From the Regime Ethnologists to the Democratic Generation: Histories of Portuguese Anthropology

Portugal is considered marginal in relation to the European scene. And yet it was in this country, thirty years ago, that European anthropology began to think of and formally constitute itself as such. This chapter presents a historical overview of the evolution of the various traditions of anthropology in Portugal from the end of the nineteenth century, the period of disciplinary consolidation, to the present. The discussion of the main theoretical and methodological perspectives is reflected in the events of a country undergoing transformation. The proposed path—dialoguing with different histories, traditions and schools of thought—entails multiple stages, from the move to study popular culture in order to consolidate national identity to anthropology’s role in constructing the colonial empire, from disciplinary revitalisation in the years of democratic transition to the present, a moment characterised by processes of internationalisation and crisis.