May 25, 2022, Ricardo Roque (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon) made an online lecture entitled: “Scientific Occupation” and the Timor Anthropological Mission in the late Portuguese Colonial Empire
Presented by Pacific Circle and History of Anthropology Review.
More informations: https://histanthro.org/news/announcements/zoom-event-with-ricardo-roque
Abstract: Between the 1930s and 1974, several anthropological expeditions were organized by the Portuguese imperial state to the then Portuguese colonies of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, and finally East Timor – Portugal’s small remnant colony in the Asia-Pacific region. These state-sponsored expeditions aimed at collecting field data for the purposes of “colonial anthropology,” an eclectic form of racial science, also known as “anthropobiology.” They were also a political means to realize so-called “scientific occupation,” a prominent concept in Portuguese late imperial policy. This talk considers the history of the field studies and data produced by the latest of these expeditions – the ‘Timor Anthropological Mission,’ launched in 1953-54 – and reflects on its enduring legacies.
