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This study has a dual focus. Firstly, it analyses how digital media provide spaces for new and what can be seen as “non-conventional” forms of political participation where counterhegemonic discourses can be expressed. The paper explores these dynamics of political participation focusing on contexts where spaces for expressions of regime critique or dissent are restricted and counterhegemonic expressions come at a risk of persecution. The study aims at engaging with ongoing conversations about the complex dynamics of democratic exchange and political participation and the role digital media can play, particularly in contexts of such restriction of expression and associated risks. To this end, the study presents examples from the political participation of Angolan youth during the Angolan general election campaign and the general elections that took place in 2022. Secondly, it analyses the discourses with particular attention to the imaginaries of the future and the discursive constructions of who and what “fits” into the political projects. In so doing, particular attention is given to the dissonances between what is expressed in the discourses of the main political parties in the election campaign and those of the young Angolans in digital media spaces. The choice to focus on Angolan youth is motivated firstly by the growing population of young people, educated or not, who face, to different degrees, the lack of opportunities, different “blockages” to social mobility and a sense of despair about the future. Secondly, in Angola as in many African and non-African contexts new political dynamics have been attested to emerge, often outside the scope of institutionalized or partisan politics, triggering activism and other manifestations of political activity, including violence (Abbink, 2005, 2021, Van Gyampo, & Anyidoho, 2019).The research findings are based on the analyses of four data sets, namely, (i), discourses in ten international, national, and local communication channels over a ten-month period in 2022 (ii) the political programs of the two main political parties) and (iii) the demands of young Angolans, as expressed in digital social media and (4) a survey carried out on the eve of the elections 2022.The preliminary findings and results show that Angolan youth, although constituting a numerical majority, is largely excluded from spaces of democratic exchange in the sense ofbeing able to engage in the official political debate. Moreover, political programs present priorities that are directed to the most privileged layers and not to young Angolans who live in conditions of poverty and precariousness. Moreover, participation in the institutionalized or partisan politics is limited and seen as irrelevant. The study shows how the non-elite, nonprivileged young Angolan perceives him or herself to be marginalized from a socioeconomic point of view and, in their own in-group spaces, digital and not, express alternative imaginaries. This invisibility and the erasure of the demands of Angolan youth contributes to a perspective of an increasingly politically volatile situation. 

Focusing on discourses from three different perspectives: i) young Angolans from the province of Benguela, ii) political party programmes and iii) the debates in the public media during the 2022 election campaign, this study analyses the efficacy of youth participation in political processes in Angola. It does so by building on a discursive and thematic analysis that highlights the results of a survey carried out prior to the 2022 elections. The study describes young people’s perceptions of political efficacy and assesses the degree of thematic congruence between the political agenda expressed by young people, the priorities put forward in the political parties’ programmes and the issues debated in Angolan public media. The results show that many young Angolans consider that political programmes and public debates do not address their concerns. Regarding political efficacy, the young people surveyed tend to be more positive about of their opportunities for political participation, than about the responsiveness of the political system itself. This positive assessment of participation was linked to the hope of a change of government in the 2022 elections. Beside the observed political inefficacy, the results also show a correlation between political participation and the level of well-being, the poorer an individual, the lower its political or electoral participation.

Centrando-se nos discursos de três perspetivas distintas: i) a juventude angolana da província de Benguela, ii) os programas dos partidos políticos e iii) o debate público mediático durante a campanha eleitoral de 2022, este estudo analisa a eficácia da participação da juventude nos processos políticos em Angola. Ao fazê-lo, realiza uma análise discursiva e temática que coloca em primeiro plano os resultados de um inquérito realizado na véspera das eleições de 2022. O estudo apresenta as perceções dos jovens sobre a eficácia política e avalia até que ponto existem congruências temáticas entre a agenda política expressa pelos jovens, as prioridades apresentadas nos programas dos partidos políticos e os temas do debate público mediático angolano. Os resultados mostram que a juventude angolana considera que os programas políticos e os debates públicos não respondem as suas preocupações. Sobre a eficácia política, a juventude em análise faz uma avaliação da capacidade que possuem para a sua participação política mais positiva do que a avaliação que fazem sobre a responsividade do próprio sistema político. Esta avaliação positiva da participação está relacionada com a esperança de alternância nas eleições de 2022. Além da ineficácia política verificada, constata-se uma correlação entre a participação política e o nível de bem-estar, ou seja, quanto mais pobre, menor a participação política ou eleitoral.

En faisant converser trois types de discours : i) la jeunesse angolaise dans la province de Benguela, ii) les programmes des partis politiques et iii) le débat dans les médias publics pendant la campagne électorale de 2022, cette étude analyse l’efficacité de la participation des jeunes aux processus politiques en Angola. Pour ce faire, elle procède à une analyse discursive et thématique qui met en avant les résultats d’une enquête réalisée à la veille des élections de 2022. L’étude présente les perceptions des jeunes sur l’efficacité politique et évalue le degré de congruence thématique entre l’agenda politique exprimé par les jeunes, les priorités présentées dans les programmes des partis politiques et les thèmes du débat dans les médias publics angolais. Les résultats montrent que les jeunes angolais considèrent que les programmes politiques et les débats publics ne répondent pas à leurs préoccupations. En ce qui concerne l’efficacité politique, les jeunes interrogés évaluent plus positivement leur capacité de participation politique que la réactivité du système politique lui-même. Cette évaluation positive de la participation est liée à l’espoir d’une alternance lors des élections de 2022. Outre l’inefficacité politique observée, l’étude montre également une corrélation entre la participation politique et le niveau de bien-être, plus la personne est pauvre, plus sa participation politique ou électorale est faible.

