CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Grada Kilomba

Portuguese university teacher, psychologist and artist (born 1968)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ15685593
Source-derived summary

Grada Kilomba is a Portuguese interdisciplinary artist and writer whose works critically examine memory, trauma, gender, racism and post-colonialism. She uses various formats to express herself ranging from text to scenic reading and performance (performing knowledge). Moreover, she combines academic and lyrical narrative. In 2012, she was guest professor for gender and postcolonial studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Life

Grada Kilomba was born in Lisbon and is of African descent (São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola). In Lisbon, she studied clinical psychology and psychoanalysis at the Instituto de Psicologia Aplicada (ISPA). While practicing as a psychologist in Portugal, she worked in psychiatry with war-traumatised people from Angola and Mozambique and initiated various artistic and therapeutic projects on trauma and memory as well as on the work of Frantz Fanon. Grada Kilomba received a scholarship from the Heinrich Böll Foundation to pursue her PhD, which she completed in 2008 at the Free University of Berlin where she also worked as a guest lecturer.

From 2009 to 2010, she was a fellow at the Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. In subsequent years, she taught post-colonial studies, psychoanalysis, and the work of Frantz Fanon at various universities, including the Free University of Berlin, Bielefeld University, and the University of Ghana.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Grada Kilomba” as portuguese university teacher, psychologist and artist (born 1968). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2012, 2008, 2009, 2010—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1968-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Grada, Kilomba and Portuguese can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as portuguese university teacher, psychologist and artist (born 1968). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15685593. VIAF identifies the subject as 80991495. The Library of Congress control number is no2010053808. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Grada Kilomba”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Grada Kilomba primary sources, Grada Kilomba archive and Grada research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Grada Kilomba”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Grada Kilomba” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.