IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST team member Pedro Martins has been selected for a 6-year Assistant Researcher contract under FCT’s Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus – 6th Edition, with IN2PAST – Associate Laboratory as the host institution, with the project ‘Uses of the Medieval Past in the Construction of European Identities: The Case of Democratic Portugal (1974-2011)’.

Pedro, who is also part of the Institute of Contemporary History’s science management team, in charge of editorial management, will seek to understand why the medieval past is so important and meaningful to the construction of national, regional, and local identities in democratic Portugal, and what was the relationship between the depictions of the Middle Ages in the Portuguese collective memory and those of other historical periods also applied to the creation of identities, such as the Age of Discovery.

With a PhD in History (specialisation in Contemporary History), awarded by NOVA FCSH, with the dissertation History, Nation and Politics: The Middle Ages in Modern Portugal (1890-1947), Pedro will also focus on, among other questions, the narratives about the medieval period and how they adjust to the decolonization process, the intensification of European integration, the rise of neoliberalism and the so-called ‘War on Terror’.

IN2PAST had already seen one of its researchers approved in the 6th Edition of the Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus (CEEC, in the Portuguese acronym for Concurso Estímulo ao Emprego Científico), Ivete Sobral dos Santos, also affiliated with IHC – NOVA FCSH. With our Associate Lab as the host institution, Ivete was selected for a 6-year Assistant Researcher contract with her research project on migrations, focusing on the repatriation of Portuguese emigrants from Rio de Janeiro, Paris and New York in the interwar period, namely through the intervention (or lack thereof) of the Portuguese state.

Currently working at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, in France, under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship, Ivete (aka Yvette dos Santos) has a PhD Contemporary History awarded by NOVA FCSH, with the thesis The National Emigration Board and the Emigration Policy of Estado Novo.