Academic literature on the topic 'Portuguese rural society'

The 6th Iberian Seminar on Rural Studies was hosted during February 23rd-24th in the International University of Andalusia at Santa Maria de la Rábida (Huelva). The Seminar was organised by the Spanish Association of Agricultural Economics (AEEA) and the Portuguese Society of Rural Studies (SPER). The present note presents a summary of the main contents debated in the Seminar.

Like other European regimes, the Portuguese Estado Novo (1933-1974) implemented an agricultural colonisation policy that, influenced by the ideals of modernism and neo-Physiocracy, aimed at economic development, social pacification and the fostering of national identities, resulting in the settlement and populating of modern rural landscapes. However, the Portuguese regime coped with an enduring financial crisis, and relied on an official nationalism built upon a conservative-traditional society under the union of God, fatherland, work and family. Unsurprisingly, Portuguese inner colonisation was comparatively small-scale, aimed at converting farmhands into rural homeowners, and its modernising experiments had limited impact on the landscape. However, landscape and place are not passive concepts. They concurrently build and are built by political and economic agencies, social negotiations, embodied experiences, plural meanings and affections. Looking into primary sources and the outcomes of a micro-ethnography in Boalhosa, this paper intersects official-written history and emotional-sensory memory to illustrate consistencies and dissonances between political and social actors’ representations of the Portuguese inner colonisation. Based on exploratory observations in Boalhosa, it argues that while the lack of political assertiveness may have curtailed the Portuguese project, it also favoured its social appropriation by local communities and economies within a contextualised historical spatial continuum.

This study aimed to analyze the main adjustment difficulties encountered by temporary immigrants and to identify the ways in which organizations received them and implemented integration strategies. Using a sample of three human resource managers, six supervisors and 50 immigrants of varying nationalities, the results revealed that although immigrants claimed to feel largely integrated in the new society and the organizations where they worked, the supervisors argued that integration and adjustment practices directed at immigrant workers were almost non-existent. The practices carried out by the organizations were primarily related to the work aspect, alongside a degree of support with bureaucratic issues and in some cases the provision of Portuguese language courses. Studies on rural immigrants are scarce, especially with regard to organizational integration practices. Managing a diverse workforce is one of the great challenges of modern organizations, hence immigrant workers’ integration is critical not only for the individuals themselves but also for the performance and success of the companies as a whole.

Bullfighting is a controversial sport that continues to be legally permitted in a number of countries around the world, including Portugal. The spectacle has attracted significant attention from animal protectionist groups for many years because of concerns for animal distress, pain, and suffering during the fights. While there has been strong support for the sport in Portugal in the past, there is a need to study social profiles regarding the acceptability of this sport before a case can be made for changes in regional and national legislation. In this study, Portuguese attendance patterns at bullfights were assessed in addition to public opinions on welfare and ethical aspects of bullfighting, based on demographic variables. Study participants (n = 8248) were largely recruited through Portuguese social media channels (respondents may not be representative of the Portuguese population). Questionnaire data were evaluated by means of frequency tables, multiple correspondence analyses, and a two-step cluster analysis. Most respondents had a negative opinion about bullfighting and perceived that bullfighting had no positive impact on the country. However, while most respondents thought that the bull suffered during bullfighting, the opinion regarding banning bullfighting was far from unanimous. Based on the demographic analysis, the profile of individuals with more favorable responses towards bullfighting were men > 65 years old, of Roman Catholic faith, of low- or high-income levels, from more rural areas of Portugal. Somewhat surprisingly, there was a tendency to favor bullfighting amongst veterinary professionals. We conclude that there were still large pockets of individuals who desire to maintain the practice of traditional bullfighting within Portuguese society, despite recognition of animal suffering during the event.

We propose a reflection about the theme of slavery, from the study of the archives of an important businessman in the city of Larsa, in the south Mesopotamian, named Ubar-Šamaš, during the reign of King Rîm-Sîn (1822-1763 BCE). This merchant exercised relevant economic activities, such as buying and selling land in urban and rural areas, silver loans and slave trade. In paleobabylonian society, slave labor did not occupy an important role in the economy, and the conditions of the trade of servantswere directly linked to political conditions, such as war and its economic and social consequences. Another objective of this article is to offer Brazilian readers research sources for the study of economic history of the ancient world, from the translation of documents directly from Akkadian language and cuneiform writing into Portuguese.

