Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Can Law Be Emancipatory?
After defining the historical and political background of the title question, this text analyzes the current situation and then addresses the conditions that warrant a cautiously affirmative answer to this question. The conclusion specifies some of the areas in which the relation between law and social emancipation appears to be more urgently necessary and possible.

João Pedroso
Catarina Trincão
João Paulo Dias

Justice at Hand? Transformations in the Access to Law and Justice
The authors present a summary of the research on access to law and justice which was carried out in the context of the Permanent Observatory of Portuguese Justice. They begin by analyzing the evolution of the systems of promotion of access to law and justice, from the hey-day to the decline of the Welfare State, including legal aid to the poor, the protection of public interest, and alternative dispute resolution. After a brief analysis of the recent action of the European Union and the Council of Europe, the text addresses the transformations in the access to law and justice in France, England, and Spain, and focuses on the evolution of the regime of legal aid in Portugal. Finally, the text discusses the impact of the recent reforms in the regime of legal aid and the action of the network of public and private entities that provide information, legal counseling, and legal representation in Portugal.

Catarina Frade

Alternative Dispute Resolution and Access to Justice: The Mediation of Over-Indebtedness
The consolidation of the forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the context of a system strongly marked by the supremacy of the courts as conciliatory mechanisms in social conflictuality is one of the dynamics that pervades the current systems of justice administration. The aim of this text is to understand the value of ADR in the construction of the right to access to justice, and, for this purpose, the author gives a special emphasis to mediation as a procedure that is capable of giving an effective response to emerging conflicts involving family indebtedtness.

João Arriscado Nunes
Marisa Matias

Scientific Controversy and Environmental Conflicts in Portugal: The Case of the Co-incineration of Dangerous Industrial Waste
The scientific controversy around the treatment and disposal of dangerous industrial waste in Portugal is an exemplary case of the problematic relations between science and society and between technology and democracy. In this article, the authors provide a "thick description" of the conflict around co-incineration in Souselas and an analysis of the modes of definition of the agonistic spaces in which the participants in this conflict confront one another. They also seek to analyze the emergence, on both sides, of collective actors whose identity was a result of the confrontation itself and the alignments that it gave rise to. They point to the characteristics of a process which, because of its intensity, the range of actors involved, and the repertory of forms of political intervention and collective action, appears as an especially interesting manifestation of the modes of articulation of scientific controversy and political conflict in the area of the environment.

Elisabete Figueiredo
Teresa Fidélis

"Not in my backyard!" Contributions Towards an Analysis of Grassroots Environmental Movements in Portugal (1974-1994)
The main purpose of this text is to provide an overview of grassroots environmental action in Portugal between 1974 and 1994, taking into account the principal contours of grassroots movements, as well as their articulation with the more global features of Portuguese society in what concerns environmental questions and their relation with the social, political, and economic context of the country in these two decades. Although these movements can be understood as a direct result of the changes that occurred in the country in this period, they are essentially characterized by a Nimby ("Not In My Backyard") reaction, as is made particularly clear by the limited geographical and temporal ambit of the protests that were made, by the emphasis on the defense of private and/or local interests, and also by the lack of continuity of the actions or the failure to extend them to broader environmental issues.

Jacinta Maria Matos

V. S. Naipaul's (Post)Imperial Education
The article discusses several meanings of the word "education" that have a particular relevance to V. S. Naipaul's career as a writer. It refers briefly to the typical colonial education he received in Trinidad, and the ways in which it turned him into both a "good" and a "bad colonial". It then goes on to discuss how Naipaul came to feel the need to educate himself for a postcolonial world, and how he had to learn to cope with the deterritorialized, hybrid condition of the postcolonial subject. Finally, it is suggested that the "areas of darkness" that Naipaul elected as the main theme of his writing is the space where he deliberately built his discourse and the "zone of interdiction" which was meant to exist between colonizer and colonized is the "no-man's land" that he inhabits.