II Annual Cycle Young Social Scientists
2006-2007

Scientific coordination: Marta Araújo, José Manuel Mendes and Marisa Matias

CONFERENCES

OCTOBER 18th, 2006
Teresa Cardoso (University of Aveiro)
Verbal Interaction in Portuguese pedagogical context: on paths of action and reflection in language didactics
Commentary: Manuela Guilherme and Olga Solovova

Abstract
This paper presents a specific view on verbal interaction, theme that has been privileged in several scientific areas, namely in language didactics. Setting forth from this approach, paths of action and reflection regarding that thematic shall be explored, incurring on the courses outlined in the Portuguese pedagogical context, particularly in situations of native and foreign language lessons. Therefore, in the short meta-analytical course that seeks to portray this knowledge, features of general characterization and theoretical and methodological framing shall be stressed. Articulating, yet, the respective contributions and implications, of which potentialities are interpreted.
Finally, the main traits perspectivated of this study field shall be recovered, in an attempt of anticipating some future developments.

Biographic note
Teresa Cardoso holds a Degree in Modern Languages and Literatures, variant French and English Studies, at the School of Arts and Humanities University of Coimbra. She was PhD grantee at the foundation for Science and Technology under scientific guidance of Professor Isabel Alarcão, at the Department of didactics and Educative Technology, University of Aveiro. In this capacity, she integrated the Open Laboratory for the Learning of Foreign Languages and the Centre for Didactic Research and Technology in Educational Trainers Training. Among her areas of scientific interest we emphasize verbal interaction, language learning and teacher educational training, representations of languages (especially in the mass media), intercultural communication and plurilanguage competence.

NOVEMBER 15th, 2006
Miguel Cardina (University of Coimbra)
Student Movements during the Estado Novo crisis: myths and realities
Commentary: Rui Bebiano and Alexandra Silva

Abstract
Based on a historic research, this presentation draws upon a portrait of the continuities and ruptures that may be detected in the practises, discourses and representations of student movements in Portugal during the 60’s and 70’s. Simultaneously, it alerts towards the persistence of some common-places that, presently imposing themselves in the collective memory, difficult a more complete comprehension of the vast process of political and cultural dissidence that, at the time, crossed over student territories.

Biographic note
Presently working on his doctoral degree, with a grant sponsored by the Foundation for Science and Technology, focusing on the construction of the radical left in the decline of the Estado Novo.  Holds a Masters in History of Ideologies and Contemporary Utopias, at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra (FLUC), with a dissertation intituled “The Politization of Coimbra’s Student May during the Marcelismo”. Degree in Philosophy at FLUC. Published ”Tradição, Sociabilidades, compromisso: mutações na auto-imagem estudantil durante o período final do Estado Novo” (Vértice. Nº 123, July-August, 2005). Shortly out will be “A Tradição da Contestação, Resistência Estudantil em Coimbra nos finais do Estado Novo” (temporary title).

DECEMBER 14th, 2006
Ricardo Roque (University of Azores)
Histories of skulls and the problem of anthropological classification in Timor
Commentary: João Arriscado Nunes and Oriana Raínho Brás

Abstract
Thousands of human skulls are presently in the possession of anthropological museums. The origin of these collections can be retraced mainly to the second half of the XIX century, when the study of collections of human skulls was acquiring centrality in the uprising discipline of anthropology. The skull was at the time seen as the main empirical basis in order to confront similitudes and differences between human type, opening way to the project of taxonomy of races. It was in this context that in 1882 the University of Coimbra received a collection of human skulls from the island of Timor. I the framework of the recently created course in anthropology, the skulls were object of a craniometrist study that drew conclusions as regards to the ‘Papua’ race of the Timorese peoples. The ethnological position of Timor was a difficult problem on which no agreement existed between the researchers. In Portugal, during the 1930’s, the study would motivate a lively controversy on the authenticity of the collection and anthropological classification of Timor. This paper researches this episode, exploring the interaction between the narration of histories of skulls and the order of anthropological classification of human races. The purpose is to discuss the role of practises of retrospection, of short histories, and of the archives associated to museum collections in the constitution of scientific knowledge.

Biographic note
With a degree in Sociology, Ricardo Roque holds a Masters Degree in Historical Sociology at the Universidade Nova of Lisbon. He is Professor in the area of social sciences at the Department of History, Philosophy and Social Sciences, University of Azores. Presently, he is finalizing his doctoral degree in History at Cambridge University (Untied Kingdom). His thesis shall constitute a study on colonialism and anthropology in Timor, from the analysis of human skull circulation at the end of the 19th century. Author of Antroplogia e império: Fonseca Cardoso e a expedição à Índia em 1895 (Lisbon, Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2001) and co-organizer of Objectos Impuros: experiências em estudos sobre ciência (Porto, Afrontamento, in print).

