The resilience of Angolan professionals

Abstract

This article focuses on the current efforts of professionals from Angola, on the African continent, to overcome the devastating effects of the country¿s colonization, followed by a brutal civil war. Potentially, individuals and communities have the capacity to overcome hardship when the events that provide deteriorating pressures have ceased. The resilience theory, which supports the study presented here, explains this quality. This theory, belonging to the sphere of subjectivity, helps reach the objective of the study: to discover which forces and the feelings connected to them stimulated or fa- cilitated the actions of Angolans, professionals from public and private organizations, to overcome difficulties. The sample of 46 professionals was obtained by accessibility. The chosen method to collect the data in the field and to treat it was content analysis. The literature and the responses of the subjects led to a combined graph containing four categories: love of the motherland, solidarity, hope, and intangible resources. These categories encompass the forces related to emotions that were made explicit by the interviewees and, consequently, to their foundations of resilience