Industrial Landscapes in Colonial Mozambique: Images from an Economic Magazine

Domingos, Nuno

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-27795-5_8

Nuno Domingos⁵

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies ((CIPCSS))

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Abstract

In the late colonial period in Mozambique, the modernizing policies of the colonial state were supported by an institutional rhetoric that provided a certain imagination of the imperial terrain. Present in official documents, these discourses were disseminated through other mediums, from film documentaries to newspapers’ articles. Photographs helped to create this modern colonial pastoral. Focused on the photographs used in the A Indústria de Moçambique (The Industry of Mozambique), a specialized magazine that translated this modernizing worldview, this chapter will discuss not only how these images suggested the new role African workers would have in a modern colonial society but also how this imagination contrasted with the actual colonial process.

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Notes

1.
According to the Portuguese colonial indigenato regime, the vast majority of the populations in the colonies of Mozambique, Angola and Guinea were considered indigenas, which meant that they did not have the same citizenship status of the population considered civilized, composed mostly of Europeans.
2.
The Industrial Association of Mozambique was founded in 1961.
3.
António Rita-Ferreira, Os Africanos de Lourenço Marques (Lourenço Marques: Separata das Memórias do Instituto de Investigação Científica de Moçambique, 1967–1968), p. 126.
4.
António Rita-Ferreira, “Distribuição Ocupacional da População Africana de Lourenço Marques”, Indústria de Moçambique, vol. 2, n. 6, June 1969, pp. 200–203. Among other manufacturing sites, the magazine published photographs of the Matola Ore Wharf, the Mogás, the General Matola Chemistry, the Nacala Cement Factory, the Vidreira de Moçambique Company, the Sonarep oil refinery, the Sonap Marítima’s Ship-tank, the Mozambican Metallurgical Industry, the cashew industry in Mozambique, the radio assembly industry, the cotton ginning industry and the Texlon textile industry.
5.
Indústria de Moçambique, vol. 3, n. 8, 1970, p. 268.
6.
Elspeth H. Brown uses the expression “functional realism” to define this iconographic ideology: “functional realism, according to which the image serves as an empirical substitute for the object, a type of evidence, to an instrumental realism, in this case, using the realist promise of the photograph as truth to restructure the ways in which work is performed.” Elspeth H. Brown, The Corporate Eye: Photography and the Rationalization of American Commercial Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), p. 71
7.
Tim Srangleman, “Picturing Work in an Industrial Landscape: Visualising Labour, Place and Space”, Sociological Research Online, 17 (2) 20.
8.
Indústria de Moçambique, Vol. 5, n. 8, 1972, p. 213.
9.
The sector represented 8,9% of the Portuguese GDP in 1963. Colectânea de Estudos do Gabinete de Estudos Técnicos da AIM, vol. 2, 1968, p. 71.
10.
Ann Pitcher, Politics in the Portuguese Empire: The State, Industry and Cotton, 1926–1974 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Carlos Fortuna, O Fio da Meada: O Algodão de Moçambique, Portugal e a Economia-mundo, 1860–1960 (Porto: Afrontamento, 1993); Allen Isaacman, Cotton is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938–1961 (Portsmouth, N. H.: Heinemann, 1997).
11.
Joana Pereira Leite, “Mozambique 1937–1970. Bilan De L’Évolution de L’Économie D’Exportation: quelques reflexions sur la nature du ‘pacte colonial’”, Estudos de Economia, vol. XIII, n. 4, July–September 1993, pp. 387–410.
12.
Jeanne Marie Penvenne, “Fotografando Lourenço Marques: a cidade e os seus habitantes de 1960 a 1975”, In Cláudia Castelo, Omar Ribeiro Thomaz, Sebastião Nascimento e Teresa Cruz e Silva (eds.), Os Outros da Colonização. Ensaios sobre o colonialismo tardio em Moçambique (Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2012), pp. 173–174.
