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Memories of (Un)Freire literacy policies in Southern Africa from the 1970s on: telling the (hi)story through life histories and photography of (dis)empowerment in Mozambique

Mémoires de (non-)Freire dans les politiques d’alphabétisation en Afrique australe à partir de 1970 : récits de vie et photographies de (dés)émancipation au Mozambique
Memórias do (des)Freire nas políticas de alfabetização na África Austral a partir de 1970: histórias de vida e fotografias de (des)empoderamento em Moçambique
Xénia Venusta de Carvalho

Résumés

Cet article aborde les intersections entre histoire orale et photographie, en se concentrant sur les mémoires du processus de construction de la nation au Mozambique, au travers de récits sur l’École du Frelimo à Bagamoyo, en Tanzanie (1970-1975). Bagamoyo est à la fois un lieu de mémoire et de présence dans les histoires nationale et régionale. L’article s’appuie sur la notion de (dés)émancipation, liée à la pédagogie critique de (non-)Freire, mobilisée à la fois au sein et à l’extérieur de Bagamoyo, à travers (i) les souvenirs des enseignants, remémorés à partir de leurs propres photographies et des documents des politiques d’alphabétisation mozambicaines, et (ii) l’interprétation de l’anthropologue des histoires partagées depuis les différents lieux où se sont trouvés ces enseignants.

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Notes de l’auteur

The use of “(Un)Freire”, “(Des)Freire” and “(non-)Freire” in the title reflects the different narratives of the official history of the State when crossed with the story of the participants/individuals that are active agents in the building of the nation, in the proto-state of Mozambique before independence in 1975. Freire’s method and influence were felt in Mozambique. However, the official history does not recognize, neither the State implemented the full length of his pedagogy.

Texte intégral

In memory of Bosse Hammarström and Eduardo Koloma. My very special heel erg bedankt to Jan and Frouke, who demonstrated their generosity in being the first reviewers of the article.

Introduction

1Mozambique became independent from the Portuguese colonial power in 1975 and had a rate of illiteracy of around 90% (Johnston 1984). Looking at adult education and empowerment underpinned by Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy framework (Freire 2005, Haddad 2019, Hur 2006), this article draws on the intersection of oral history and photography (Morton & Edwards 2009) to elaborate on the memories of the nation construction process in Mozambique through the (hi)story of the Frelimo School of Bagamoyo (1970-1975), in Tanzania.

  • 1 See Carvalho (2023) about the (re)construction of Freire’s visit to Bagamoyo in 1972.

2Bagamoyo is both a place of memory (Nora 2001, Montaño 2008) and presence (Baer 2002, Edwards 2015, Morton & Edwards 2009) in the national frame of Mozambique and regional historical location. As a memory site, Bagamoyo is remembered in the nation’s history as both a space where Frelimo fighters developed military training and, later, as a space of education, with the first secondary school where student-teachers were trained to implement literacy policies in the Liberated Zones of Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Tete, using materials inspired by Paulo Freire’s visit to Bagamoyo in 19721. The presence is documented through the on-going collection of the life histories of the teachers at the Bagamoyo School of Frelimo in the 1970s and the photographs they took documenting that they were there – their presence in the place of memory. Bagamoyo is also the place of the “broken heart” (in Swahili): a place from which slave traders came from the interior of the African region to Zanzibar in the 19th century, becoming the first German colonial capital in the German East Africa at the end of the 19th century.

3Using primary sources, such as (i) remote ethnographic interviews within the notion of ‘being then’ (Gray 2016, Postill 2016, Rajan 2021); (ii) photographs taken by the participants in the 1970s and in 2007, when they returned to Bagamoyo; and (iii) original documents of the 1974 and 1975 Literacy Seminars and Frelimo Policy documents from the 1960s to 1980s, I draw on the memories of the (hi)story of (dis)empowerment through education and literacy policies in Mozambique in one of the key places that founded the nation (i.e., Bagamoyo). My ethnographic practice is based on a participatory research approach (Hall 2005).

  • 2 To explore the notion of “new man” see, e.g., Brito (2019), Coelho (2015), Gasperini (1989), Carval (...)

4With this in mind, I asked former teachers and key actors in the history of literacy and education in Mozambique where I could find the first teachers of the Bagamoyo secondary school (1970-1975). From one to another, I ended up identifying the initial group of teachers with three Mozambicans and six international teachers (photo below of the foreign teachers), resulting in the knowledge that only two remained at the school from the opening in 1970 until its closure. In 1975, after independence, the school was transferred to Ribaué, in the Nampula province, where the First Literacy Seminar of the new nation was organized in April 1975. These two teachers, the Dutch couple, became my key participants at the beginning of my research on oral history (re)construction of language(s) and literacy in Mozambique within Frelimo ideology. I began with unpacking the role of Freire’s critical pedagogy to (re)locate the construction of the new man, the project of the postcolonial nation2. This research is a work-in-progress, rooted on my previous ethnographic fieldwork (2011-2016) in Mozambique about national identity, language(s), knowledge construction and education in postcolonial societies (Carvalho 2021).

Figure 1

Figure 1
  • 3 All photos were described by the Draismas (email, 4/07/2021).
  • 4 “Bosse Hammarstróm died April 8, 2020, in Sweden, victim of the coronavirus. Ulla became ill too, b (...)

