Aspectos da representação do "outro" no boletim oficial de Moçambique" - 1888

Abstract

The object of study that guided this work is the "Boletim Oficial" (Official Bulletin), analyzed here with a view to bringing to light relevant aspects of the way in which the object of Mozambique's colonization policy - the land and, of course, the men - was represented, as part of what we can call the discourse on the "Other". The Portuguese voyages of maritime exploration and discovery, which quickly evolved into campaigns of occupation, were strongly supported by the written press. The narration of these voyages contributed greatly to shaping a certain image of the Other, often running the risk of generalizing situations from certain contexts to other contexts. In this work, we also intend to show the interest that should be aroused by a greater knowledge of the lines with which European conceptions of the civilized "self" and the savage "other" were sewn together, the starting point for demarcating the difference between "civilization" and "barbarism". Here we want to understand and co-relate the theme addressed in our corpus with the specific context of the country at the end of the 19th century, characterized by an effort by the colonizing power (Portugal) to turn into "effective occupation" what it proclaimed to be its "historical rights" of occupation. In order to achieve the objectives we have set ourselves, we must refer to the fact that at the end of the 19th century Portugal already had vast experience of contact with non-European peoples, whose references were, in addition to the first accounts of Portuguese contact with African peoples, the discovery of Brazil. We will see the influence that these facts had on the conception of the land and people in Mozambique, without forgetting that Portugal, a country with a strong Christian influence, saw expansion as a mission to bring the word of God to the "infidels" and make them civilized. It is therefore not surprising that we find very explicit religious references throughout our work. This work will show that "the image that one has of the "Other" corresponds to the representation of the "Other" from the ideological or social space in which the "I" is situated. In the case of Mozambique at the end of the 19th century, the very nature of the colonial situation established a hierarchy of cultures that takes on special importance in the field of literary images of the "Other". (TRADUÇAO NOSSA)