Theoretically positioned at the intersections between human geography, ethnography of space and place, and Linguistic Landscape Studies (LLS), this ethnographically grounded study mediates a dialogue between LLS and Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology and shows how the intersubjective dimension of the habitus provides a powerful lens with which to explore the people-place relation, central to disentangling the political economy of language and place. Inspired by existing ethnographically and people-centered LLS, the study is set in Maputo city, well-known for its enduring social and spatial division from colonial to postcolonial times. The analyses foreground the people-place relation in different sites across the material and non-material urban geographies. By relocating LLS, the study challenges modernist notions of divides, foregrounding the often-neglected invisible embodied dynamics of conflicting schemata - fundamental to the understanding of the reciprocal people-in-place relationship and the spatialization of inequalities, thus offering a rich and thick LLS. © 2023 John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Inspired by Bourdieu's work, this study draws on multi-disciplinary datasets to unravel the role of language and symbolic power for retaining social hierarchies and craft-ing ‘distinctive’ selves in postcolonial times. Showcasing Mozambique's capital city of Maputo, the study relies on censuses from the period 1980 to 2017, historical data, in-terviews and metadiscursive reflection to problematize how education can serve as an instrument to effectively inscribe a certain social order in people's minds and bodies that can lead to an unconscious acceptance of social differences and hierarchies, to ‘a sense of one's place’. Probing into com-plex temporal and spatial co-presences, the paper highlights the role that education has played in promoting ideas central to the divisive dynamics of Portuguese and how social dis-tinctions that were obviously more overtly racial in colonial times have become more covert and have found more fine-grained linguistic expression and perpetuate conditions of coloniality in contemporaneity.

Inspirada na obra de Bourdieu, este estudo usa dados mul-tidisciplinares para mostrar o papel da linguagem e do seu poder simbólico na fundamentação das hierarquias sociais e na construção de “eus diferenciados” no período pós-colo-nial. Mostrando Maputo, a cidade-capital de Moçambique, como estudo de caso, o estudo baseia-se em dados censitários de 1980–2017, dados históricos, entrevistas e reflexões meta-discursivas para problematizar como a educação pode servir como um instrumento que inscreve uma certa ordem social nas mentes e nos corpos das pessoas que pode levar a uma aceitação inconsciente das diferenças e hierarquias so-ciais, a ‘um sentido do seu lugar’. Investigando copresenças temporais e espaciais complexas, o artigo mostra o papel da educação na promoção das ideias-chave constituintes duma dinâmica divisiva do português e que as distinções sociais, que eram evidentemente raciais antes, se tornaram mais subtis e com uma expressão linguística mais nítida, perpetu-ando condições de colonialidade na contemporaneidade.

Inspired by recent epistemological and ontological debates aimed at unsettling and reshaping conceptions of language, this essay discusses how mainstream sociolinguistics offers notions meaningful for studying contexts of the South. Based on empirical studies of youth in two African cities, Yaoundé in Cameroon and Maputo in Mozambique, the essay engages with ‘fluid modernity’ and ‘enregisterment’ to unravel the role that fluid multilingual practices play in the social lives of urban youth. The empirically grounded theoretical discussion shows how recent epistemologies and ontologies offer inroads to more pluriversal knowledge production. The essay foregrounds: i) the role of language in the socio-political battles of control over resources, and ii) speakers’ reflexivity and metapragmatic awareness of register formations of fluid multilingual practices. Moreover, it shows how bundles of localized meanings construct belongings and counterhegemonic discourses, as well as demonstrating speakers’ differential valuations and perceptions of boundaries and transgressions across social space.  

Theoretically positioned within critical sociolinguistics this study combines census data from a forty years period, linguistic diaries and ethnographies of 24 young Mozambicans to probe into the dynamics invigorated by ex-colonial language spread in postcolonial times. The study foregrounds language and spatiality. Showcasing Mozambique, the paper uses these multilevel data to describe the changes to the linguistic ecology of Mozambicans living in urban spaces in and around Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique. These urban spaces have seen growing disparities between the wealthier and the poorer, alongside infrastructure development and gentrification as part of a growing and increasingly globalizing economy. The study shows how Portuguese does not replace African languages but broadens the repertoires and how the former colonial language has not remained a static entity but has acquired new social functions and has become endogenized in a radically different ecology of monolingual and fluid multilingual practices. Despite its new social functions, the former colonial language nonetheless retains its symbolic power and inculcates self-censorship which leave Mozambican youth in urban spaces with a perceived shrinking space for the expression of African sociocultural practices even in the most intimate spaces of social life.

