On the peasant ideologies in Portugal: notes for a research project

Abstract

Theorical reasons and practical reasons imply that research on social classes in Portugal, namely in «rural centers», should include a study on «peasant ideologies». On the one hand, though the analysis of production relations in the rural zones may give some data essential for dividing peasants into classes (and class fractions), one cannot determine them only at the economic level: one must also place them into the whole of the ideological relations of the Portuguese social structure. On the other hand, the Portuguese revolutionary processus will have a meaning only if one takes the «(ideological) forms of consciousness» from the «rural world» for a starting-point. Thus it is in accordance with them that one must define and measure the political actions intended for transforming social relations in the country and the «forms of conciousness» associated with them.