Unveiling Identity and Otherness in War Exile: An Anglo-Portuguese Perspective

Abstract

The pivotal role played by Portugal during World War II is greatly narrated in Neill Lochery’s (1965-) Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945 (2011). The brilliant Scottish author on the modern history of Europe has a vast oeuvre that offers the Portuguese readers the opportunity to reflect on their “Self” and discover the writer’s insight on Portuguese culture and society. This article mainly focuses on Lochery’s first book about Portugal, Lisbon (2011), most specifically on the portrayal of the passage of war exiles in the Portuguese capital during WWII, and aims to answer to the following questions: what are the dynamics developed between the British Self and the Portuguese Other? How do imagotypes contribute to feeding or deconstructing the imbalance of powers? What is the image of the Portuguese conveyed by a contemporary British historian? And, finally, how does the construction of Otherness contribute to the perception of identity?