The dissonance between what teenagers learn in classrooms and their everyday lives is not a recent phenomenon, but it is increasingly relevant as school systems are unable to follow the evolution of media and society beyond traditional concerns regarding the protection of young people. An overly scholarly view of learning continues to prevail in our society, which seems to marginalize the knowledge that young people develop with and through media and digital platforms. Based on questionnaires, workshops, and interviews conducted with Portuguese teenagers, aged 12 to 16 years old (N=78), attending an urban and a rural school in the North of the country, this paper aims to understand how these teens are learning to use the media, what motivates them, and if their media practices contribute to the acquisition of skills and competencies useful to their lives inside and outside school. The research main results confirm the existence of a gap between formal and informal education. Informal education is mainly motivated by their needs and peer influence. Colleagues and family, alongside the Internet and self-discovery, appear as important sources of knowledge. Another important conclusion is that informal learning strategies contribute to the development of skills and competencies that are useful from a school viewpoint. La disonancia entre lo que aprenden los jóvenes en clase y en su vida cotidiana no es un fenómeno reciente, pero es cada vez más relevante, ya que la escuela no es capaz, evidentemente, de acompañar la evolución. En nuestra sociedad, sigue prevaleciendo una visión demasiado escolarizada del aprendizaje, que parece marginalizar los conocimientos que los jóvenes desarrollan con y a través de los medios y de las plataformas digitales. Basado en cuestionarios, entrevistas y talleres realizados con jóvenes portugueses entre los 12 y los 16 años (N=78), de una escuela urbana y otra rural del norte del país, este artículo pretende comprender cómo están estos jóvenes aprendiendo a usar los medios, lo que les motiva y si lo que hacen con ellos contribuye a la adquisición de capacidades y competencias útiles para sus vidas dentro y fuera de la escuela. Los principales resultados de la investigación confirman la existencia de un foso entre la educación formal e informal. La educación informal es sobretodo motivada por sus necesidades y por la influencia de sus pares. Los compañeros y la familia, junto con Internet y con lo que descubren por ellos mismos, aparecen como importantes fuentes de conocimiento. También se concluyó que las estrategias informales de aprendizaje contribuyen al desarrollo de capacidades y competencias útiles desde un punto de vista escolar.

In this study we introduce a comparative analysis of the current situation in the sector of small yield agriculture in Ukraine and some countries belonging to the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, such as Portugal, Brazil, and Cape Verde, in the context of the international policies for the Strategy of Nutritional and Food Security (Estratégia de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional). We used materials from the United Nations on Food Security, secondary sources from Ukrainian, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Cape Verdean researchers on the characteristics of the sector, as well as, the results from personal experience and research during the stay in those countries. Portugal and Ukraine are both European countries, Portugal is a member European Union and Ukraine is on its way to joining. Portugal, Brazil and Cape Verde are characterized by their common history, dating back to the days of colonialism, and belong to The Community of Countries of Portuguese Language. All these countries are located in different economic-geographical zones and because of their levels of development they belong to different worlds in economy. It is noticeable, in any of them, that small rural agricultural businesses have an important role in ensuring sustainable food security. Also shared by all three is the fact that small agricultural producers suffer from being invisible to public policy, in comparison with larger industrial agriculture, taking into account the different factors from each country in particular. As such, one of the main goals of the present study is to reflect on the importance of small agriculture, or family agriculture, on providing for society and ensuring nutritional and food security in those countries. According to Ukrainian researchers, the per capita consumption of food products has significantly decreased over the past two decades, which is reflected in a steady decrease in the amount of milk and meat in the daily consumption of dietary products. This is a very important factor for the food safety of the entire population and, above all, the preservation of the health of the most vulnerable groups, including children. The Community of Countries of Portuguese Language (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa, CPLP), to which Brazil, Cape Verde and Portugal belong to, has approximately 250 million of inhabitants. It is predicted that that number will increase up to 323 million in 2050. Today, in absolute terms, and considering the CPLP as a whole, around 28 million people are malnourished. In general, from all the countries in the CPLP, Portugal is the only country free from problems having to do with food security, but the level of dependence from imports has risen in the last decade, especially of cereals (from 55.6% to 82.8%). Brazil reduced the prevalence of malnutrition to less than half, in comparison with the levels from 1990 and the dependence on imports of cereals in this country remains the lowest compared to other countries and stands at 14.2%. Cape Verde maintains a high level of dependence on imports of food products, including cereals (94.3%). It turns out that in all the countries studied it is common ground that, despite their importance for sustainable food security, small family farms do not receive the necessary support from the state authorities for their technical and technological progress, in order to produce and sell on equal conditions with large enterprises its products in competitive markets. The lack of competitiveness from national food products, which is also seen in all countries, is one of the first factors that cause the objective necessity of an innovative transformation of the field of small agricultural production.

