Paper short abstract:

Focused on the new XXI century migration movement of Portuguese towards Mozambique and from the perspective of a local researcher, the aim is to analyse colonial and post-colonial experiences in order to understand integration processes and the reconfiguration of post-colonial identities.

Paper long abstract:

Focused on the new XXI century migration movement of Portuguese towards Mozambique and from the perspective of a local researcher, the aim is to analyse colonial and post-colonial experiences in order to understand integration processes and the reconfiguration of post-colonial identities.

Although we live in the era of `new transnational migration` (Vertovec, 2009:14), the new social, political and identity dimensions that have repercussions in African countries that have liberated themselves from Portuguese colonization, the Lusophone Africa, have not been subjected to systemic studies.

The debate around migratory studies have been marked by analyses which the vision of the South has been largely absent and the majority of the researchers do conceive migration as a phenomenon that implies above all the dislocation from the South to the North, and is driven by economic dependency. However, particularly during the past twenty years, there has been a growing interest among Portuguese in migrating to Mozambique.

Based on about 400 surveys, interviews and participant observation this paper intends to demonstrate that the new North-South migration invite us to a debate on whether the existing theories of migration can be extended to all contexts. Some economic indicators suggest the practice of `perspective of the south` (Castles and Wise 2008:9) by the new Portuguese immigrants. The reconfiguration of post-colonial identities and power relations between the Portuguese immigrants and Mozambicans points to an emergence of ambivalent relations.