, 1974-82: the Riscado Report” — Hosted by the IHC and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (2023.10636.25ABR). 2024-2025
• Researcher in the project “ADeTiL — A autodeterminação de Timor-Leste: um estudo de História Transnacional” — Coordinated by Rui Graça Feijó and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/HAR-HIS/30670/2017). 2018-2022 [link]