Women in the Angolan liberation: representations and narratives in school curricula (1960–1975).

Abstract

Women’s participation in the process of Angola’s liberation (1960–1975) remains marginalized in official historiography and in the teaching of History, despite the decisive role played by women on the battlefronts, in logistics, political mobilization, and diplomacy. This study analyzes the mechanisms that render female agency invisible in hegemonic narratives of the anti-colonial struggle, problematizing representations that tend to frame women within restrictive archetypes, such as the “heroic mother” or the “institutionalized combatant.” The main objective is to examine the multiple forms of women’s participation in the independence process and to understand how these trajectories are represented, silenced, or hierarchized in the curricula and textbooks of the History discipline in Angolan secondary education. The research adopts a qualitative and interdisciplinary approach, based on documentary analysis and critical reading of textual and visual sources, including political propaganda materials and archival collections consulted in Angola and Portugal. The findings reveal plural female experiences that go beyond the dichotomy between rear support and combat front. It is concluded that the teaching of History tends to reproduce a homogeneous memory, pointing to the need for a critical curricular revision that re-inscribes women as central historical subjects of the Angolan anti-colonial struggle.