Charlotte completed her BA in Modern and Contemporary History and Literature at the University of Freiburg and at Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 2013. She received her MA in Public History from Freie Universität Berlin in 2016.

Connected Actors, Different Struggles? Lusophone Africans, Portuguese Emigrants, and the Fight against the Portuguese Empire, 1950s-1970s

My PhD project explores the struggles against the Portuguese colonial Empire through the intellectual and political networks that were established among Luso-African anticolonialists, Portuguese opposition members and solidarity groups in Europe. Against the backdrop of an increasingly rigorous colonial regime that still enjoyed wide international recognition and that refused to engage in negotiations about independence, anticolonial actors saw the need to forge broader political alliances and seek more radical solutions. I trace the debates and the resulting strategies of anticolonial political practice among a heterogeneous group of actors who juggled their roles as political activists, diplomats, military leaders and revolutionary intellectuals. Shifting between clandestine agitation and public appeals, a commitment to peaceful resistance and the call for armed struggle, these actors balanced the tensions of addressing local, national and global audiences.

contact: charlotte.piepenbrock@fu-berlin.de