Paper short abstract:

This article examines the intellectual legacy of the Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA) in the Mozambique's neoliberal context. This analysis will focus specifically on the scientific work of the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos (IESE, 2007-2016).

Paper long abstract:

Focusing on two social science research institutions in post-colonial Mozambique, this article examines the intellectual legacy of the Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA) in the Mozambique's neoliberal context. This analysis will focus specifically on the scientific work of the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos (IESE, 2007-2016). The article argues that in order to have a better understanding of the emergence and consolidation of IESE as a critical, state-independent and policy oriented research institution, it is not sufficient to look at the present context of private sector competition, multi-party system, and freedom of expression, but also to something that is directly linked to the Mozambican recent past: the intellectual legacy of the socialist transition period, and more particularly the intellectual legacy of the Marxist CEA (1976-1986). This legacy, in its interaction with the neoliberal context, produced continuities and ruptures. Firstly, it encompassed the passage of human capital from one institution to another. Secondly, the transference of disciplines, theories, methods, practices and "political morality". Thirdly, the consolidation and radicalization of a form of research program that is critical, free from state political ideology, contemporary and oriented towards public policy. Lastly, the growth of deluded intellectuals and the fading of historical, empirical and collective social research.