Draisma legend3: “The foreign teachers of the Frelimo Secondary School in 1970. From left to right: Bosse and Ulla Hammarström (Swedish couple)4, Otto Beholz (German Democratic Republic [GDR]), Fernandes (India), Frouke and Jan Draisma (Dutch couple). The picture was taken at the Mozambique Institute in Dar es Salaam”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

5According to Jan Draisma (Skype, 17/06/2021), “in the first year [1970] there was only one person who had Portuguese as his mother-tongue, it was Edmundo Libombo [photo below], and all the students, the Dean of the school, [they] had Portuguese as their second or third or fourth [language]”.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Draisma legend: “Teacher Edmundo Libombo. In the background, left, the new students’ dining hall is being built, behind the water reservoir”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

6Firstly, I address Bagamoyo as a place of memory and presence bringing the voices and photos of the key participants/others contacted, as well the analysis of the Frelimo documents from 1960 to 1980s on literacy policies, and the 1974 and 1975 Literacy Seminars in Bagamoyo and Nampula. Secondly, I (re)tell the oral history of Bagamoyo School (1970-1975), a first approach to the memories collected until now, gathered through contacts at a distance, looking critically at the notion of (dis)empowerment (e.g., Freire & Shor 1987, Freire 2005). I present my preliminary findings organized at two levels: (i) teachers’ memories located within their photographs of the space and time of Bagamoyo in the 1970s and 2007, as well as original documents that portray the social and official memory of Mozambique during the 1970s until the First Literacy Seminar of 1975, organized in Nampula; (ii) the anthropologist’s interpretation of the (hi)stories shared at distance due to the multi-situated locations where teachers/others live.

Bagamoyo as a place of memory and presence

7Bagamoyo is a place of memory (Nora 2001, Montaño 2008) and presence (Baer 2002, Edwards 2015, Morton & Edwards 2009) recalled by the first group of teachers that contributed to the development of Mozambican literacy policies based upon (un)Freire’s literacy method from 1970 to 1975. As a place of memory, Bagamoyo represents what Nora (1984) defined as a feeling of lost, when national identity became blurred and needed to be evoked in specific places to underline the importance of the past. This memory is tuned with the notion of commemoration, that underpinned Nora’s (1992) concept of place of memory, when the nation faced the anguish of disappearance, stimulating the memory of the past through major symbols that are a “vehicle for a conception – the conception is the symbol’s meaning” (Geertz 1973: 91). When looking at Bagamoyo’s meaning as a symbol, the conception behind led us to the 1968 crisis that ended up with the closure of the Mozambican Institute, the Dar es Salaam secondary school (see photo below) and with the creation of the Bagamoyo Secondary School in 1970.

Figure 3

Figure 3

Draisma legend: “1970 Instituto Moçambicano - Frouke Draisma walking towards the entrance of the Mozambique Institute in Dar es Salaam. Our rooms and the kitchen were located in the building at the right. In the same building, the Director of the Mozambique Institute, Janet Mondlane, had her office”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

  • 5 Original in Portuguese (Brazil).

8From 1970 on, at the Bagamoyo School, the (hi)story was (re)told using theater (see photo below), among political education and other activities, to reinforce the notion that all students in the Liberated Zones must develop literacy activities during their school holidays, criticizing the position that led to the close of the Mozambican Institute in 1968. “This conflict [at the secondary school of the Dar es Salaam Institute] was the beginning, in many aspects, of the Frelimo internal fight […] would only be solved with the arrival at the presidency of Mozambique of Samora Machel, in May 1970. The immediate cause of this crisis was the refusal of a group of students to be part of the liberation struggle effort”. (Sellström 2008: 96)5

Figure 4

Figure 4

Draisma legend: “Teatro com Simão Mkaima - Student theatre at night, behind the science lab building, in the place facing the Indian Ocean. Illumination of the scene by two ‘petromaxes’. Audience: students and teachers (picture taken 1970/71)”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

  • 6 Original in Portuguese (Brazil).

9Indeed, during their school holidays, all students should be involved in military and educational activities conducted in the Liberated Zones (Gasperini 1989, Brito 2019). The students’ position and demonstrations against this were supported by N’Kavandame, Gwengere and Simango, who represented the opposite faction of Frelimo at the time. Indeed, “by antiquity, it should have been Uria Simango succeeding Mondlane, but because of his connections with N’Kavandame and Gwengere, there was distrust around him […]” (Sellström 2008: 178)6.

10As the Draismas explained (Skype, 22/07/2021),

Jan: You know, the history about the Mozambican Institute, the students that didn’t want to have tasks during their holidays in the Liberated Zones. That was shown in Bagamoyo using theatre. It was one of the recurrent plays, where they represented Mateus Gwengere and Simango, and some of the Bagamoyo students were at the Mozambican Institute during the confrontation moment and, well, and they kept there and accepted the demands of Frelimo, they were our students in Bagamoyo […]
Frouke: The experiences there, in Dar es Salaam, at the Mozambican Institute, create the Frelimo school of Bagamoyo on purpose and outside the city, in the countryside, so they could be connected to rural life, to go and work, to go to the machamba, Ta! Ta! Ta! [sound]. It was on purpose, so they wouldn’t think “we are…” (illustrated by the photo below).

Figure 5

Figure 5

Draisma legend: “Canteiros na escola –Vegetables grown by the students near the water-tank. Picture taken from the top of the tank”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

11As argued by Montaño (2008: 7), in sites of recent past with different historical processes, two questions are highlighted: “[…] one question is whether these sites refer to a memory settled on by historians, who a posteriori, and after a historical study, find that the sites have been imbued with the nation’s symbolic memory throughout their extensive history. Or if, on the other hand (or simultaneously), it refers to sites that have been conceived as memory artifacts [see photo below] because by this means a group, faction or political party wishes to remind citizens of a specific event in the recent history of the nation”.

Figure 6

Figure 6

Draisma legend: “Old teachers’ rooms & dining – 2007: On these pictures [one before] we see Frieda and Frouke speaking with the Principal and his colleagues. Frouke is standing behind Frieda. In the background we see the rusted roof of the former teachers’ dining room”. This was added to the previous description: “2007 - Old teachers’ rooms: Early 2007 we spent our holidays in Tanzania, together with my sister Frieda Draisma, and we visited Bagamoyo. We found that the former Frelimo school was still functioning as a school, run by the Tanzania Parents Association under the name ‘Kaole Secondary School’. Kaole is the name of the fishing-village, next to the school. We arrived during holidays but were well received by the Principal and some teachers. On this picture we see the teachers’ rooms which we occupied in 1970. As a couple, we had two rooms: a bedroom and a living room (= office). The first two rooms from the left were for Bosse and Ulla Hammarström, the 3rd and 4th rooms were ours, the 5th room was Otto Beholz’s. Very interestingly, these rooms continued to serve the Tanzanian teachers and their families.”

