Patrícia Ferraz de Matos is an anthropologist, Assistant Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon (UL). Her current project is entitled “The weavings of science: an anthropological view on the networks underlying the forging of scientific knowledge”, which objective is to study the network of people connected to the Anthropology School of Porto, between the 1910s and the 1970s, and to the Portuguese Society of Anthropology and Ethnology (Sociedade Portuguesa de Antropologia e Etnologia), founded in 1918, in the sense of understanding how scientific societies and their international exchange contributed to the institutionalization of anthropology and what knowledge was produced. The starting point of the research is in Portugal, but it extends to other countries, such as Brazil, taking into account other schools and scientific societies linked to anthropology, such as the Royal Anthropological Institute, which develops a project about its own history, in which she has collaborated.

She is co-coordinator of the curricular unit Seminar of Research in Anthropology of the PhD in Anthropology of ICS-UL, since 2013, and she has collaborated, in a timely manner, in undergraduate and postgraduate courses of other institutions: University of Évora, University of Oxford, University of Cagliari, University of Porto, New University of Lisbon, Complutense University of Madrid, University of Lisbon, University of Coimbra, Campinas State University, Autonomous University of Madrid, and Federal University of Bahia.

At ICS-UL, she currently supervises two PhD theses; she co-supervised a visiting doctoral student at ICS-UL and regularly supervises visiting researchers.

She graduated in Anthropology (1997) at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) with a dissertation entitled “The Way of ‘Art’: We started from objects and returned to objects” (1997) (based on bibliographical research and in the collection of the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Coimbra), which analyzed the anthropological approach to art and the debate about the so-called “primitive art”. This work and the visit to the Angolan field were the bases for writing an article, published in full version as a book chapter.

She worked as Research Assistant (1997-2000), linked to the Anthropology Research Center (CIA) of the then Anthropology Department of FCTUC, in the project “Power and Differentiation on the Coast of Bahia: Cultural Identities, Ethnicity and Race in Multiethnic Contexts” (FCT PRAXIS XXI Program, Project PCSH/ANT/96; PI: Miguel Vale de Almeida), having carried out, under the guidance of Susana de Matos Viegas, field and archive research and built databases of birth, marriage and death records, between 1889-1998, of the population of Olivença (Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil), which inspired an article, and created the Database “Speeches and Knowledge on Race: Portuguese Bibliography (1870-1970)”.

Her master thesis on Social Sciences (2005, ICS-UL), oriented by José Manuel Sobral, analyzed the racial representations produced in the context of the “Portuguese colonial empire” in the first decades of the 20th century, at the level of scientific production and dissemination of propaganda. This work was awarded the Victor de Sá Prize for Contemporary History, and published in Portuguese by the Imprensa de Ciências Sociais (Lisbon, 2006 [1st edition], 2012 [2nd edition]), and in English by Berghahn Books (Oxford and New York, 2013), and peer-reviewed in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, American Anthropologist, Social Anthropology, Anthropologie sociale, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, Cahiers d’Études Africaines, and Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change.

Her doctoral thesis in Social Sciences, in the specialty of Social and Cultural Anthropology (2012, ICS-UL), oriented by José Manuel Sobral, studied the relations between anthropology, nationalism and colonialism between the end of the monarchy and the end of the New State (Estado Novo), from the personal and intellectual biography of Mendes Correia (1888-1960), having conducted research in Portugal (Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra and Torre de Moncorvo) and in Brazil (Salvador and Rio de Janeiro), and accomplished several interviews.

She has obtained several research grants in internationally competitive applications, namely at the FCT: Post-Doctoral (SFRH/BPD/91349/2012, 2013-2019), PhD (SFRH/BD/25537/2005, 2005-2009), Master’s Degree (SFRH/BM/2194/2000, 2001-2002), Initiation to Scientific Research (PRAXIS XXI/BIC/14728, 1997-1999), and obtained an internal grant from the ICS-UL (2000). She was distinguished with the ERICS-CGD/ICS-UL Prize in the scientific article category (2014).