This paper presents the results from a linguistically-oriented discourse-completion questionnaire administered in Nikkei-Brazilian (Japanese Brazilian) communities, examining in particular: (1) the use of polite language forms, (2) terms used to address one’s spouse, as well as (3) the social characteristics and cultural backgrounds of the informants (e.g., age, sex, generation, nationality, place of birth, place of residence, whether they have lived in the Colonia (i.e., rural communities originally established as exclusively Japanese settlements), where their parents come from, education, and their first language). In this paper, I argue that the use of polite language forms in Nikkei-Brazilian Japanese reflects the different social histories that the two groups identified in this study have been through. The first group consists of those who have experience of Colonia society, whose characteristic use of polite language forms includes: (a) traditional Japanese spousal address terms, such as otoo-san or otoo-chan (father) when the wife addresses her spouse, and okaa-san or okaa-chan (mother) when the husband addresses his spouse; (b) the Western Japanese dialectal polite suffixes -reru/-rareru; and (c) exalting and humbling polite language forms which indicate the relative social positions of the addressees. The second group consists of those who reside in urban areas without experience of life in the Colonia, whose characteristic use of polite language forms includes: (a) Brazilian Portuguese spousal address terms; (b) the use of polite language forms which show the speaker’s friendliness and distance-reducing; and (c) a greater use of standard polite language forms, namely -desu, -masu.