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

12The place of memory is a place of symbols and, when remembering through visual language, going back then, bringing their presence, “a photograph is a moment, positive or negative, happy or terrifying, that someone lived through—their being, their presence” (Edwards 2015: 240). Edwards (2016: 8) clarifies it underlining that it is “an image imbued with the presence of the moment, but also the presence of experience” (in the photo below, Bagamoyo is represented as a moment of experience, seen by who was there).

Figure 7

Figure 7

Draisma legend: “Dormitório Bibl Sala Imprensa Refeitório –Partial view of the school. From left to right: the boys’ dormitory, library (partially visible), single classroom, the school’s VW minibus, duplicating room and students’ dining room. Later, a bigger dining room was built with a view over the Indian Ocean”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

13Indeed, Baer (2002: 6), looks at photographs “from within the illusion of an isolated moment rather than simply regard them as interruptions in the evolution of time”. In doing so, as Baer argues (2002: 5) the privilege is on “the moment rather than the story, the event rather than the unfolding, particularity rather than generality”. As Barthes (1981: 4) also said, “What the photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.”

14As described by the Draismas (Skype, 17/06/2021):

Jan: We lived there, in the school, in the premises of a restaurant of the German colonial period, before World War I. So, the main building had been a restaurant, and now there was the laboratory for sciences – physics, chemistry and biology. And there were two more classrooms and other small rooms. We lived in little rooms; I think it was from the people working at the…
Frouke: Restaurant…
Jan: From the restaurant and there were other prefabricated houses for students. There were also rooms for the boys, they were old facilities, a dormitory. And it was land, it was a coconut plantation, it was all sand, but it was full of coconut trees and there was practically no vegetation, it was all sand, that school land. And through the land ran a sand road that came from the village of Bagamoyo to a nearby village, Kaole, and Kaole had been an important Muslim centre earlier […] During German times, Bagamoyo was the capital of the colony, it had a big building from the old German administration, but the school was outside of the village, it was closer to that village, Kaole.

15Photographs documenting the presence are simultaneously a historical and a unique and subjective document, allowing the writing and (re)telling of the (hi)story to be documented. In that sense, Barthes (1981: 13) says “Photography transformed subject into object, and even, one might say, into a museum object”. However, as underlined by Le Goff (1990: 466-467), photography can “revolutionize memory: it multiplies and democratizes it, giving it a precision and visual truth never before achieved, thus allowing to keep the memory of time and of the chronological evolution” (see photo below).

Figure 8

Figure 8

Draisma legend: “Teachers Bosse Hammarström [the Swedish colleague] and Frouke Draisma preparing their lessons, in front of the teachers’ rooms (1970/71)”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

16Furthermore, Batchen (2004: 15) underlines Barthes’ conception of photography based on “his claim on the presumed capacity of the photograph to replace the immediate, physically embracing experience of involuntary memory (the sort of emotional responses often stirred by smells and sounds) with frozen illustrations set in the past; photography, Barthes implies, replaces the unpredictable thrill of memory with the dull certainties of history” (ibid.). This nature of memory is related with the common daily experience, “crossing time to affect us right now, in the present” (ibid.). Indeed, and as highlighted by Batchen (ibid.), “For Barthes, it seems, memory is not so much image as sensation. The challenge, then, is to make photography the visual equivalent of smell and taste, something you can feel as well as see”.

Oral history, ethnography and photography – methodology and methods

17My ethnographic practice is based upon a community-based approach to create knowledge, a participatory research approach, developed for the first time in Tanzania in the 1970s, as mentioned earlier (Hall 2005). This approach was developed by teachers and students at Bagamoyo School (see photo below), even without full awareness of the method used, interconnected with Freire and Nyerere’s ideas on education (Freire & Macedo 2021, Freire 1978, 2005 and 2013, Haddad 2019, Nyerere 1968).

Figure 9

Figure 9

Draisma legend: “One of the first projects carried out by Otto Beholz (GDR) and the first group of 52 students (1970-71), was building a workshop for carpentry and other activities. On this picture we see Otto Beholz giving instructions to his students. Behind the carpentry we see the boys’ dormitory”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

18As argued by Hall (1975: 26), when looking at adult education, “Freire’s point that teaching methods have ideological implications then the same holds true for research methods”. Indeed, when doing research, one should be aware of the “hidden curriculum”, communities should be involved in the process itself, being “a dialectical process, a dialogue over time”, ending as a “liberation of human creativity potential and the mobilization of human resources for the solution of social problems” (Hall 1975: 28-30). Hall was responsible for Freire’s visit to Tanzania in 1971 and introduced him to Julius Nyerere. “One of the things that we asked him [Freire in Tanzania] to talk about were his ideas about research methods. Most readers will remember Chapter Three in Pedagogy of the Oppressed where Paulo writes about what he called ‘Thematic Investigation’. In his account he began to talk about understanding research as engaged practice, not a neutral dispassionate act but an act of solidarity and active support” (Hall 2005: 4).

19Indeed, oral history and ethnography are dialogical and intersubjective, being a “shared authority”, the result of a dialogue that produces a reflective narrative. “Oral history projects often are designed to collect the stories not told in official historical documents, and the distinction between official and marginalized stories drives at least some of the work” (Shuman 2003: 130). Oral history within ethnography is a co-participative research project. As Scheper-Hughes (1991: 319) argues, as “any other form of ‘translation’, ethnography has a predatory and a writerly motive to it. It is not done ‘for nothing’ in an entirely disinterested way. It is for something; often it is to help us understand something”.

20The methods used were remote ethnographic interviews, collection of documents and photos, based upon previous ethnographic fieldwork and longstanding experience and contacts in the field of inquiry (i.e., Mozambique). This is an ongoing project that is leading me to other (hi)stories about the beginning of the nation. For this piece of research, I called for the notion of “diasporic praxis” within a “multi-situated ethnography” (Rajan 2021). Nowadays, anthropology is done by ‘diasporic researchers’, as I am also one of them, having (re)connections with multiple communities. “The diasporic question concerns not just the anthropologist’s identity but also her addressee. By addressee, I do not mean audience, which is a reductive, instrumental idea of the market for one’s work. Rather I mean the multiple communities of practice to which the ethnographer feels herself accountable, including those who remain outside the calculable metrics of the professionalized metropolitan academe” (Rajan 2021: 4).

