Construir uma nação: ideologias de modernidade da elite moçambicana

Abstract

This paper examines the importance of a unifying ideology of modernity for a politically dominant Mozambican elite, in the capital, Maputo. I argue that this ideology of modernity forms a «native» category, which elites use as both a claim to social power and as an attempt to legitimise their positions of privilege to the wider society. This is not a static ideology, but one that is deeply intertwined with the social background of the elite in the colonial period and has transformed with thier changing through independence. What was once an authoritarian, but potentially emancipatory, project to recreate the nation is steadily being confined to elites themselves, and the former bedrock of nationalism has increasingly become an indicator of high status and social difference.