With the aim of renewing public debates on colonialism and museums, decolonisation and historical responsibility for the legacies of colonialism, História, Ciências, Saúde- Manguinhos (Casa de Oswaldo Cruz) has published, in open access, the thematic volume ‘Colonial and post-colonial collections in Portugal: reconstructing trajectories and rethinking narratives’, a direct output from project TRANSMAT and the international conference held in 2023 at the National Museum of Ethnology (video).

Edited by Elisabete Pereira and Quintino Lopes (IHC – University of Évora / IN2PAST), with Catarina Simões (CHAM – NOVA FCSH), this issue brings together, for the first time, texts produced from the dialogue between some of the main Portuguese institutions that hold colonial collections, including university, national and municipal museums, and private collections, ensuring the representation of multiple perspectives and trajectories in the study of Portuguese colonial and post-colonial collections.

This volume thus offers a critical and well-founded reflection on the history, circulation, meanings, and narratives inscribed in colonial collections, opening up spaces for rethinking museological practices and Eurocentric histories with repercussions in our times. This editorial project has opened up spaces that were previously resistant to critical research, fostering practices of cooperation and symbolic reparation with national and international partners.

The reflections and studies that make up the volume not only expand knowledge about the complex trajectories of these colonial and post-colonial collections, but also question official histories and propose an epistemological revision in the field of museology and colonial history.

Read the full text prepared by guest editor Elisabete Pereira in November, 2025 by clicking the button above on the right.