JANUARY 17th, 2007
Ricardo Cardoso (university of Porto)
Who am I, territory planer? Insurgent Practises in planning
Commentary: Carlos Fortuna and Carina Gomes

Abstract
Territory planning and urban development, as an activity with a vast transforming potential, may have deep repercussions in the future of society. Therefore, it is important to reflect on the discipline, particularly the role of planning professionals as transforming agents with a broad range of capacities and powers. Drawing a critical analysis on the evolution of thought in the planning area, the paper seeks to stress the importance of reflective and insurgent action in the context of capitalist political economy.

Biographic note
With a degree in civil Engineering with specification in Territorial Planning and Environment, at School of Engineering, University of Porto, Ricardo Cardoso holds a Masters in Urban Development Planning at the Development Planning Unit (University College London), with a final dissertation intituled ‘Context and power in contemporary planning: towards reflexive planning analytics’. Presently he is a researcher at the Centre for Territory, Transports and Environment Research, University of Porto, where he integrates a project that has as main aim the study of social justice issues in the Portuguese system of territorial planning.

FEBRUARY 13th, 2007
Joana Passos ((University of Minho)
The symbolic ambivalence of Goa in the mythification of Portuguese imperial identity
Commentary: António Sousa Ribeiro and Paula Medeiros

Abstract
The symbolic ambivalence of Goa has always been present in the manner by which various authors have represented it. These different visions constitute a memory archive that the X century inherited, crystallizing the posterior decadence (the time when Goa was wilderness than city) as its stronger image, the more current association. Nonetheless, Goa evokes a first moment of glory and national realization, marking the beginning of the creation of a Portuguese colonial empire. Thus, at different moments, Goa contains in itself the myth of the Golden age, a primordially perfect age that rewards the Portuguese of “long work”, and, at the same time, invokes an inhospitable semantic field, of falsity or decadence.
Goa has a specific place in the imperial imaginary, not as object of great administrative investments or great economic goal (successively substituted Brazil and by Angola), but because it was the beginning of it all, it is the key of historical Legitimation that Portugal, in the 19th century, grabs in order to compensate the incapacity of adapting itself to modernity and to and international capitalist order.
Through the study of indo-Portuguese literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, this research seeks to revisit Goa’s cultural life, contributing, hence towards the making of the complex map of existences and ideologies that the empire brought to Portuguese culture and to the comprehension of our historic past and our collective identity. Still presented is the context of the development of a indo-Portuguese literature in the 19th century through the discussion of some excerpts of two Feuilletons there published: the first set of excerpts shall be retrieved from “Traição”, by Frederico Gonçalves, published in the literary newspaper “Ilustração Goana” in 1864. The second set of citations is of “Jacob e Dulce” by Francisco João da Costa, also known by the pen name GIP, text published as a novel, but that firstly appeared as a Feuilleton, in the pages of the newspaper “O Ultramar”, in 1896.

MARCH 7th, 2007
Pedro Adão e Silva (European University Institute of Florence)
The Europeization of Social Policies
Commentary: Pedro Hespanha and Vanda Pacheco

Abstract
The European social model is frequently mobilized in public and political discourse as differentiating characteristic of European space. In some cases, its existence is seen as a comparative advantage of Europe, in others, cause of immobility and incapacity of adaptation of European political economies.  In this presentation I shall seek reflection on this issue, firstly by describing the distinctive elements of social policy in Europe, as well as the differences between member-States. Afterwards, and setting forth from a more sceptical vision regarding the real impact of the dimension of European social policy in the domestic political repertoire, discussing the mechanisms through which Europe may be seen as an independent  variable in order to explain the transformations of national based welfare States.
Parting from the concepts of Europeization and of “goodness of fit” and of “misfit”, I shall seek to describe, on one hand, which are the conditions necessary in order a determinate “instrument” of European policy may provoke adaptive pressures in the political repertoire of member-States, and, on the other, which are the intermediation variables that explain that in some cases the European “norm” be more strongly internalized than in others. Subsequently, I shall describe the main characteristics of the various pillars in which European social policy presently settles on, as well as the manner in which they interline and variate between sub-fields of social policy. I shall conclude the presentation with some examples of how, in the Portuguese case the European social policies promoted a change and/or adjustments or, on the contrary, had a very reduced impact.

