António Sousa Ribeiro

Cartographies of Non-space: Journeys to the End of the World in the Literature of the Holocaust (p. 5-18)
Beginning with a preliminary reflection on the concept of ‘fluid cartography’, this article addresses the topos of the journey in the literature of the Holocaust. The article analyses three novels, by Jorge Semprun, Albert Drach and H.G. Adler, and concludes that the radical inversion of one of the central topoi of modernity in these works points to modes of representing space which bear paradigmatic witness to the prevalence of frontiers which it is impossible to cross.

Ricardo Antunes

Profiling the New Morphology of Work: The Multiple Forms Whereby Work Has Been Debased (p. 19-34)
This article presents a number of empirical and analytical elements which configure what the author terms the new morphology of work. In opposition to the theses which advocated the end of work or envisaged its deconstruction and loss of centrality, the author sets out to understand the new modalities of work emerging in today’s world, whose most visible trait is their multifaceted profile, the result of the strong mutations which have affected production and services over the past decades. The article highlights the consequences of these distinct forms of work in the IT era; their pendular movement, which swings at times towards continuity, at others towards superfluidity; and analyses the meanings of the amplification of immaterial work in the world of de promotion touristique, circucapital, pointing out some of its consequences in the law of value.

Rogério Proença Leite

Localising Public Space: Gentrification and Urban Culture (p. 35-54)
This article discusses the notion of public space based on a case study on policies of urban regeneration and gentrification in Recife, Brazil. Taking the case study as a point of departure, the author problematises the way in which uses of (urban) space entail conflicting conceptions and different practices of relating to public space, with special emphasis on the tensions emerging from the re-significations brought about by regeneration processes. Analysis of this case, centred on the diverse and conflicting ways in which, in this context, public space becomes a space for communication and citizenship, underpins a theoretical discussion hinging on the notion of public space, problematised in its twofold sense: that of public sphere for communication and participation, and of physical space affording public access and use.

Carina Sousa Gomes

Images and Narratives of Coimbra as a Tourist Destination: Between the Real Town and the (Re)imagined Town (p. 55-78)
At a time when we witness growing tourist fascination for towns and cities, this article seeks to understand how Coimbra presents itself to the outside world, to tourists and visitors. With the historical and monumental town having become one of the main attractions of our time, this article picks up on the tourist promotional materials circulating in Portugal and abroad to address how Coimbra’s urban resources are transformed into tourist-appeal factors.
Because towns and cities are also sites of the imagination and of representation, this article discusses the notion of image in respect of marketing and advertising operations developed with a view to promoting tourism. Its main goal is to unveil the (re)imagined town: that which, through the work of symbolic translation carried out by promoters and mediators, circulates among the tourist-destination markets – unveiling also the approximations and distances between the tourist’s town and the real town.

Ana Delicado

Microscopes, White Gowns and Test Tubes: Representations of Science in Scientific Exhibitions (p. 79-98)
Exhibitions created by science museums do not confine themselves to conveying knowledge to the public, they construct and disseminate given representations of scientific practice designed to promote positive attitudes to science. This article sets out to analyse the images of science put on display by such exhibitions, notably representations of scientists, of instruments and procedures, of laboratory and field work. It concludes by discussing the relevance of showing museum visitors “exactly how science is done.”

Leonor Lima Torres
José Augusto Palhares

Culture, Training and Learning in Organisational Contexts (p. 99-120)
From the more technocratically and managerially inclined currents to perspectives imbued with a more critical bent, focus on the symbolic domains of organisations appears as a common denominator, a kind of backdrop which maps out and defines the potentialities and the limits of the strategic development of work organisations. Starting from a critical and reflective focus on the problematics of human resources, this article discusses the importance of the processes of non-school learning (non-formal and informal) for the construction of multiple cultural forms of learning and for the sedimentation of organisational cultures and identities. The crossing of these two areas of study offers up new pathways at the level of organisational action, notably in the area of strategies and training modalities and adult learning, in the socialisation and integration of actors, in the spheres of communication and the new technologies, in redefining professional profiles and performances, among many other strategic areas of organisational intervention.

Sara Araújo

Legal Pluralism in Africa: Fiction or Reality? (p. 121-139)
If it is widely accepted today that legal pluralism tends to be present in every society, several specificities confer distinctive contours on the debate of this issue in the African context. In a continent deeply marked by the experience of colonial domination, a reading which conceives of customary rights, not as normative rules which survived in a parallel dimension to colonial law, but as an imposition of colonialism, designed to control and exploit the population – such a reading has stoked an intense debate on the quality of contemporary legal pluralism. This article discusses whether legal pluralism in post-colonial Africa is a fiction, alien to its citizens, fabricated as part of the colonial ideology of indirect rule, or whether it is a legitimate reality which tends to contribute towards promoting access to justice.

Ana Cristina Costa
João Rodrigues

The Commensurability-Commodification Nexus and the Limitations of Cost-Benefit Analysis as a Guide for Public Action (p. 141-163)
This article sets out to scrutinise the theoretical assumptions and the practical implications of cost-benefit analysis (CBA), currently one of the most influential and controversial instruments used in evaluating public policies offered by economic science. The point of departure is what the authors term the commensurability-commodification nexus which, as they seek to demonstrate, structures the discourse and the policy recommendations of CBA. By commensurability-commodification nexus they mean the association between the defence of commensurability, i.e. the idea that it is always possible and desirable to reduce the different dimensions of the value of goods to an identical measure, to which a price can be attached, and the defence of extending market mechanisms to other spheres of social life. Rational choice theory is the mainstay of CBA, a mainstay whose shortcomings are not always clear when debating the merits and demerits of this instrument in the analysis of individuals’ behaviour.

José Guadalupe Gandarilla Salgado

Towards an Alternative knowledge of Alternatives (p. 165-189)
Engaging with the work of Boaventura de Sousa Santos, this article goes on to discuss
the pertinence and the possibilities for development of forms of thought posing an alternative to the modes of social and political knowledge of the world which held a position of dominance and hegemony within Western modernity.