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Projeto de investigação
Colónias, progresso e investimento: os caminhos-de-ferro ultramarinos 1870-1914
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Quando Portugal acreditou no progresso
Publication . Pereira, Hugo Silveira; CIUHCT - Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia; Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra
After three decades with different hesitations, ups, and downs, the Portuguese strategy for railway building took decisive steps in the 1880s. In this decade, the network witnessed the largest growth in its history (past and future) and it extended to the overseas colonies. In this paper, we will analyse this historical process, using the concepts of technological determinism, technological sublime, and technological nationalism.
Capital, império e fotografia
Publication . Pereira, Hugo Silveira; CIUHCT - Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia; FUNDACO OSWALDO CRUZ
In the late 19th-early 20th century, Portugal entrusted the implementation of technological systems in its colonies in Angola and Mozambique to several private companies. These companies decided to preserve their activities through photography for posterity. In this article, I analyze four business albums from colonial firms, combining a semiotic methodology with concepts from the history of technology. I argue that photography, despite being advertised as an objective instrument to record reality, was extremely subjective, but that it took advantage of this alleged objectivity to create and strengthen myths, through the impact of its visuality. I also contribute to the debate on the importance of visual culture for colonial studies.
A correspondência de Walter Merivale e o caminho-de-ferro de Mormugão
Publication . Pereira, Hugo Silveira; DCSA - Departamento de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas; CIUHCT - Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia; Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Letras
Entre 1881 e 1888 Portugal promoveu a construção de um caminho -de -ferro em Goa em parceria com uma companhia britânica. A equipa que liderou o projeto era inteiramente inglesa e nela se incluía o nome de Walter Merivale, um jovem engenheiro que se estreava nas lides da construção ferroviária e que descreveu a sua experiência em dezenas de cartas que enviava regularmente para a sua família em Inglaterra. Neste artigo, iremos analisar essa documentação, recorrendo aos métodos epistolográfico e de análise de conteúdo, com o objetivo de aprofundar a história do caminho -de -ferro goês, adicionar à discussão sobre a formação da persona do engenheiro e contribuir para o debate sobre o uso de correspondência privada em investigações históricas.
The ambaca railway in angola: History of a failed public-private partnership (1885-1914 and briefly onwards)
Publication . Pereira, Hugo Silveira; CIUHCT - Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia; Department of Economic History and Institutions, Policy and World Economy
In 1886, the Portuguese government signed a public-private partnership with a private company to build and operate a railway between Luanda and Ambaca in its overseas colony of Angola. It was expected that the partnership would benefit both parties: It would provide Angola with a powerful tool of economic development and political appropriation, and it would pay the private investment (stockholders and bondholders). However, the enterprise soon became a financial disaster with soaring construction costs and feeble operational revenues, which forced the Portuguese state to intervene. In this paper, I will analyse the evolution of the Ambaca public-private partnership from a quantitative perspective, examining the figures of its financing, operation and state aid. I will add to the debate about the relationship between state and private initiatives, through public-private partnerships in the specific context of the scramble for Africa and New Imperialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Expertise and policy-making
Publication . Pereira, Hugo S.; DCSA - Departamento de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas; SAGE Publications
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Portugal built the main branches of its railway system. In this paper, I will use technical and military reports, parliamentary debates and sundry bibliography to analyse the influence of the different stakeholders. I investigated the expectations, priorities and agendas of engineers, army officers, policymakers and lobbyists in the design of the Portuguese railway network. I argue that historiography about Portuguese railways usually considers the rationale behind their discussion as entirely technological and focuses mainly on their outputs, taking railways for granted, or black-boxed. However, the planification of large transportation systems depends on the sociotechnical context and on hierarchies of power of their time. I will show that experts (mostly engineers) played a decisive role in the planning of the network, but a large part of its design was due to non-technical issues, including political machinations, budgetary constraints and corporative lobbying.
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Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
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SFRH/BPD/95212/2013