Focusing on the Portuguese late colonial period, although taking into account potential influences of other European colonial traditions and practices, the research project within the theoretical framework of Historical Anthropology and Postcolonial Studies delivers special attention to intelligence, its cultural, imaginary and symbolic elements, as well as to the articulation and entanglement between the enforcement of knowledge devices, the establishment of accumulated and centralized knowledge(s), and the implementation of colonial governance strategies, that were supported through them. The study aims to characterize the knowledge devices about Muslim populations in Mozambican society promoted by SCCIM – Serviços de Centralização e Coordenação de Informações (1961-1974), to analyze a significant corpus of knowledge on the same populations, evaluating the means and processes through which the formation of such knowledge(s) sought and/or influenced policies and practices of governance in colonial Mozambique, and also to scan reactions and coping strategies developed by Muslim populations. Empirically, the survey shall rely on an articulated analysis of an assortment of colonial sources (written, visual and oral memoirs).
