Portugal and latin american studies : (1980-2000)

Abstract

The studies on Latin America developed in Portugal in the last 20 years have basically focused on the traditional geographical area of Brazil as a consequence of the strong historical ties between the two countries which have strong cultural and economic relations and share Portuguese as their official language. As a result, the number of studies produced on the other Latin American countries is much less in spite of the fact that Portugal has important emigrant communities in countries such as Argentina and Venezuela, or that many of the situations experienced in other Latin American countries constitute important case studies in several domains. Although history is my disciplinary background, I believe that the area of humanities studies has been quantitatively more significant in Latin America research produced in Portugal last twenty years.