Research Group
Research Group
Research Group
DINÂMIA'CET-IUL
Centre for Socioeconomic and Territorial Studies
Assistant Researcher
Francesca Vita
research interests
Architecture and urbanism in the former Portuguese territories, dwelling culture, environmental perception and social use of space, informal settlements, vernacular architecture and rural environment.
Short Bio
Francesca Vita (Bologna, 1988). Designer and researcher, with an ongoing PhD research in architectural heritage at FAUP (Porto) sponsored by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia PhD grant. Her PhD thesis focuses on colonial and post-colonial studies in former Portuguese territories and deepens into the topic of dwelling culture, house production and social use of space. In 2015, she spent one year in Guinea-Bissau laying the base for her future researches and collaborating on the project “Coast to Coast – Late Portuguese Infrastructural Development in Continental África (Angola and Mozambique): Critical and Historical Analysis and Postcolonial Assessment” coordinated by Ana Vaz Milheiro and hosted by ISCTE-IUL. She also has been part of a research project about architectural heritage conservation in the city centre of Porto coordinated by Helena Soares and sponsored by the Porto City Hall, and, currently, she is integrating the project "COST Action CA18137 – European Middle Class Mass Housing", coordinated by Ana Vaz Milheiro.
research project at dinâmia'cet-Iscte
The ongoing PhD research focuses on the study of contemporary dwellings in Guinea-Bissau according to their relationship with the economic neighbourhoods and standardized-house projects carried out for the African population in the last decades of Portuguese colonisation (1930-1975). The research is part of that bibliography that tries to investigate the effects of colonization on contemporary territories, focusing on the analysis of dwelling and urban space. The research also includes the study of military interventions during the war of independence (1963-1974) and the influences they may have had on the organisation of both the territory and the house, a theme that has been deepened since 2018. The territory of Guinea-Bissau is a privileged case study to understand the colonial strategies of domestic space construction for the African population and to analyze the influence that the colonial legacy may have had on the construction of contemporary dwelling in Bissau.
Main publications
Vita, F. (2020). "Património em causa. O legado colonial da política dos reordenamentos populacionais (1968-1973) no contexto rural contemporâneo da Guiné-Bissau." In CesContexto (Debates), 26 (jun). p.120-128.
Vita, Francesca (2019). “Uma Guiné Melhor”: the psychological action and the spatialization
of population control in rural areas. The strategic villages in Guinea-Bissau between 1968-1973. Congresso Internacional, Colonial and Postcolonial Landscapes. Lisboa, Portugal.
Main projects
“ARQUITETURA DOMÉSTICA EM DIÁLOGO. O papel da colonização portuguesa na forma de construir, habitar e pensar o espaço doméstico contemporâneo na Guiné-Bissau.” SFRH/BD/130890/2017 [PhD project]
COST Action CA18137 – European Middle Class Mass Housing
“Coast to Coast – Late Portuguese Infrastructural Development in Continental África (Angola and Mozambique): Critical and Historical Analysis and Postcolonial Assessment” PTDC/ATPAQI/0742/2014
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