Private Narratives

The project interviewed Portuguese people born between 1960 and 1985, and their parents. In total, we gathered 223 interviews with offspring of the generation contemporary to the Colonial Wars, from a total of 465 participants from every region of the country. The project has produced a significant archive of oral history of the Portuguese Overseas Colonial Wars.

Dealing with a deeply personal, complex and shattered (post)memory of these wars, the research team drafted the guide for a semi-structured interview. This approach allowed, on the one hand, to ask a group of regular questions, and on the other hand provided the necessary flexibility and freedom of answer that different family situations and memories require: interviewers would elaborate into more depth some answers, avoid others, or change the guide order along the way.

The interview guide had four sections:
1) personal and family history;
2) memories about father’s and mother’s life throughout the war years;
3) opinion about the parents’ experience in war time and the repercussions upon the family;
4) opinion about the (possible) relationship between their family’s history and contemporary Portuguese history.

It is possible to conclude that the experience and memory of the war has passed on to the second generation proportionately to the family’s and especially the father’s experience of it. We heard histories of childhoods profoundly touched by the war experience, rendering children an added susceptibility to stressful or conflict situations; or, in the opposite end, we heard histories where war is nothing but a family ‘adventure story’, more or less hidden in the “attic’s chest”.




	Project Objectives Who we are Methods Some results Activities Publications Symposium ESF workshop Media Bibliography Links Contacts Poetry of the Colonial Wars Entrar Utilizador/a: Password: Esqueceu os dados de acesso?	Private Narratives The project interviewed Portuguese people born between 1960 and 1985, and their parents. In total, we gathered 223 interviews with offspring of the generation contemporary to the Colonial Wars, from a total of 465 participants from every region of the country. The project has produced a significant archive of oral history of the Portuguese Overseas Colonial Wars. Dealing with a deeply personal, complex and shattered (post)memory of these wars, the research team drafted the guide for a semi-structured interview. This approach allowed, on the one hand, to ask a group of regular questions, and on the other hand provided the necessary flexibility and freedom of answer that different family situations and memories require: interviewers would elaborate into more depth some answers, avoid others, or change the guide order along the way. The interview guide had four sections: 1) personal and family history; 2) memories about father’s and mother’s life throughout the war years; 3) opinion about the parents’ experience in war time and the repercussions upon the family; 4) opinion about the (possible) relationship between their family’s history and contemporary Portuguese history. It is possible to conclude that the experience and memory of the war has passed on to the second generation proportionately to the family’s and especially the father’s experience of it. We heard histories of childhoods profoundly touched by the war experience, rendering children an added susceptibility to stressful or conflict situations; or, in the opposite end, we heard histories where war is nothing but a family ‘adventure story’, more or less hidden in the “attic’s chest”.

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Private Narratives