| Summary: |
The major transformation trends in Portuguese society over the last three decades of democratic regime, and almost two decades after joining the European Union, have been intensively studied.
One of those trends refers to transformations in rural areas, both in inland peripheral regions and in the metropolitan areas. Intensification of pendular migrations, the new patterns of industrialization and the growth of employment in the tertiary activities within the major urban areas, led to changes in the physical and social configurations of local communities.
An analysis of the restructuring profiles of those communities in their multiple economic-demographic, political and ideological-cultural dimensions and their relationship with the structural changes that took place within Portuguese society constitutes the main objective of this project.
Our research will be centred on a community located in Northwest Portugal (Fonte Arcada, municipality of Penafiel), which was object of a detailed sociological analysis at the end of the 1970s. |