21Furthermore, I called also for the notion of remote ethnography based upon the idea of being then, remembering that once anthropology was also undertaken at a distance when not possible to be there (Gray 2016, Postill 2016). When looking at Bagamoyo from 1970 to 1975, it is carried out at a distance, being then, through the eyes of who was there and my interpretation of what was told, how it was and why it was, using documents and photos shared with me, along with memories.

22According to Gray (2016), being then is undertaken at a distance, a “bodily experience” that calls for episodic memories through the notion of body memory, something that was only possible because I was there, having had previous ethnographic experience in the field of inquiry.

  • 7 See Carvalho (2023) about the “ethnographic interconnected line of inquiry”.

23Regarding remote ethnography (Postill 2016), it has been undertaken since Mead and other anthropologists, when it has not been possible to be in the field, and it is a “technologically plural, open endeavor”, even more so in modern times7. The pandemic has allowed me to (re)access a network of contacts and (re)establish online talks and ethnographic interviews, exchanging documents, photographs, daily opinions, using email, WhatsApp, Zoom and Skype within a multi-situated community.

  • 8 For life history as story and history, see Goodson, I. 2006, “The Rise of the Life Narrative”, Teac (...)

24My participants are all related to literacy education policies in Southern Africa and/or Frelimo Bagamoyo School, being from different locations: Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, the Netherlands, former German Democratic Republic (GDR), India, Brazil, Switzerland, USA, Canada, UK, Portugal, among other geographies (see photo below). (Re)telling the (hi)story through life histories8 and photography based upon the notion of empowerment developed by Freire (2005, Freire & Shor 1987) is one perspective about the (re)construction of the nation.

Figure 10

Figure 10

Draisma legend: “1974 – Students of Grade 8 (who started in 1970) and their teachers. Standing behind we see, from left to right, the teachers Edmundo Libombo, Hans Jochen Roos (GDR), Günter Melzer (GDR), Luís Pouw (NL), Ludwig Burow (GDR), Frouke Draisma (NL), Emil Beck (GDR), William Minter (USA, Sérgio Martins (Moz), Frieda Overvest-Draisma (NL) and the Principal (“Rector”) José Carlos Lobo. In the background, the science laboratory”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

Frelimo School in Bagamoyo (1970-1975): Memories of (un)Freire (hi)story in Southern Africa

  • 9 Ibid.

25Freire was in Bagamoyo in 1972, resulting in the 1972 Frelimo Literacy Book, which was written by three teachers from Bagamoyo. I have reconstructed what is remembered by the initial group of teachers – one is deceased (Edmundo Libombo) and the other, Luís Pouw, a Dutch teacher who arrived in Bagamoyo in 1971, now living in Maputo, does not remember Freire’s seminar of 1972 well. My first contacts put forward the hypothesis of Elisabeth Sequeira (Mozambican), who could be the third teacher who wrote the book. However, when I contacted her, she said that “I was not yet in Bagamoyo (in Tanzania) when Paulo Freire visited the Frelimo Secondary School. I suggest you contact Professor Jan Draisma, who was also a teacher in Bagamoyo. Currently, he lives in the Netherlands and had the opportunity to interact with Paulo Freire during his visit to Tanzania and Bagamoyo” (LinkedIn, 08/06/2021). From Sequeira, I began unfolding the contacts until reaching the Draismas and other participants9.

26Regarding Freire’s involvement with Mozambique, to my knowledge, he does not have specific writings on his experience with Frelimo and the Bagamoyo school (Freire & Macedo 2021, Carvalho 2023). This information is corroborated by the World Council of Churches (WCC). Freire worked for the WCC as a special adviser for the Department of Education from 1970 (Haddad 2019), and his visit to the Frelimo School in Bagamoyo in 1972 was supported by the WCC. However, according to WCC archives, there is no “document about Freire’s trip to Tanzania and/or contact with Frelimo” (email 26/11/2021, WCC archives).

27I began a (re)construction of Freire’s legacy on the literacy education policies in Mozambique, based on the Draisma memories and the network of contacts from one teacher to the other in Bagamoyo, as well as other actors related to literacy policies in Mozambique that shared Frelimo documents from 1967 to 1983, including the original documents of the 1974 and 1975 Literacy Seminars in Bagamoyo (Tanzania) and Ribaué (Mozambique), and the three literacy books made by Frelimo in the 1960s and 1970s.

28Indeed, in 1970, while at the Mozambican Institute of Dar es Salaam, Bagamoyo’s international teachers received two Frelimo literacy books, probably given by Eduardo Koloma (deceased in 2020), the Frelimo Secretary for Education and Culture, and the one responsible for getting Freire to the Bagamoyo School in 1972. These two books were later replaced by the 1972 Literacy Book based upon Freire’s Bagamoyo seminar. The 1972 Literacy Book is organized around 20 lessons (book cover below) and was used by student-teachers in the Liberated Zones of Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Tete to teach during their holidays (photo below). This activity was part of the new model of education that came out of the 1968 crisis and the II Congress of Frelimo, including active participation in the liberation struggle.

