“What force is this?”.Dualism, domination, inequality and accelerated social recompositions in the sociological understanding of contemporary Portuguese social structure

Abstract

The publication, in 1964, in the pages of the journal Análise Social, of “Portugal, sociedade dualista em evolução”, by Adérito Sedas Nunes, is seen as an inaugural milestone in systematic sociological research into Portuguese social structure. This text seeks to reconstitute the dualist sociological argument contained in the article, the path of in-depth research into the Portuguese social structure to which it invited and the realisation of such a path, within a paradigmatic framework, progressively defined around domination and inequalities, which the constitution of a disciplinary field in the field of sociology has guaranteed.