Socialism, Post-Socialism, and Intellectual Legacies in Mozambique: The Case of Cea (1976-1990) and Iese (2007-2017)

This article analyses the intellectual legacy of the Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA) from Mozambique ‘socialist period (1976-1990), in the scientific work of the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos (IESE), a private research institution founded in 2007. The article argues that to fully grasp the work of IESE as a critical, state-independent and policy oriented research institution we have to take into consideration not only the possibilities opened up by the market economy and multiparty system, but also to the historical dynamics of Mozambique’s socialist past, especially the prolific and intellectually vibrant work of CEA. The socialist context, and more specifically the CEA’s research and teaching programs in social sciences, in its interaction with the post-socialist period, produced in IESE’s work, significant legacies. For instance, it involved the mobility of human capital (scholars); the mobility and revitalization of a particular explanatory paradigm (Marxist political economy); the mobility of political moralities characteristic of the Mozambique’s socialist period (political disillusionment)."