Biographic note

APRIL 18th, 2007
Gina Gaio Santos (University of Minho)
Gender, careers and the relation between labour and family: a management perspective
Commentary: Virgínia Ferreira and Mónica Lopes

Abstract
The traditional career models (Schein, 1978; Super, 1957) have systematically ignored the importance of the relation between labour and family. Nonetheless, these models, centred in career stages, have come to be questioned given its obvious limitations: an excessive centrality in masculine professional experiences and the ignoring of the importance household and personal life of individuals. This research defends the necessity of incorporating in career analysis whether feminine labour experiences, whether masculine labour experiences, and conferring to the concept of career a more broaden definition, susceptible of taking in consideration household life of individuals. The empirical study conducted with a population of scholars from Portuguese public universities, and destined to assess the manner by which the interface between labour and family is lived by those, points toward the existence of two types of distinct discourses: the discourse of complementarity and that of subordination of roles. The results reveal, yet, that the notion of career stages, but mainly the household life cycle and experiences of parenthood and consortion are two important dimensions to be taken in consideration in the outlining of the development of academic careers. The conception of future career models must take in account the household life of individuals and gender differences, pointing towards a vision more and more personalized and less standardized of careers.

Biographic note
Gina Gaio dos Santos is Fellow at the School of Economics and Management, University of Minho. She holds a degree in sociology at the School of Economics, University of Coimbra, and holds a Masters Degree in Human Resource Management at the School of Economics and Management, University of Minho. Presently she is frequenting the doctoral programme in Business Sciences (branch Political and Business Organizations) at the School of Economics and Management, University of Minho.

MAY 16th, 2007
Fernanda Bessa Ribeiro (UTAD)
Between hammers and blades: na ethnography of the Dynamics of capitalism in Mozambique
Commentary: Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Hugo Dias

Abstract
The paper deals with the discussion of the dynamics of capitalism in Mozambique parting from the implantation and trajectory of the cashew industry. Born during the colonial period, this industry expresses a concrete mode of Mozambique’s integration in the world-economy, through the exploration of local labour force and natural resources in the production of commodities destined to the main markets of central countries. The ethnography based on field labour mainly carried out in the district of Manjacaze (Gaza province), where, in different historical periods, two cashew nut processing factories established themselves, also examines the effects of this integration dependent of the global capitalist system. It is an ethnography that breaks away from the classic canons. Instead of focusing on the study of an apparently isolated community and place, what was chosen was an ethnography plurilocalized capable of facilitating the detailed description of the contexts and social actors observed in different spaces. This strategy facilitated the access to a deep comprehension of Mozambique’s trajectory, made of approximations and withdrawals concerning world-economy and even the world system. Rejecting deterministic readings, sometimes almost fatalist, as well as culturalist, a-historical and centred on will and liberty, falsely unlimited, approaches of social actors acting on structures, we shall scrutinize the problems and challenges that the global capitalist system imposes on Africans in this beginning of millennium.

 Biographic note
Fernando Bessa is associate professor at the Department of Economics and Sociology, University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), Researcher at the Centre for Transdisciplinary Studies for Development (UTAD) and associate researcher at the Sociology Studies Research Group (University of Minho).

JUNE 25TH, 2007
Nelson Dias (University of Algarve)
Is another democracy possible? The Participatory Budget experience
Commentary: Giovanni Allegretti and Madalena Duarte

Abstract
Democracy lives today at the centre of a troubled set of relations of strength and antagonist powers. The process of universalising the principles and rules of liberal democracy contrasts with the crisis of political representation presently experienced. The high abstention rates faced by many countries of the world during elections, allows realizing that representative democracy has ceased to be mobilizing for an enormous strand of the population. The broad political and social struggles of the past, by democratizing vote, are today confronted with a situation of subusage of that right.
Faced with such a context Participatory Budget experiences (PB) gain significant relevance. In less than 20 years, the PB transformed itself in a debate thematic interesting to wide sectors of society, interpellating governing action, the sense of political participation and even democracy. In this sense, it is important to better comprehend the dynamics of such processes, namely the conditions necessary towards its creation and consolidation, as well as its potentialities and limits concerning the construction of a more locally participative democracy. 
   

Biographic note
Nelson Dias holds a Degree in Sociology (ISCTE), is Post-graduated in Planning and Assessment of Development Processes, and is presently concluding his Masters dissertation (ISCTE). He is chair-member of the Association In Loco (Algarve) and lecturer of Sociology at the University of Algarve.