Figure 11

Figure 11

1972 Literacy Book (book cover) printed in Dar es Salaam and photo described by the Draismas: “The students are leaving for holiday activities in Northern Mozambique and Southern Tanzania. In the picture several students of the first group (1970) may be seen, as well as a participant of a teacher training programme. Therefore, the picture may have been taken at the end of 1971, or at the end of 1973”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

29According to Freire (2005: 96-97): “The investigation of what I have termed the people’s ‘thematic universe’—the complex of their ‘generative themes’—inaugurates the dialogue of education as the practice of freedom. The methodology of that investigation must likewise be dialogical, affording the opportunity both to discover generative themes and to stimulate people's awareness in regard to these themes.” However, in the book, the words were given previously, and the content explained through images, contrary to the notion of empowerment developed by Freire (2005) and in dialogue with Shor (1987), a key-figure of the critical pedagogy philosophy of education and social movement. The Frelimo literacy book was a political project of (dis)empowerment when compared with Freire’s project regarding education and social transformation, his method becoming partially useful for literacy purposes in Mozambique. As argued by Freire in dialogue with Shor (1987: 109-110),

Freire: […] I don’t believe in self-liberation. Liberation is a social act. Liberating education is a social process of illumination.
Ira: There is no personal self-empowerment?
Paulo: No, no, no. Even when you individually feel yourself most free, if this feeling is not a social feeling, if you are not able to use your recent freedom to help others to be free by transforming the totality of society, then you are exercising only an individualist attitude towards empowerment or freedom […] While individual empowerment or the empowerment of some students, the feeling of being changed, is not enough concerning the transformation of the whole society, it is absolutely necessary for the process of social transformation. Is this clear? The critical development of these students is absolutely fundamental for the radical transformation of society. Their curiosity, their critical perception of reality, is fundamental for social transformation but is not enough by itself.

30When reading the 1972 Literacy Book there is a contradiction between Freire’s philosophy and the Frelimo method, since the literacy book already had clear indications regarding which words should be used to create “generative themes” (see example below).

Figure 12

Figure 12

Lesson 8 of the 1972 Literacy Book.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

31Indeed, “Freire is generally considered to be the progenitor of empowerment in education discourse” (Archibald & Wilson 2011), being empowerment undertaken within communities of knowledge focusing on cultural and social transformation. In Bagamoyo, the notion of communities of knowledge, or community-approach practices, was applied when developing practical activities for literacy student-teachers (see photo below). With this spirit of empowerment, Freire was tuned with Frelimo in terms of theoretical influences. In that sense, and as noted by Archibald and Wilson (2011: 24), Freire’s ideas “are rooted in critical theory and Neo-Marxism and influenced by Fanon’s notions of ‘colonization of the mind;’ thus he was interested in promoting both consciousness-raising and material changes to address issues of inequality and oppression”.

Figure 13

Figure 13

Draisma legend: “1974 –Practical activity for ‘alfabetizadores’ [literacy teachers], during their training. Gabriel Simbine, one of the trainers [was the first contact of the Draismas when they decided to go to Tanzania, being the Dean of the Mozambican Institute in 1969], is looking on”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

  • 10 Through Jan, email, 6/09/2021.
  • 11 According to Anton Johnston, South African, one of the first cooperants in Mozambique supported by (...)
  • 12 Probably José Cardoso, concludes Jan. The original is in Portuguese.

32From the documents that Judith Marshall (Canadian activist, who worked for 8 years at the Mozambican Ministry of Education after independence, referred by the Draismas) shared10, there is an interview with Henrique N’Guiraze, the coordinator of literacy in the Zambezia province11. The interview was undertaken by Cardoso12, the National Director of Literacy in Mozambique after independence. The interview must have taken place around 1983 or later, reflecting the 1974 and 1975 Literacy seminars of Bagamoyo and Ribaué.

  • 13 In the following lines, the figures in brackets correspond to the page numbers of the interview (po (...)

33N’Guiraze says that “there was no methodology, books or unique programs”, each person would pick up ten words, for example, with socio-political content “based upon the local environment”. He added that there “were small encounters and literacy courses, sometimes guided by missionaries. At the time, regarding the content, these courses had much influence of Paulo Freire. Indeed, there was a lot of talk about the concept of awareness” (1)13.

34At the time, literacy schools became “Escolas do Povo” and from 1975 until 1976 they had almost the same number of teachers as formal schools. Cardoso commented that it was “an interesting problem of distrust regarding official school, seen as colonial, allied to the trend of speaking the mother-tongues in the ‘Escola do Povo’” (2-3). Later, some of these schools became primary schools. At the Ribaué Seminar it was decided that there should exist only one single type of teaching and one single system of control” (5). N’Guiraze underlines as well that “we had few people with the 4th grade and those people were the ones in a better economic position” in society (10). Freire’s method was debated, concluding that “some issues could be adapted to our reality […] but Paulo Freire’s method had, at the time, non-dialectical issues. However, it had the advantage of motivating people for real-life events” (15). Explaining the (un)Freire method, N’Guiraze adds that the “technical-pedagogical side influenced us indeed” (15-16).

35N’Guiraze highlighted as well that if “we analyse the composition of senior managers of education, we would realize that most came from the population segment who participated in the literacy process” (16). In addition, and as mentioned by Anton Johnston, “the Freire method was neither politically accepted, nor would it have been practical in a situation where the literacy teacher had at most the 4th grade” (answering through Jan, email 4/09/2021).

  • 14 Policopied, 22 pages (Jan, sent by email, 21/09/2021, mentioning that they received it from Koloma (...)

36Anton referred to Judith Marshall’s work (1993), in which she mentioned the issue of teaching in a second language (Portuguese was not spoken by most of the population). Conversely, according to the 4 September 1967 Frelimo Department of Education and Culture document on “Definition of a national Educational Policy” (4-5)14, the defined pedagogical methods should be based on the idea that “students should be participants, vanishing the classical differences between teacher and students” (see photo below).

Figure 14

Figure 14

Draisma legend: “1973 – Lighting in the school (teachers’ rooms, classrooms, dining rooms and dormitories) functioned with kerosene pressure lamps (“Petromaxes”), which required regular maintenance. In the picture, Jan Draisma with five students doing this maintenance. Gabinha, daughter of a teacher, is looking on”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

37One of the first things foreign teachers did was to learn Portuguese (see photo below). Note that only one of the teachers had Portuguese as their mother-tongue (Libombo). As the Draismas wrote (email, 4/07/2021) when describing the photos they shared with me:

We arrived in Dar es Salaam on July 12, 1970, coming from the Netherlands. We stayed there at the Mozambique Institute, together with the Swedish colleagues, Bosse and Ulla Hammarström. We stayed there until mid-October, when we moved to Bagamoyo. Our main task in Dar es Salaam was to learn the Portuguese language. One of our teachers was Ernesto Niheriwa. Sometimes we got lessons from Eduardo Koloma, Frelimo’s Secretary for Education and Culture. Ernesto Niheriwa later went to the GDR and studied Geology. Eduardo Koloma too went for studies to the GDR and completed, several years after Independence, a PhD study.

