This article follows the call in decolonial research to recognise other ways of knowing. It explores a specific kind of knowledge: namely, what we describe as ‘counterhegemonic civilising discourses’, or everyday efforts by the ex-colonised to civilise the ex-coloniser. In the article, we analyse Mozambican workers’ discursive attempts to teach what they see as ‘proper’ or ‘moral’ behaviour to Portuguese bosses and managers whom they meet at workplaces in Maputo. We have chosen to discuss this transmission of knowledge as a civilisation process, and we focus on forms of knowledge that concerns knowing how to do, or practical competences. This constitutes a break with the (post-)colonial civilising mission. The ‘white man’s burden’ of civilising the unwilling colonial worker is implicitly turned on its head when Mozambicans describe their strong dislike of uneducated Portuguese people’s behaviour and their own attempts at correcting this. Research on labour relations in colonial Mozambique is extensive and established, but this article moves the focus to contemporary relations of coloniality. It brings up three different sets of counter-hegemonic civilising discourses. The first concerns language and the use of blasphemies; the second has to do with social and moral norms and values in relation to sickness and death; the third concerns civic integration or the compliance with Mozambican rules and regulations. The everyday character of these discourses is important, and we see them as emerging from people’s struggle to challenge the abyssal line separating the epistemologies of the global north and south. The delineation of these inconspicuous discourses of civilisation is our contribution to the field of decolonial studies in lusophone Africa and to post-abyssal research on ‘emergence’.

本文遵循非殖民研究的呼吁，以识别其他认知方式。它探索了一种特定的知识：即我们所说的“反霸权文明话语”，或前殖民者为使前殖民者文明化的日常努力。在文章中，我们分析了莫桑比克工人向他们在马普托工作场所遇到的葡萄牙老板和经理传授他们认为是“适当”或“道德”行为的话语尝试。我们选择将这种知识的传播作为一种文明过程来讨论，并且我们关注与知道如何做或实际能力有关的知识形式。这构成了与（后）殖民文明使命的决裂。当莫桑比克人描述他们对未受过教育的葡萄牙人的行为的强烈厌恶以及他们自己试图纠正这种行为的尝试时，让不情愿的殖民工人文明化的“白人的负担”被含蓄地转过头来。对殖民地莫桑比克劳动关系的研究是广泛而成熟的，但本文将重点转移到当代殖民关系上。它提出了三套不同的反霸权文明话语。第一个涉及语言和亵渎神明的使用；第二个与疾病和死亡有关的社会和道德规范和价值观有关；第三个涉及公民融合或遵守莫桑比克的规章制度。这些话语的日常特征很重要，我们认为它们是从人们挑战分隔全球南北认识论的深渊的斗争中出现的。对这些不起眼的文明话语的描绘是我们对葡语非洲非殖民研究领域和对“涌现”的后深渊研究的贡献。