13.
Maria Fernandes Rodrigues, Portugal e a Organização Internacional do trabalho (1933–1974) (PhD Diss., Universidade de Coimbra, 2011), p. 83. Portugal only signed on 26/7/56 a Convention on Forced Labour of 1930, on 23 November 1959, a Convention on the Abolition of Work Spun (1957) on 20 February 1967 on Equal Remuneration (of 1951), on 12 April 1960. The abolition of penal sanctions for indigenous workers (of 1955) on 22 November 1959. Discrimination in matters of employment and occupation (1958), on 7/7/64, Right to organize and collective bargaining (1958) Ibid., p. 162, on 5/16/1960 the concentration on Reparation of work accidents in agriculture (1921). Ibid., P. 306 and 2/12/62, on Labor Inspection (from 1947), Ibid., P. 437. See also, José Pedro Monteiro, Portugal e a Questão do Trabalho Forçado (Lisbon: Ed 70, 2018).
14.
On the violence of colonal rural labour in Mozambique, see Isaacman, Cotton is the Mother of Poverty.
15.
Victor Pereira, “A economia do Império e os Planos de Fomento”, Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo (ed.) O Império Colonial em Questão (Lisbon: Edições 70, 2011), pp. 251–285.
16.
Parcídio Costa, “Evolução e perspetivas das exportações de Moçambique”, Indústria de Moçambique, vol. 6, n. 3, pp. 69–76.
17.
The law of constitution of a Portuguese economic space was approved by the decree-law no. 44016 of 8/11/61.
18.
The round-table conferences on problems of Portuguese Industry, organized by the Industry Corporation, were a moment of updating the state of the art of economic policies. In November 1970, Indústria de Moçambique. emphasized the importance conferred by the president of the AIM, Mário Fernandes Secca, at the 1970 conference of the economic policies advocated by engineer Rogério Martins, one of the most active representatives of modernizing policies: “review of industrial conditioning, business cooperation, industrial export, foreign investment, anti-monopoly action, investment and production financing”, Indústria de Moçambique, 1970, n. 11, p. 365.
19.
Frederick Cooper, The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Idem, “Development, Modernization, and the Social Sciences in the Era of Decolonization: the Examples of British and French Africa”, Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines (Les sciences sociales en situation coloniale), vol. 10, 2004, p. 27.
20.
Indústria de Moçambique, 1969, vol. 2, n. 4, pp. 113–114.
21.
Ibidem.
22.
“Questões fundamentais do desenvolvimento de Moçambique”, Colectânea de Estudos do Gabinete de Estudos Técnicos da AIM, Vol. 1—Julho de 1967, p. 38.
23.
Ibidem.
24.
“Aspectos Humanos de uma Política de produtividade”, Boletim da Associação Industrial de Moçambique, n. 35, 1966, p. 22.
25.
Ibidem.
26.
Ibidem.
27.
Ibidem.
28.
Among the articles that provided diagnosis and economic previsions in the Indústria de Moçambique, the most noteworthy are those of its director Parcídio Costa, “Reflexões sobre o problema da formação, Produtividade e trabalho”, Indústria de Moçambique, n.° 3, 1968, p. 111; Idem, “Para uma estratégia integrada do desenvolvimento em Moçambique», Indústria de Moçambique n.°1 , 1971, p. 26; Idem, “A Indústria de Moçambique no limiar da década de 70”, Indústria de Moçambique n. 7, 1971, p. 201.
29.
Inquérito n.° 1, 28/10/66. Indústria de Moçambique, n. 39, October 1966, p. 92.
30.
Ibidem, pp. 342–344.
31.
António Rita-Ferreira, “Algumas observações sobre a eficiência profissional do africano”, Indústria de Moçambique, Vol. 2, n.° 10,Outubro de 1969, p. 343.
32.
Indústria de Moçambique, vol. 6, n.° 3 , 1973 p. 67.
33.
Ibidem.
34.
Industry of Assembly of Radios, Indústria de Moçambique, vol. 1, no. 12, 1968, p. 1.
35.
See Bruno Monteiro, “Still Life with Machines. The politics of representation of the industrial space in the industrial photography of the decades of 50 and 60 in Porto”. Bruno Monteiro, Joana Dias Pereira (eds.). De Pé Sobre a Terra. Estudos sobre a Indústria, o Trabalho e o Movimento Operário em Portugal, pp. 427–444.