Figure 15

Figure 15

Draisma legend: “1970 Frouke, Ulla, Ernesto Niheriwa – Ernesto Niheriwa, teaching Portuguese to the Hammarströms and Draismas. In the picture: Frouke Draisma and Ulla Hammarström”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

38As mentioned by Budd Hall (Zoom, 8/12/2021), language and literacy were a political decision, “Nyerere made a political decision link to, you know, very similar to what the Frelimo made with Portuguese, as you were saying, because they wanted a common language for everyone in the country to be able to speak, and they were trying to diminish, you know, kind of regional and ethnic identity and that was certainly the case in Tanzania”.

39However, at the Bagamoyo school, the decision of who was going to teach what and to which classes was decided collectively, and considering the available teachers at the school, as described by the Draismas (Skype, 17/06/2021):

Jan: There were programs, ya, but we were free to interpret the way we wanted. It is true that we talked with colleagues, but in principle, we had a lot of freedom to do what we thought was the best.
Frouke: The disciplines given, I mean we went there and Jan was lucky, because he's a mathematician, so he was a math teacher. So, I took a teacher training course for primary education, where disciplines were until the 6th grade. Well, language, math, geography, history, etc. What could I give?? I didn’t realize that the students completed the 4th grade, so it was the 5th grade in Bagamoyo. Well, then the distribution of disciplines. Mathematics was clear, Portuguese was for professor Libombo, but then the other disciplines, history and geography, the couple from Sweden, Bosse and Ulla, were nurses! […] Bosse immediately said “I want to give history”, so that's it. Ulla says, “I, geography, because I don't master English” […] So, I should teach English, but I’m not an English teacher. The English I had was what I learned in secondary school.

40The daily life in the school included the raising the flag ceremony at 7 am, singing the national anthem by all (photo below). After that, student leaders distributed the tasks saying who should go to production, sport, cleaning and/or machamba. These areas of work (‘sectores’) run after classes, in the afternoon or on Saturday mornings.

Figure 16

Figure 16

Draisma legend: “1974 – Every morning the Tanzanian and Frelimo flags were hoisted in the muster place, and tasks were distributed for the day (or the week). In the centre was the map of Mozambique. The picture was taken on one of the Mozambican (Frelimo) or Tanzanian holidays – both types of holidays were always observed and celebrated”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

41Teaching through games was used (photo below). Playing chess is a “powerful educational tool”, that reinforces cognition, critical thinking and improves creativity (Jankovic & Novak 2019). The connection with logical thinking is also related to mathematics and literacy.

Figure 17

Figure 17

Draisma legend: “Students playing chess in the science lab. In the background, standing, teachers Edmundo Libombo and Bill Minter”, Jan adds in another photo that “William (Bill) Minter [near the window in this photo] is teaching chess, in the science lab. The chess pieces (simplified models) were made by Jan Draisma and his students, during the lessons of Practical Work”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

42Regarding differences between teachers, the Dutch teachers described that,

Frouke: […] we had many more foreign teachers, from GDR… […] From GDR always and after, yes, it was more or less Mozambicans and foreigners. But the integration part, for me was… Bagamoyo was a lesson of integration […] we lived with the students and the teachers, ate from the same pot, the treatment was equal to the Mozambicans [photo below], and we couldn’t speak another language besides Portuguese.

Figure 18

Figure 18

Draisma legend: “On this picture we see the first teachers’ rooms. Couples had two rooms; single teachers had one room, for working and sleeping. The rooms had no water and no electricity. At night we used kerosene pressure lamps (“Petromaxes”) for lighting. Collective bathrooms and toilets for the teachers were located some 100 metres from the rooms. We used to wash our clothes in front of our rooms, using water in buckets, collected from the water tank, located behind the rooms, near the students’ kitchen”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

43However, there was a difference between international and national staff (see photo below) representing also different socio-political positions.

Figure 19

Figure 19

Draisma legend: “Bagamoyo Teachers 740625: This picture was taken by one of the GDR teachers. We don’t know who it was. We received it in the 1980s (or even later), from the German teacher Hans Saar, who was then a lecturer at the Higher Pedagogical Institute or Pedagogical University. On this picture we see, from left to right: Elizabeth Sequeira (Moz), Frouke Draisma-Buikema (NL), Frieda Overvest-Draisma (NL; now Frieda Draisma), Luís Pouw (NL), Alexandre Zandamela (Moz; visitor from Dar es Salaam), Luís Muthemba (Moz; visitor from Dar es Salaam), Jan Draisma (NL) and Joachim Kindler (GDR). We are waiting near the teachers’ dining hall (refeitório). The 25th of June was a festive date: the date of the founding of Frelimo in 1962”.

© Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive

44According to the Draismas (Skype, 17/06/2021), a difference they described was related to the dress code: “in Tanzania, […] Mozambican students and teachers always wore long pants [military uniform] despite the heat, and we, the European teachers, from GDR or Sweden, […] always in shorts”, wearing ‘“flip flops”.

Conclusion

  • 15 Original in Portuguese.

45The (hi)story of Bagamoyo unfolds according to the tellers and their socio-political and geographical origins. As argued by Coelho (2015: 155)15, the experience in the Liberated Zones and the political memory of the struggle against colonialism has been underlined as the “guide and reference” for the future. The armed struggle allowed the construction of a “national identity” and “provided the roots for legitimizing the governmental policies after independence” (Coelho 2015: 157). Furthermore, Portuguese was a political choice made by Frelimo to unify the nation but it does not represent the socio-linguistic reality of the country (Carvalho 2021). Language locates each one in the socio-political landscape of Mozambique, as well as Freire’s literacy method of empowerment calling for the use of mother-tongue.