Why are we talking about coloniality in postcolonial times? And what does language have to do with it? In addressing these two broad questions, this thesis sets out to provide empirically well-grounded reflections focusing: First, on how young Mozambicans’ linguistic repertoires and discursive practices relate to their sense of being in the world. And second, on how their perceptions resonate with recent sociolinguistic debates about the different roles language and ideologies play in constructing and reproducing conditions of contemporary coloniality. The role of postcolonial Portuguese is particularly highlighted. The introduction provides a critical, decolonial and epistemic reflexion that brings together four seemingly disparate studies. Moreover, it offers an invitation to critically reflect on discourses, ideologies and valuations that are carried in and on our individual and collective historical bodies and minds and are reproduced through different manifestations of what I call ‘discursive re(b)orderings’. Study I, explores how Portuguese spoken in Maputo has changed after independence and underpins the inquiry into the ‘construct’ of linguistic boundaries and its relation to ideas of language purity and how these ideologically laden notions impact knowledge production and perceived and lived mobilities in the ‘postcolony’. Study II, displays ‘languaging’ practices of young Mozambicans and their strategic orientations in their social-spatial deployment of linguistic resources, and explores ‘translanguaging’ as discursive space production. Study III, brings Frantz Fanon into the study of sociolinguistics of subjectivity and explores the reflexes of the ‘other’ in the constitution of the self of young Mozambicans, suggesting that intersubjectivity holds the promise of disentangling Fanon´s notion of ‘sociogenese’. Study IV brings Pierre Bourdieu´s Distinction (1984) into the ‘postcolony’ by emulating his methodology through multilevel big picture data, combining quantitative and qualitative data and analyses with approaches inspired by ethnography to look at ‘positions and dispositions’ of young Mozambicans across fields and markets. Theoretically, the thesis brings Bourdieu and Fanon together, and shows how nexus concepts, intersubjectivity and the historical bodies and minds represent promising avenues to the understanding of language in coloniality. Two nexus concepts, the habitus and the sociogenese, are adopted and complement each other. By mixing methodologies, the studies combined, manage to capture the complexities in the multi-layered and often subtle ways discursive bordering constructs and reproduces contemporary coloniality. Empirically, taken together, the four studies show how ideologies, the ‘constructs’ surrounding language and the symbolic value of Portuguese are taken up in language and discourses and in speakers’ strategic deployment of linguistic resources across fields and marketplaces in the ‘postcolony’. Moreover, it shows how all forms of capital: epistemic, economic, educational, linguistic and symbolic are reconfigured and revaluated. Nevertheless, mobility is contained, and socioeconomic inequalities are mirrored in sociolinguistic inequalities and even in material urban space to the effect of perpetuating conditions of contemporary coloniality.

Departing from a postcolonial perspective, this study adopts the notions of travelling theories (Said, 1994), to trace Fanon´s thinking as enacted in political discourses of the Senegalese Leopold Senghor´s (Roynette, 2005;  Vivaldi, 2007) and the first Mozambican president, Samora Machel. According to Said (Said, 1993), it is precisely the geographical dispersion which allows for the renewed revolutionary potential of travelling theories and we will explore this claim through what we call the tracing of Fanon´s African connections focusing on selected political discourses from the 60s and 70s, but also providing examples of traces of Fanon´s legacy in contemporary Senegal and Mozambique. We will contextualize these with examples of Fanonian practices from other social and political movements in contemporary Africa, such as South Africa,  (Gibson, 2011).

Based on analyses of a sample of political discourses, newspaper articles, memoires and secondary literature, the study discusses the Fanonian traces in these African connections and includes a discussion of acknowledged or unconscious influences, creative borrowing and the wholesale appropriation of Fanon´s thinking and relate these to his main works: Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon, 2008 , [1952]), The Wretched of the Earth (Fanon, 2004, [1961]) and Towards the African Revolution (1964). The hypothesis is that the Fanonian discourse works as a travelling memory for many African leaders since the independence.

Preliminary results attest to the continued relevance of the Fanonian dual emphasis on the individual (subjective) and the social and, as his comment to Sartre, the specificity of the Fanonian perspective on the racial relationship entrenched in a colonial setting.  As a preliminary reflection we claim that the emphasis on the individual (subjective) was disregarded in the discursive superseding of the racial relationship, particularly identified among liberation movements that adopted (the most purist) socialist/marxist ideologies. We trace what we consider the erasure and invisibilization of the everyday racism and provide examples of more recent resurgences of Fanonian discourses and practices in contemporary social and political movements. We identify a renewed interest for the dual emphasis on the individual and the social and recognition of a reproduction of the colonial alienation and segregation in globalized late modernity.

Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) and Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) devoted their work to the radical criticism of colonialism. Whereas Césaire was mainly linked to the emergence of the aesthetics of négritude, Fanon analyzed everyday racism as an alienating spatial relation and considered colonization as a spatial organization – both material and mental. Torun Reite and Christophe Premat will show how the concepts of Césaire and Fanon are still used to describe material and mental borders remaining in different postcolonial contexts. They will also discuss the ways in which these concepts are rooted in the Caribbean context, but also what made them travel so well and connect with social and political movements far beyond this region.