Beyond Empire

Beyond Empire: Memory and Migration in Lusophone and Luso-Creole Cities brings together innovative scholarship from a variety of disciplines to rethink the afterlives of the Portuguese empire in a global urban present. Drawing on case studies from Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America, the volume examines how migration, memory, and cultural practices shape contemporary life across interconnected post-imperial spaces. From heritage sites in Cabo Verde and São Paulo to migrant struggles in Lisbon and Benguela, and from diasporic festivals in Macao to musical, theatrical, and sonic practices, the chapters foreground the lived, relational, and contested nature of post-colonial cities. Decentering Europe and highlighting South-South and diasporic connections, the book introduces the concept of post-imperial constellations to trace how imperial legacies are continually reworked across interconnected urban spaces – not as a lingering past, but as active and evolving forces reshaped through everyday practices, cultural production, and political mobilization. Beyond Empire will appeal to scholars and students in postcolonial, urban, migration, cultural, and heritage studies, in anthropology and in history, as well as to anyone interested in the complex entanglements of empire, memory, mobility, and contemporary urban life.