46In Bagamoyo, there is a contradiction between Freire’s philosophy and Frelimo’s literacy method. The 1972 Literacy Book had clear indications about the words to be used to create “generative themes”. Conversely, the community-approach to create knowledge used by teachers and students in Bagamoyo was a way of empowerment, the only one possible when there were not enough Portuguese speakers to teach literacy. In addition, the key persons in education in Mozambique are the ones who participated in the literacy process along with an international community of teachers and educators coming from several geographical locations. The (hi)story of the beginning of the nation is (re)constructed within a multi-situated approach, where most of the actors did not use their mother-tongues to develop literacy methods, ending in a process of (dis)empowerment of the local communities. Furthermore, and as Hall (Zoom, 8/12/2021) shared while talking with me, a dialogical approach, on Freire and Nyerere, enlightens the (un)Freire (hi)story in Mozambique,

Paulo was already well-known in Portuguese Africa because of this work. […] And Freire was a big, a huge fan of Nyerere. Nyerere had a strong interest in adult education, they both, they share many things, including the idea that, just as education had been used to colonize people, it could also be a tool for liberation. They both had come to that conclusion from different directions […] Nyerere also was, had been exposed to adult education as, the idea that we can’t wait for our children to be educated, we can’t wait 25 years for our children to have a good education to change society, to change the world. So, he was a believer in finding the opportunities for adults and that is, of course, Paulo’s original work on that field of working with adults in northeastern Brazil. So, they had a lot in common. […] Freire, Paulo wasn’t, it sounds strange, but Paulo wasn’t an ideologue, he wasn’t a politician in that sense. His work was political, because people, we all took up his work as a contribution to straightening people’s confidence and willingness to take action to improve their lives. But he […] is essentially a philosopher and a teacher, and some kind of a messenger of love.

47On one side, empowerment was developed by the community-approach to knowledge, through learning-by-doing, and (dis)empowerment by using Portuguese instead of local languages. However, to unify the nation one needs to have a common language, and that is a political need of a so-called (re)unification after the struggle for liberation. The way the (hi)story is told has to do with the socio-political location of the teller. In addition, calling for photography on oral history projects is to be able to bring memory to the present, experiencing again the moment of the event, going back to the place of memory. If the images are described by the people who took them, they represent even more the notion of being there, having the possibility to repeat the (hi)story again. Conversely, photos are simultaneously a document of what happened in the past, documenting both the singular and collective (hi)story that is being told.

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Bibliographie

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Brito, L. 2019, A Frelimo, o Marxismo e a Construção do Estado Nacional 1962-1983, Maputo, IESE.

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Marshall, J. 1993, Literacy, Power, and Democracy in Mozambique: The Governance of Learning from Colonization to the Present, Boulder, Westview Press.

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Notes

1 See Carvalho (2023) about the (re)construction of Freire’s visit to Bagamoyo in 1972.

2 To explore the notion of “new man” see, e.g., Brito (2019), Coelho (2015), Gasperini (1989), Carvalho (2021).

3 All photos were described by the Draismas (email, 4/07/2021).

4 “Bosse Hammarstróm died April 8, 2020, in Sweden, victim of the coronavirus. Ulla became ill too, but recovered/Eduardo Koloma died August 26, 2020, in Maputo” (Draisma, email from Deventer, 4/07/2021).

5 Original in Portuguese (Brazil).

6 Original in Portuguese (Brazil).

7 See Carvalho (2023) about the “ethnographic interconnected line of inquiry”.

8 For life history as story and history, see Goodson, I. 2006, “The Rise of the Life Narrative”, Teacher Education Quarterly, Fall: 7-21.

9 Ibid.

10 Through Jan, email, 6/09/2021.

11 According to Anton Johnston, South African, one of the first cooperants in Mozambique supported by MAGIC, a recruitment organization of the British solidarity committee, working in literacy from 1977 to 1983.

12 Probably José Cardoso, concludes Jan. The original is in Portuguese.

13 In the following lines, the figures in brackets correspond to the page numbers of the interview (policopied, unpublished).

14 Policopied, 22 pages (Jan, sent by email, 21/09/2021, mentioning that they received it from Koloma in July 1970, in Dar es Salaam).

