Paper short abstract:

The present paper will explore the autobiographical and social memory of Macanese individuals, in an attempt to show how as a community they present us with a constantly mutating entity whose own continuity depends on ethnic identity management in a multi-ethnic context.

Paper long abstract:

This paper shall focus on the process of memory and ethnic identity among the Macanese community. The profound links of this small bilingual community (Portuguese and Cantonese) to the former Portuguese colony of Macao are explicitly acknowledged in the Portuguese term most commonly used to refer to them: filhos da terra or sons and daughters of the soil (in Cantonese 'tou-saang pouh-gwok-yahn' or 'soil-born Portuguese'. Historically, the Macanese community emerged out of complex historical phenomena of blending of European (mostly Portuguese) and Asian (mainly Chinese and Southeast Asian) elements, from the sixteenth century onwards. This blending gave rise to a somewhat distinctive Eurasian appearance, although it is often difficult to identify the Macanese solely by their physical appearance. It also inspired the development of a series of 'hybrid' cultural traditions including a distinct dialect (the patuá). Because of this alleged 'hybridity', the ethnic identity of the Macanese people often comes across as somewhat ambivalent. In this paper, we shall explore the question of how social representations of Macanese identity are interpreted and disseminated through memory, what kind of memories are associated with that identity, and how have these memories been used and transformed since the 1999 handover of Macau to the People's Republic of China. Our goal will be to analyse the changing configurations of Macanese identity as they are experienced and produced by people through the combined workings of individual and collective memory.