Nos últimos 80 anos Portugal sofreu profundas alterações políticas, demográficas, sociais e económicas, passando de um regime ditatorial a um sistema democrático, de uma população jovem a uma população envelhecida e de uma economia rural a uma economia de serviços. Em termos educativos evoluiu de uma educação elitista em que a escolaridade obrigatória era de três anos, para uma educação para todos, durante mais tempo, em que o tempo de permanência na escola aumentou para doze anos. O planeamento de recursos educativos nem sempre se ajustou ao quadro conceptual e legislativo e às necessidades demográficas e socioeconómicas do país, mas o mais recente financiamento comunitário (2007-2013) criou condições para dar um novo impulso ao planeamento de infraestruturas e para repensar os seus pressupostos, apresentando hoje Portugal um parque escolar mais adaptado aos desafios que caracterizam a sociedade atual. Neste trabalho, que se integra num projeto de pesquisa mais alargado, procurou-se compreender o momento atual da educação em Portugal, a partir da análise dos seus principais impulsos ao longo das últimas décadas, ilustrando a relação entre as finalidades da educação, as decisões políticas e as dinâmicas sociais e o planeamento de recursos educativos através da evolução da rede escolar ao longo deste período. Este estudo baseia-se numa pesquisa documental diacrónica, focando-se em estudos de caso de territórios de alta e baixa densidade do centro de Portugal, permitindo reunir evidências de que, apesar das orientações serem nacionais, o país nem sempre evolui à mesma velocidade, existindo uma clara interferência das diferentes dinâmicas territoriais nas opções tomadas e nos resultados alcançados.Palavras-chave: Recursos educativos. Planeamento. Resultados escolares.ABSTRACTIn the last 80 years Portugal has suffered political, demographic, social and economic changes, from a dictatorial regime to a democratic system, from a young population to an ageing population and from a rural economy to a service economy. In terms of education, it has progressed from an education for the elites, with a compulsory education period of three years, to an education for everyone and for a longer period (compulsory education of 12 years). The planning of educational resources has not always been adjusted to the conceptual and legislative framework and to the demographic and socioeconomic needs, but the recent community funding (2007-2013) has created the conditions to give a fresh impetus to the planning of infrastructures and to rethink their assumptions and Portugal now has schools which are more well adapted to the characteristics of modern Portuguese society. This project sought to understand the state of education in Portugal through the analysis of its main tendencies in recent decades, illustrating the relation between the purpose of education, political decisions and social dynamics and the planning of educational resources through the evolution of the school network. This paper is based upon a thorough diachronic documentary research, focusing on case studies of high and low density territories in Central Portugal, which led to the gathering of evidence that, despite the national guidelines, the country has not progressed at an uniform rate and there is a interference of the different territorial dynamics in the choices made and in the results achieved.Keywords: Educational resources. Planning. School results.RESUMENEn los últimos 80 años, Portugal experimentó cambios políticos, demográficos, sociales y económicos: cambió el régimen dictatorial por un sistema democrático, una población joven por una población envejecida y una economía rural por una economía de servicios. En términos educativos evolucionó desde una educación elitista, con una escolaridad obligatoria de tres años, hasta una educación para todos y durante más tiempo (escolaridad obligatoria de 12 años). El planeamiento de los recursos educativos no siempre se ajustó al marco conceptual y legislativo y a las necesidades demográficas y socioeconómicas, pero la financiación comunitaria reciente (2007-2013) creó las condiciones para dar un nuevo impulso al planeamiento de las infraestructuras y para repensar sus presupuestos, permitiendo hoy a Portugal presentar estructuras educativas más adaptadas a las normas que caracterizan a la sociedad actual. Este proyecto trató de comprender la situación de la educación en Portugal a partir del análisis de las orientaciones dominantes en las últimas décadas, ilustrando la relación entre los objetivos de la educación, las decisiones políticas y las dinámicas sociales y la planificación de los recursos educativos a través de la evolución la red escolar. Este trabajo se apoya en una pesquisa documental diacrónica exhaustiva, centrándose en estudios de caso de territorios con elevada y baja densidad poblacional del centro de Portugal, lo que permite comprobar que a pesar de que las orientaciones sean nacionales, el país no evolucionó al mismo ritmo y hay una fuerte interferencia de las diferentes dinámicas territoriales en las decisiones tomadas y los resultados obtenidos.Palabras clave: Recursos educativos. Planeamiento. Resultados escolares.

-Monika Arnez, Keith Foulcher ,Clearing a space; Postcolonial readings of modern Indonesian literature. Leiden: KITlV Press, 2002, 381 pp. [Verhandelingen 202.], Tony Day (eds) -R.H. Barnes, Thomas Reuter, The house of our ancestors; Precedence and dualism in highland Balinese society. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002, viii + 359 pp. [Verhandelingen 198.] -Freek Colombijn, Adriaan Bedner, Administrative courts in Indonesia; A socio-legal study. The Hague: Kluwer law international, 2001, xiv + 300 pp. [The London-Leiden series on law, administration and development 6.] -Manuelle Franck, Peter J.M. Nas, The Indonesian town revisited. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian studies, 2002, vi + 428 pp. [Southeast Asian dynamics.] -Hans Hägerdal, Ernst van Veen, Decay or defeat? An inquiry into the Portuguese decline in Asia 1580-1645. Leiden: Research school of Asian, African and Amerindian studies, 2000, iv + 306 pp. [Studies on overseas history, 1.] -Rens Heringa, Genevieve Duggan, Ikats of Savu; Women weaving history in eastern Indonesia. Bangkok: White Lotus, 2001, xiii + 151 pp. [Studies in the material culture of Southeast Asia 1.] -August den Hollander, Kees Groeneboer, Een vorst onder de taalgeleerden; Herman Nuebronner van der Tuuk; Afgevaardigde voor Indië van het Nederlandsch Bijbelgenootschap 1847-1873; Een bronnenpublicatie. Leiden: KITlV Uitgeverij, 2002, 965 pp. -Edwin Jurriëns, William Atkins, The politics of Southeast Asia's new media. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, xii + 235 pp. -Victor T. King, Poline Bala, Changing border and identities in the Kelabit highlands; Anthropological reflections on growing up in a Kelabit village near an international frontier. 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Amsterdam: KIT Publishers/Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 2003, 157 pp. -Sikko Visscher, Amy L. Freedman, Political participation and ethnic minorities; Chinese overseas in Malaysia, Indonesia and the United States. London: Routledge, 2000, xvi + 231 pp. -Reed L. Wadley, Mary Somers Heidhues, Golddiggers, farmers, and traders in the 'Chinese districts' of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia program, Cornell University, 2003, 309 pp. -Edwin Wieringa, Jan Parmentier ,Peper, Plancius en porselein; De reis van het schip Swarte Leeuw naar Atjeh en Bantam, 1601-1603. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2003, 237 pp. [Werken van de Linschoten-Vereeniging 101.], Karel Davids, John Everaert (eds) -Edwin Wieringa, Leonard Blussé ,Kennis en Compagnie; De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie en de moderne wetenschap. Amsterdam: Balans, 2002, 191 pp., Ilonka Ooms (eds) -Edwin Wieringa, Femme S. Gaastra, De geschiedenis van de VOC. Zutphen; Wal_burg Pers, 2002, 192 pp.

