Activity Report of the Exploratory Meeting "Asia and Archives"
This activity report aims to systematize the results of the exploratory meeting "Asia and Archives", organized by Duarte Braga, Daniela Spina and Inês Marques, within the scope of the PORT ASIA project: Writing Asia in Portuguese: mapping literary and intellectual archives in Lisbon and Macau (1820-1955) of the Centre for Comparative Studies of the University of Lisbon. The event took place on July 4, 2023, at the Macau Cultural and Scientific Center (CCCM), between 9 am and 7 pm, and featured twelve papers that were also broadcast online.
After the brief opening speech given by Duarte Braga (CEComp-FLUL), in which the thanks of the organizing committee and some information about the course of activities during the day were transmitted, the keynote lecture "Macau newspapers in different archives: a research to trace Macau's globalization", given by Agnes Lam (University of Macau), via Zoom. With the aim of studying the Macanese press in the colonial period, demonstrating the social, economic, cultural and political transformations that took place in this city and thinking about its globalization through the flow of information arriving and departing from Macao, the researcher was faced with the fact that the documents related to her research topic were dispersed in dozens of archives in Asia, Europe and the United States of America. In view of this decentralization of documentation, the University of Macau professor advised the researchers present at the event to open their horizons during the archival work, as only in this way will it be possible to obtain a holistic view towards the story told by the archives. This was followed by a question-and-answer session, which shed more light on the different natures of Portuguese, English and Chinese publications circulating in Macao.
Logo depois do primeiro coffee break, teve lugar a comunicação “Arquivos nativos e histórias coloniais: experiências de investigação” de Ricardo Roque (ICS), no âmbito do projeto histórico-etnográfico “INDICO – Arquivos coloniais nativos: micro-histórias e comparações”. Este trabalho de investigação teve como ponto de partida uma carta do major José Vaquinhas sobre o facto de que a documentação relativa ao reino de Timor estava na posse de famílias nativas poderosas e não dos oficiais portugueses. Esta questão é particularmente interessante para o desenvolvimento do projeto em causa, pois ainda hoje a retenção destes documentos na posse de particulares é encarada pelos timorenses como uma forma de preservação do seu poder político. Deste modo, Ricardo Roque tem vindo a realizar um inquérito sobre a documentação “indígena” africana e asiática em arquivos portugueses, focando-se no estudo de micro-histórias e lendas.
This was followed by the paper "Contributing to the notion of Writing Macao through PortAsia", prepared by Tan Raan Hann (National University of Malaysia) and Sílvio Moreira de Sousa (Macao University of Science and Technology) and presented by the latter through the Zoom platform. Like the lesson by Agnes Lam (University of Macau), this session also highlighted the potential of Macao's archives, especially the Macao Central Library and the Macao Historical Archives. Based on the concept of writing Macao, which is the literary, linguistic and anthropological analysis of textual production linked in some way to the city of Macao and its people, Sousa demonstrated the importance of the studies carried out under the PortAsia project in establishing the role of Macao's intellectual production in Portuguese-speaking colonial literature. During this exhibition, the relevance of the study of the estate of Professor Graciete Nogueira Batalha (1925-1992) for the understanding of the cultural scene of Macau in the second half of the 20th century was also highlighted.
Finally, Luís Cabral de Oliveira (ESTG-Politécnico de Leiria and CEDIS-Nova School of Law) spoke on "The necessary immersion in the AHU to understand nineteenth-century Goa", highlighting his personal experience of research in the Overseas Historical Archive (AHU) and how the documents located in this space can be related to others in various national public and private archives. During his collection in the archive, the professor came across multiple legal requests from women who, for example, actively participated in processes of deportation or denunciation of situations of domestic violence. These women's case studies allow us to broaden our view of 19th century Goa from a perspective that has rarely been explored. At the end of each of the sessions of this panel, moderated by Duarte Braga (CEComp-FLUL), questions were discussed about the types of documents studied by the projects mentioned and the role of archives as instruments for preserving the memory of the peoples colonized by the Portuguese Empire.
Lunch, like the coffee breaks, was served on the fourth floor of the CCCM and was a moment of sharing between the researchers and the audience present during the presentations. This break period was followed by the second panel of the day, moderated by Daniela Spina (CEComp-FLUL).
