Social promotion in Angola during late colonialism: circulation, controversy, convergence

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the circulation of development ideas and practices in Africa in the post-Second World War period, the article focuses on the experimental establishment of Casas do Povo (Houses for the People) in Angola in the mid-1960s, an attempt to reconfigure a corporative institution of the metropole. This case reveals a power dispute between two higher public administration bodies created as part of the political response to the beginning of the anti-colonial struggle and different views about the means to achieve social promotion of Angolan populations. Such controversy, however, does not compromise convergence on the purpose of social development: national defence and integration.