This thesis examines the impact of emigration and return migration on sending communities of northwestern Portugal. Literature about recent trends in Portuguese emigration to central Europe is reviewed. Historical, political, economic and social factors are considered "push" and "pull" forces for both emigration and return migration. I demonstrate that emigration has resulted in altering the traditional social structure. I argue there are two cohort groups, first and second generation emigrants, which have different economic interests and which must be treated differently by policy makers concerned with agriculture. This thesis also contributes to the dialogue about the World systems Paradigm by demonstrating that emigration to a "core" has long term, substantial gains for the "periphery".

Houve, em Portugal, nas últimas décadas, um forte investimento em infra-estruturas comunicacionais e a uma redução significativa das distâncias relativas que ligam os diversos pontos do país, sobretudo, o litoral ao interior. Ainda que esse progresso comunicacional tenha sido apologizado como uma forma de mitigação das dinâmicas de desertificação e do despovoamento, que acentuam as disparidades demográficas e económicas entre litoral e interior, essas tendências não se inverteram. Este estudo relaciona a questão do progresso comunicacional com essas dinâmicas de mobilidade num concelho do interior português (concelho de Mação), explorando a relação entre a evolução positiva do concelho em termos comunicacionais e as suas tendências demográficas recessivas, recorrendo a horizontes teóricos do campo da teoria da comunicação e das teorias da sociedade em rede, em particular. Foi realizado um diagnóstico da situação do concelho, com base em procedimentos de planeamento estratégico, e uma série de dez entrevistas em modelo semi-directivo a indivíduos que se deslocaram do concelho, procurando-se perceber quais as motivações da sua saída e as suas percepções sobre a sua experiência no concelho, sobre o seu desenvolvimento e a sua situação comunicacional. Os resultados indicam uma significativa mutação dos sentidos dos trajectos pessoais, do seu planeamento e dos mecanismos de construção de uma identidade pessoal e colectiva associada ao concelho. O progresso comunicacional permite uma construção identitária à distância, nos destinos de deslocação, e a diminuição da distância entre o concelho e outros espaços / oportunidades ajuda a compreender as razões da não inversão das tendências demográficas recessivas.
Portugal suffered, over the last decades, a strong investment on communicational infrastructures, with a meaningful reduction of the relative distances between various areas of the country, especially the coastal and interior ones. Even though that communicational progress has been presented as an effort to mitigate the desertification and rural flight dynamics, those weren‟t reversed. This study relates the issue of communicational progress with these dynamics on a specific area of the Portuguese interior (concelho de Mação), exploring the relationship between the positive evolution of its communicational situation with the recessive demographic tendencies, based on theoretical contributions of the communication theory and, particularly, of the network society propositions. Using strategic planning procedures, a diagnosis of the concelho‟s situation has been built, along with a group of ten semi-directive interviews to people to people who left Mação, in order to understand the motivations the led to that itineration and how they perceive their life experience on the concelho, its development and communicational evolution. The results point towards a significant change on the meaning of each personal change experience, the way it is planned, and also of the instruments that are used to built an individual and collective identity that connects these people to the concelho. The communicational progress allows the strengthening of that identity at distance, and the decrease of the distance between the concelho and other places / opportunities is an important clue to understand the reasons of the contemporary recessive demographic tendencies.