First, Duarte Braga (CEComp-FLUL) presented the objectives, results and the website of the PortAsia project. In this context, the audience learned that by the end of the year a catalog of the bibliography in five libraries in Lisbon and Macau with works by Asian authors will be launched and a website that reproduces this same catalog, but also offers the possibility of reading some documents online, a forum for comments and news related to events and publications of an Orientalist nature in Portugal. Also within the scope of this project, a volume of the complete works of Ângelo de Lima and some texts by Camilo Pessanha will be launched. Finally, the participation of Duarte Braga (CEComp), Marta Pacheco Pinto (CEComp-FLUL) and Daniela Spina (CEComp-FLUL), members of the project, in an international congress in Singapore on the study and work in archives, was highlighted.
Next, Zélia Pereira (CEC, FLUL/ IHC, FCSH-UNL) promoted the discussion about the definition of the concept of "archive", through the communication "Spaces of freedom and places of tension: the archives in the (re)construction of the history and national identity of Timor-Leste". First, the researcher tried to establish, using the theoretical literature of the field of information sciences, the definition of "archive" and the various layers of information enclosed in each of the repositories studied, which are distinguished according to their way of organizing and conveying the data in them. After that, the paper focused on the decolonization process of Timor-Leste (after 1974) and the way local and international institutions have managed the documentation of this period, severely conditioning the access of Timorese society to information about its history and, consequently, the political debate about the narratives disseminated in the international community about the young country. In summary, the main purpose of this academic endeavor is to highlight the fundamental role of free access of the Timorese population to documents preserved in public and private archives, as these are means of ensuring the right to Timorese history and memory.
The third moment of this panel was led by Marta Pacheco Pinto (CEComp-FLUL) who, within the scope of the PortAsia project, studied "The legacy of Monsignor Sebastião Rodolfo Dalgado at the Lisbon Academy of Sciences: a translator's archive but for what research?". The legacy of the orientalist-translator comprises about 300 volumes, most of which are lexicographic instruments and grammars in European languages, Sanskrit, African and Indian Creoles, and their analysis and cataloging allowed the researcher to understand the archive as an interlingual contact zone revealing traces of the genesis of Dalgado's translations. The final part of the presentation gave an account of examples of marginalia in Sebastião Dalgado's volumes of work, explaining that the systematic analysis of these marginal autograph notes could give rise to future research work.
Finally, the meeting welcomed a less traditional approach to the problems of archival work with the presentation by Rui Lopo (IF-FLUP) entitled "Orientalism and Buddhism in Portugal: an archival problem?". The researcher from the University of Porto traced the history of the implementation and reception of Buddhism, both within and outside the Orientalist scene, in Portugal, between the 17th and 20th centuries, through the study of mentions of this tradition originating in India in Portuguese literary texts and dictionaries. This communication by Rui Lopo (IF-FLUP), the last of the second panel, was followed by the second coffee break.
The last panel, moderated by Marta Pinto (CEComp-FLUL), began with João Pedro Góis' communication on his work methodology in the preliminary exploration of Ruy Cinatti's archive, at the Catholic University of Lisbon Library, for the preparation of his doctoral thesis. His discoveries in the collection, which is not yet fully archivally treated, brought to light the author's unpublished poems and his professional and intimate correspondence.
Next, Helena Coelho, head of the CCCM library, presented the project "Portuguese Asian Digital Archives Network" (PADAN) which aims, in partnership with the University of Macau, to create a portal that provides virtual access to materials from repositories, archives and libraries related to Portugal's contacts with Asia, from the 16th to the 20th century. In this context, the content of the collections and archives available for consultation in the Jorge de Álvares Foundation Library of the CCCM was also made known and the audience was informed of the research grants offered by the CCCM to doctoral students interested in research related to Asian topics.
The last paper, entitled "A coherent archive for a loose literature: texts printed in Goa in the collection of the FLUL Library (1821-1955)", was the responsibility of researcher Daniel Spina (CEComp-FLUL), who focused his presentation on the collections and funds of the FLUL Library containing Goan literature. From these collections, it was possible to contextualize the presence of certain metropolitan authors in Goa and the circulation of texts produced in that context between the colony and the metropolis. Finally, the event ended with the closing speech and final thanks of Professor Carmen Amado Mendes, President of the Macao Scientific and Cultural Center.