Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Manageable Past: Time and Native Culture at the Dundo Museum in Colonial Angola

1999; Éditions de l'EHESS; Volume: 39; Issue: 155 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3406/cea.1999.1777

1777-5353

Nuno Porto,

African history and culture studies

Abstract What are the relationships between cultural representation and colonial exploitation? What kind of reports between scientific and commonsensical knowledge were set forward by colonial museums? How may museum analysis contribute to the study of the colonial communities? The text intends to deal with these questions by means of an ethnographical approach to the development of the Dundo Museum, in colonial Angola. Property of the Diamang (the Diamonds Company of Angola), the Dundo Museum became an important scientific centre of Portuguese colonial studies. Dealing with the settling period of the Dundo Museum, this text explores how notions of time become a common ground both to the museum representation of Lunda Peoples and to their exploitation as labour force.