Emigrants and peasants: a sociological survey

Abstract

The author presents a survey of sociological literature for a deeper understanding of «the peasants» and «the migrants» under the presupposition that there are «masks of silence» either in literature or in the Portuguese contemporary social history and political economy; despite the theoretical overview presented in the article, the author wishes to emphasise the importance of in-depth empirical village level studies for only through these can the social reality of rural Portugal be adequately appreciated, and the theoretical generalisations attain any validity.