Landscapes, paradigms, futures: what challenges for the territorial question?

Abstract

Based on three case studies developed on a local scale over a period of 30 years, this text aims to question some of the transformations that Portugal has undergone since it joined the European Economic Community. The aim is to identify the intentions and then the adaptations that people have developed in the face of certain quite radical changes to the landscape. The contexts studied emphasise different ways of adjusting and show what societies are sometimes capable of doing in order not to lose what they have, because they have no certainty of gaining from the global policies defined. From Alto Minho to the Atlantic coast, via the Alentejo, the anthropological approach and long-term fieldwork were favoured.