36.
Among those who travelled from the metropolis were several specialists, managers, economists and university professors—from ISCEF, Instituto Superior Técnico—members of state organs, various ministries, organizations such as the Technical Commission for Planning and Economic Integration of Mozambique or the National Research Institute Industrial, staff of financial and business institutions, such as the CUF Research Center or the Império Insurance Company.
37.
On the emergence of the modern manager in the Portugueses metropole, see José Nuno Matos, O operário em construção. Do empregado ao precário (Lisbon: Outro Modo: 2015).
38.
On the rise of the white-collar ideology and lifestyle, see: Charles Wright Mills, White Collar: The American Middle Classes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951).
39.
António Rita-Ferreira, Os Africanos de Lourenço Marques (Lourenço Marques: Separata das Memórias do Instituto de Investigação Científica de Moçambique, 1967–1968), p. 344.
40.
Ibidem.
41.
Isabel Castro Henriques, A Herança Africana em Portugal. Séculos XV-XX (Lisbon: CTT, 2009).
42.
Materialized by the factory buildings, the universality of the industry also materialized by the designs of professionals who advocated the universality of modern architecture and its ability to surpass the heritage of history, imposing a new cadence on cities. José Manuel Fernandes, Geração Africana. Arquitetura e Cidades em Angola e Moçambique, 1925–1975 (Lisbon: Livros Horizonte, 2002) .On a critique to these perspectives, see Nuno Domingos, “Colonial architectures, urban planning and the representation of Portuguese imperial history”. Portuguese Journal of Social Sience, 14, 3, (2015): 235–255.
43.
Clara Carvalho, “O Olhar Colonial. Fotografia e Antropologia no Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa”, Clara Carvalho and João de Pina Cabral (eds.), A persistência da história: passado e contemporaneidade em África (Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2004) pp. 119–147. Nuno Porto, Modos de Objectificação da Dominação Colonial: O Caso do Museu do Dundo, 1940–1970 (Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2009). Ver Rui Mateus Pereira, Conhecer para Dominar. A antropologia ao serviço da política colonial portuguesa em Moçambique (Lisbon_ Parsifal, 2021).
44.
On the role of Santos Rufino’s albums in the international defense of the Portuguese colonies, namely with regard to the labour reality, see Eric Allina, “Fallacious Mirrors: Colonial Anxiety and Images of African Labor in Mozambique, ca. 1929”, History in Africa, Vol. 24 (1997), pp. 9–52.
45.
The negative effects of African proletarianization would be counteracted by the action of human resources departments, which invoked the importance of corporate culture while using unlikely community metaphors within a framework of racist domination. More broadly, these effects would be tackled by state policies aimed at a controlled deproletarianization. Nuno Domingos, “Desproletarizar: a FNAT como instrumento de mediação ideológica no Estado Novo”. In Domingos, N., Pereira, V. (eds.) O Estado Novo em Questão (Lisbon: Edições 70, 2010), pp. 165–196.
46.
Valdemir Zamparoni, Entre Narros e Mulungos: colonialismo e paisagem social em Lourenço Marques, c.1890. c 1940 (PhD Diss., Universidade de São Paulo, 1998).
47.
Decrees no. 44309 and 44310, 27 April 1962, Lourenço Marques, Imprensa Nacional de Moçambique, 1962.
48.
According to Article 3 of the Code, “manual workers without a defined occupation engaged in activities connected with the agricultural holding of land and collecting the products or intended to make it possible or to ensure such exploitation.”
49.
