Volume: 8  Number: 1  Page: 36–49  doi:10.2167/laic266.0

Migration, Culture and Identity in Portugal

Ricardo Vieira and José Trindade Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Leiria, Portugal

Culture and identity are dynamic realities. Therefore, the essentialist view of culture and identity does not explain the process of integration of minorities in a context of acculturation, and leads to policies of ghettoisation. This text focuses on what we describe as cultural transfusion. By means of this process, we analyse two tendencies in personal identity: the first tendency, among professionals, integrates the culture of origin into the emerging cultural identity; the second denies the culture of origin and idealises the target culture as its aim in life. The most representative minorities in Portugal originate from the former colonies, Angola, Cabo Verde, Mozambique, East Timor, Macaw, Brazil and St. Tomé, and the immigrants from Eastern Europe that came to Portugal in the 1980s. We also describe the cultural and ethnic diversity of Portuguese society and show how nationalist ideology, imperialist ideals and the ‘Luso-tropical’ theory of Gilberto Freyre shaped the ‘soft-racism’ of the Portuguese. Furthermore, we give account of the recent trends of migration from Eastern Europe to Portugal, and try to explain Portuguese policy towards immigration after joining the European Union.

Keywords: Acculturation, cultural transfusion, culture, ghettoisation, identity, immigration

© 2008 R. Vieira & J. Trindade

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