15 Original in Portuguese.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1
Légende Draisma legend3: “The foreign teachers of the Frelimo Secondary School in 1970. From left to right: Bosse and Ulla Hammarström (Swedish couple)4, Otto Beholz (German Democratic Republic [GDR]), Fernandes (India), Frouke and Jan Draisma (Dutch couple). The picture was taken at the Mozambique Institute in Dar es Salaam”.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 208k
Titre Figure 2
Légende Draisma legend: “Teacher Edmundo Libombo. In the background, left, the new students’ dining hall is being built, behind the water reservoir”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 150k
Titre Figure 3
Légende Draisma legend: “1970 Instituto Moçambicano - Frouke Draisma walking towards the entrance of the Mozambique Institute in Dar es Salaam. Our rooms and the kitchen were located in the building at the right. In the same building, the Director of the Mozambique Institute, Janet Mondlane, had her office”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 171k
Titre Figure 4
Légende Draisma legend: “Teatro com Simão Mkaima - Student theatre at night, behind the science lab building, in the place facing the Indian Ocean. Illumination of the scene by two ‘petromaxes’. Audience: students and teachers (picture taken 1970/71)”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 200k
Titre Figure 5
Légende Draisma legend: “Canteiros na escola –Vegetables grown by the students near the water-tank. Picture taken from the top of the tank”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 396k
Titre Figure 6
Légende Draisma legend: “Old teachers’ rooms & dining – 2007: On these pictures [one before] we see Frieda and Frouke speaking with the Principal and his colleagues. Frouke is standing behind Frieda. In the background we see the rusted roof of the former teachers’ dining room”. This was added to the previous description: “2007 - Old teachers’ rooms: Early 2007 we spent our holidays in Tanzania, together with my sister Frieda Draisma, and we visited Bagamoyo. We found that the former Frelimo school was still functioning as a school, run by the Tanzania Parents Association under the name ‘Kaole Secondary School’. Kaole is the name of the fishing-village, next to the school. We arrived during holidays but were well received by the Principal and some teachers. On this picture we see the teachers’ rooms which we occupied in 1970. As a couple, we had two rooms: a bedroom and a living room (= office). The first two rooms from the left were for Bosse and Ulla Hammarström, the 3rd and 4th rooms were ours, the 5th room was Otto Beholz’s. Very interestingly, these rooms continued to serve the Tanzanian teachers and their families.”
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 311k
Titre Figure 7
Légende Draisma legend: “Dormitório Bibl Sala Imprensa Refeitório –Partial view of the school. From left to right: the boys’ dormitory, library (partially visible), single classroom, the school’s VW minibus, duplicating room and students’ dining room. Later, a bigger dining room was built with a view over the Indian Ocean”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 345k
Titre Figure 8
Légende Draisma legend: “Teachers Bosse Hammarström [the Swedish colleague] and Frouke Draisma preparing their lessons, in front of the teachers’ rooms (1970/71)”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 178k
Titre Figure 9
Légende Draisma legend: “One of the first projects carried out by Otto Beholz (GDR) and the first group of 52 students (1970-71), was building a workshop for carpentry and other activities. On this picture we see Otto Beholz giving instructions to his students. Behind the carpentry we see the boys’ dormitory”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 207k
Titre Figure 10
Légende Draisma legend: “1974 – Students of Grade 8 (who started in 1970) and their teachers. Standing behind we see, from left to right, the teachers Edmundo Libombo, Hans Jochen Roos (GDR), Günter Melzer (GDR), Luís Pouw (NL), Ludwig Burow (GDR), Frouke Draisma (NL), Emil Beck (GDR), William Minter (USA, Sérgio Martins (Moz), Frieda Overvest-Draisma (NL) and the Principal (“Rector”) José Carlos Lobo. In the background, the science laboratory”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-10.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 628k
Titre Figure 11
Légende 1972 Literacy Book (book cover) printed in Dar es Salaam and photo described by the Draismas: “The students are leaving for holiday activities in Northern Mozambique and Southern Tanzania. In the picture several students of the first group (1970) may be seen, as well as a participant of a teacher training programme. Therefore, the picture may have been taken at the end of 1971, or at the end of 1973”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-11.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 94k
Titre Figure 12
Légende Lesson 8 of the 1972 Literacy Book.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-12.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 40k
Titre Figure 13
Légende Draisma legend: “1974 –Practical activity for ‘alfabetizadores’ [literacy teachers], during their training. Gabriel Simbine, one of the trainers [was the first contact of the Draismas when they decided to go to Tanzania, being the Dean of the Mozambican Institute in 1969], is looking on”.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-13.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 218k
Titre Figure 14
Légende Draisma legend: “1973 – Lighting in the school (teachers’ rooms, classrooms, dining rooms and dormitories) functioned with kerosene pressure lamps (“Petromaxes”), which required regular maintenance. In the picture, Jan Draisma with five students doing this maintenance. Gabinha, daughter of a teacher, is looking on”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-14.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 257k
Titre Figure 15
Légende Draisma legend: “1970 Frouke, Ulla, Ernesto Niheriwa – Ernesto Niheriwa, teaching Portuguese to the Hammarströms and Draismas. In the picture: Frouke Draisma and Ulla Hammarström”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-15.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 147k
Titre Figure 16
Légende Draisma legend: “1974 – Every morning the Tanzanian and Frelimo flags were hoisted in the muster place, and tasks were distributed for the day (or the week). In the centre was the map of Mozambique. The picture was taken on one of the Mozambican (Frelimo) or Tanzanian holidays – both types of holidays were always observed and celebrated”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-16.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 194k
Titre Figure 17
Légende Draisma legend: “Students playing chess in the science lab. In the background, standing, teachers Edmundo Libombo and Bill Minter”, Jan adds in another photo that “William (Bill) Minter [near the window in this photo] is teaching chess, in the science lab. The chess pieces (simplified models) were made by Jan Draisma and his students, during the lessons of Practical Work”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-17.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 214k
Titre Figure 18
Légende Draisma legend: “On this picture we see the first teachers’ rooms. Couples had two rooms; single teachers had one room, for working and sleeping. The rooms had no water and no electricity. At night we used kerosene pressure lamps (“Petromaxes”) for lighting. Collective bathrooms and toilets for the teachers were located some 100 metres from the rooms. We used to wash our clothes in front of our rooms, using water in buckets, collected from the water tank, located behind the rooms, near the students’ kitchen”.
Crédits © Frouke and Jan Draisma personal archive
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/docannexe/image/6818/img-18.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 238k
Titre Figure 19
Légende Draisma legend: “Bagamoyo Teachers 740625: This picture was taken by one of the GDR teachers. We don’t know who it was. We received it in the 1980s (or even later), from the German teacher Hans Saar, who was then a lecturer at the Higher Pedagogical Institute or Pedagogical University. On this picture we see, from left to right: Elizabeth Sequeira (Moz), Frouke Draisma-Buikema (NL), Frieda Overvest-Draisma (NL; now Frieda Draisma), Luís Pouw (NL), Alexandre Zandamela (Moz; visitor from Dar es Salaam), Luís Muthemba (Moz; visitor from Dar es Salaam), Jan Draisma (NL) and Joachim Kindler (GDR). We are waiting near the teachers’ dining hall (refeitório). The 25th of June was a festive date: the date of the founding of Frelimo in 1962”.
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Xénia Venusta de Carvalho, « Memories of (Un)Freire literacy policies in Southern Africa from the 1970s on: telling the (hi)story through life histories and photography of (dis)empowerment in Mozambique »Lusotopie [En ligne], XXII(1) | 2023, mis en ligne le 01 octobre 2023, consulté le 21 juin 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/lusotopie/6818 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/lusotopie.6818

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Xénia Venusta de Carvalho

Associate Researcher
Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Centre for Research in Anthropology, Lisbon, Portugal
xeniacarvalho[at]gmail.com

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