For the first time in Sub-Saharan African postcolonial history, citizens of a former European colonial power have been seeking improved conditions in an ex-colony on a massive scale. The Portuguese who have left for Angola have been motivated by the strong economic growth in that country in combination with the crisis in Portugal. This paper focuses on everyday workplace relations between Angolans and Portuguese, and discusses the changing relationships between the ex-colonizers and the ex-colonized in the wake of ongoing global economic transformations. In particular it analyses the following questions: In what ways do colonial power relations still resonate between Angolans and Portuguese? Are their imaginaries of each other in any sense moving beyond the colonial past? These questions are pertinent to analyse in relation to the present context where the Portuguese perform as labour migrants and business people rather than settlers and rulers.

In conclusion, the paper contends that that the dominance of the ex-colonizers is partly broken as they are dependent on being accepted by authorities and company owners in the former colony. Yet power relations are also created in the ongoing production of cultural ideas, which are informed by the colonial history. Colonial imaginaries are still very much at play, and many Portuguese identify with a national identity built on the history of the lost empire. Taken together, this means that the postcolonial power relations between Angolans and Portuguese are contested and unstable.