Providing another representation of society, the “disappearance of the indigenous” and the emergence of the “worker”, had been reinforced by the creation of the Instituto do Trabalho, Previdência e Ação Social (Institute of work and welfare) and the extinction of the Direção dos Serviços dos Negócios Indígenas (Native Affairs Institute). Decree n.° 44111 de 21/12/61. Legal Diploma n.° 1595, 28/4/56, Lourenço Marques, Imprensa Nacional de Moçambique, 1957. This African labour mass was not yet framed by the new regime of Labour Relations, approved in 1956, and could not integrate the unions. Outside corporatist institutions, Africans were included in professional associations targeting indígenas, cases of the Association of Indian Traders, and the Associations of Carpenters, Washers, Barbers, Shoemakers, Painters, Table makers and Tailors.
50.
Many editorial express this will, for example, in the March and April 1966 volumes. But it was a letter to the governor general in 1974 that such a claim was best expressed. Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, Governo Geral, Caixa 873 Pasta T/5-c) Instituto do Trabalho. Assunto Trabalho, C) Regulamento de Trabalho, 1974. Carta da Associação Industrial de Moçambique ao Governador Geral em 15/4/74.
51.
Of the 825,000 wage earners identified in the 1960 census in Mozambique, 290,000 worked outside the colony. António Rita-Ferreira, “Distribuição Ocupacional da População Africana de Lourenço Marques”, Indústria de Moçambique, vol. 2, n. 6, June 1969, p. 200.
52.
António Rita-Ferreira, Os Africanos de Lourenço Marques (Lourenço Marques: Separata das Memórias do Instituto de Investigação Científica de Moçambique, 1967–1968.
53.
Which the author will address in the following two articles, “O Problema Habitacional dos Africanos de Lourenço Marques (II)”, Indústria de Moçambique, vol. 2, n.° 12, Dezembro de 1969, pp. 419–422 e Idem, “O Problema Habitacional dos Africanos de Lourenço Marques (III)”, Indústria de Moçambique, vol. 3, n.° 3, Março de 1970, pp. 85–87.
54.
António Rita-Ferreira, “Padrões de Consumo” , p. 320. According to Rita-Ferreira’s calculations, there would be 310 canteens in the suburbs. Ibidem.
55.
Rita-Ferreira, Os Africanos de Lourenço Marques …, p. 197.
56.
Ibidem, pp. 431–432.
57.
Jeanne Marie Penvenne, “Fotografando Lourenço Marques … pp. 173–191.
58.
Noticeable, for example, in the summaries sponsored by the General Agency of the Colonies. For example, Rodrigues Júnior, Moçambique. Terra de Portugal (Lisbon: Agência-Geral do Ultramar, 1965); Oliveira Boléo, Monografia de Moçambique (Lisbon: Agência-Geral do Ultramar, 1971). Jeanne Marie Penvenne, African Workers and colonial racism. Mozambican Strategies and Struggles in Lourenço Marques, 1877–1962 (London: James Currey, 1995).
59.
Like the images produced by the narrative of economic development, the representations of a Portuguese-tropical idyll now possess a magical power of decontextualization and reorganization of history itself. History runs the risk of being stuck with certain representations, a lasting heritage left by those who had the power to create images, now taken as sources to tell a narrative not only about the past but also about the present.
60.
For a written counter-narrative on the development of Lourenço Marques read Pancho Guedes, “A Cidade Doente”, A Tribuna, 9 July 1973, pp. 6–7. Among the photographs taken by Ricardo Rangel, the one that portraits a young shepherd with his forehead burnt by a cattle iron is a good example of a visual counter-narrative to the hegemonic representation created by the colonial apparatus. Ricardo Rangel, “Ferro em Brasa”, 1973.

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Nuno Domingos

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Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Filipa Lowndes Vicente
Art History Institute (NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST), Lisbon, Portugal
Afonso Dias Ramos

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Domingos, N. (2023). Industrial Landscapes in Colonial Mozambique: Images from an Economic Magazine. In: Vicente, F.L., Ramos, A.D. (eds) Photography in Portuguese Colonial Africa, 1860–1975. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27795-5_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27795-5_8
Published: 01 September 2023
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