Cristina Nogueira da Silva is Full Professor of the NOVA School of Law (NSL) and a researcher of the CEDIS and of the Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS-UL). She graduated in History at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa and received her MA in Social Sciences from ICS-UL in 1997. During this period, she was part of a research team on institutional and legal history at Instituto de Ciências Sociais of Universidade de Lisboa. In 1998 she joined NSL, where she obtained her PhD in History of Law. In 2023 she received her Aggregation in Analysis of the Law.

Her key areas of focus is the political construction of territory, as evidenced by her book 'O Modelo Espacial do Estado Moderno' (1998), which originated from her MA studies and explores how the changing political culture of the 18th century challenged early modern conceptions of ordered spaces. She also published 'A Construção jurídica dos territórios ultramarinos portugueses no século XIX' (2017), which examines the legal constitution of Asian and African territories under Portuguese sovereignty in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, during a fellowship on the 'Portugal Moderno' project, she led the collection of extensive data on early modern Portuguese territory, which is now available at CIDEHUS Digital (https://www.cidehusdigital.uevora.pt/ophir-restaurada/corografia).

Other topics of her research are nineteenth century liberal political culture(s), imperial citizenship and constitutionalism and legal dimensions of colonialism in America, Africa and Asia. During her PhD studies she analysed 20th century colonial legal doctrine and its arguments in favour of racial criteria concerning access to citizenship in the Portuguese Empire. Anchored in critics against 19th century universalist and colour-blind legal principles aiming at normalizing racialized colonialism, those arguments turned her attention to the earlier liberal constitutional debates surrounding the legal status of people and territories in America, Africa, and Asia. In the book ‘Constitucionalismo e Império’ (2009) she demonstrated how 20th century colonial discourses silenced the voices and agency of colonial subjects and were driven by misconceptions about 19th-century legal approaches to imperial citizenship. She also called attention to the role played by local elites of native origin in the construction of citizenship categories and in legal classifications of overseas territories and peoples.

Later, following her earlier experience as member of research projects with lasting international impact, she developed her studies on colonial legal experiences by constituting interdisciplinary teams as Co-Principal Investigator and as Principal Investigator of a set of Scientific Projects. Within this framework she have also coordinated databases of digitalized legal doctrine from the 19th and 20th centuries and on colonial legislation from the 15th to the 20th centuries, making these resources researchable to the broad public.

Presently, her scientific research focus, as demonstrated in this CV and in the Scientific and Pedagogic Projects required in the Notice no. 535/2024, is on the role of law in the construction of power relations and inequality in colonial situations, with the aim of making a social impact regarding the recognition of colonial legacies in European and non-European post-colonial societies. She is committed to promoting these objectives while preserving accurate collective memory.

She has also kept a deep commitment to nurturing the strengths of NSL community by serving in leadership positions such as Vice-President of the Scientific Council since 2021 and board member and interim Director of CEDIS, or by participating in its Pedagogical Council (2009-2018) and in approximately 16 NSL working groups. In 2021 she was elected to the NOVA University's General Council.