She collaborated with several research projects: “Printed Photography and Propaganda in Portugal (1933-1974)” (PTDC/CPC-HAT/4533/2014), PI: Filomena Serra (UNL); “Women and the Portuguese Colonial Project: Science, Knowledge, Writing (1860-1960)” (PTDC/EPH-HIS/1224/2014), PI: Filipa Lowndes Vicente (ICS-UL), not funded; “Dictionary of Antis: The Portuguese Culture in Negative”, PI: José Eduardo Franco (CLEPUL), with 3 entries; “Knowledge and Vision: photography in the Archive and the Portuguese Colonial Museum (1850-1950)” (PTDC/HIS-HIS/112198/2009), PI: Filipa Lowndes Vicente (ICS-UL), with a book chapter; “The Presidents of the Portuguese Parliament, Estado Novo (1935-1974)”, PI: Fernando de Sousa (CEPESE), co-PI: Conceição Meireles Pereira (CEPESE), financed by the Assembly of the Republic, with a book chapter; “Power and Differentiation on the Coast of Bahia: Cultural Identities, Ethnicity and Race in Multiethnic Contexts” (PCSH/ANT/96), PI: Miguel Vale de Almeida (IUL), with a Database with 1044 entries.

She organized, with Michel Cahen (Casa de Velázquez, Université de Bordeaux, CNRS/Sciences Po Bordeaux), the special volume New Perspectives on Luso-Tropicalism, Portuguese Studies Review 26 (1), 2018, 350 pp.

She prepared (research and concept) with Vítor Oliveira Jorge (FLUP and IHC-UNL) the exhibition “The Portuguese Society of Anthropology and Ethnology (1918-2018): 100 Years at the Service of Science”, held at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (2018-2019).

She organized, among others, panels for the 15th EASA Biennal Conference, Staying, Moving, Settling (Stockholm, 2018), Congress of the Portuguese Anthropological Association (2019, 2016 e 2006), Iberian Congress of African Studies (2014, 2010), and SPAE conference cycle (2017). She joined the Executive Committee of the International Conference Slave Subjectivities in the Iberian World (15th – 20th Centuries) (2018) and the Scientific Committee of the International Conference The Lusophone World: Global and Local Communities (2019) and the Conference “Forty Years of Independence” (2015). She is co-coordinator of the seminars of ICS-UL Research Group Identities, Cultures and Vulnerabilities (2019).

She was a member of the ICS-UL School Board (2009-2011), and a member of the elected Statutory Assembly to review and write ICS-UL statutes (2008).

Her research interests include: history of anthropology; racism, racial representations and other forms of social discrimination; eugenics; nationalism and national identity; production of scientific knowledge in the colonial context; ideology and colonial propaganda, namely in films and documentaries, and with the exhibition of human beings in expositions; photography; music and popular traditions; technology; networks and cyberculture; and anti-colonialism.

Networks and partnerships: member of History of Anthropology Network (HOAN), founded as “The History of European Anthropology Network” (Praga, 1992), since 2016; member of Aleph – Network of action and critical research of the colonial image, since 2015; member of “History of Anthropology Network” (connected to American Anthropological Association) since 2009.

Peer review in publications: Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power; Portuguese Studies; Bloomsbury (London); Revista História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos; Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea, U. Complutense de Madrid; Portuguese Studies Review; Current Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities; Revista Brasileira de História; Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies; Revista de História da Sociedade e da Cultura, U. de Coimbra; Quaternary Studies; Revista Portuguesa de História, IHES; População e Sociedade; Cadernos de Estudos Africanos.

Scientific and professional associations: Member of American Anthropological Association (AAA), Society for the Anthropology of Europe (SAE), European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), Associação Portuguesa de Antropologia (APA), Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa (SGL), Société Internationale d’Ethnologie et Folklore (SIEF), Sociedade Portuguesa de Antropologia e Etnologia (SPAE), Women in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies (WISPS), Associação Internacional de Ciências Sociais e Humanas em Língua Portuguesa (AICSHLP), Lusophone Studies Association (LSA), and Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies (ASPHS).