Title  Social mobility, identity and values: the return of emigrants in Minho
Author  Magna Daniela Coelho Azevedo
Supervisor  Rita Ribeiro
Year  2010
Institution  Universidade do Minho
Degree  Master
Area  Sociology with a specialization in community policies and territorial cooperation
URI  http://hdl.handle.net/1822/41745

Abstract

This thesis integrates the inter-universities and international Master course in Communitarian Policies and Territorial Cooperation of the Sociology Department of the Institute for Social Sciences and the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the Economy and Management Faculty of the University of Minho. This research was developed within my cooperation with the Emigration Office in Amares. The thesis consisted of an approach to Portuguese emigration to Europe since the 1950‟s. It aims to understand up to which extent the emigrational experience influences the representations of social mobility, identity and values of emigrants at the moment they arrive in their homeland, in this case Minho. The thesis is organized in two parts and divided into three chapters. In the first part, theoretical perspectives of analysis are sketched through bibliographic revision, in order to build a conceptual framework around the object of the study, which is centred in emigration. The second part integrates the methodological and empirical procedures around which the research was carried out. The first chapter discusses fundamental concepts as an historical, economical and political approach of emigration to Europe after de 1960‟s: social mobility, cultural identity and individual identity; values; family and emigration in Minho; Portuguese communities; new language, new culture, new citizenship challenges and the return of emigrants (in Minho). The second chapter explains the methodology which was used in the study and the purpose of its choice. The third chapter focuses on the perspectives of the actors and is based on a dialogical analysis of the theoretical framework as well as the empirical context of the research. Finally, the study presents its main conclusions, articulating the theoretical and empirical focal points, in order to systematize the patterns that emerge from the discourses of the interviewees.